My Lady rose, and with a grace--
She smiled, and bid him come to dinner,

34 'Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget,
Why, what can the Viscountess mean?'
Cried the square hoods, in woeful fidget;
'The times are alter'd quite and clean!

35 'Decorum's turn'd to mere civility!
Her air and all her manners show it:
Commend me to her affability!
Speak to a commoner and poet!'

[_Here 500 stanzas are lost._]

36 And so God save our noble king,
And guard us from long-winded lubbers,
That to eternity would sing,
And keep my lady from her rubbers.


[Footnote 1: 'Pile of building:' the mansion-house at Stoke-Pogeis,
then in the possession of Viscountess Cobham. The style of building
which we now call Queen Elizabeth's, is here admirably described, both
with regard to its beauties and defects; and the third and fourth
stanzas delineate the fantastic manners of her time with equal truth
and humour. The house formerly belonged to the Earls of Huntingdon and
the family of Hatton.]

[Footnote 2: 'Lord-Keeper:' Sir Christopher Hatton, promoted by Queen