For stalwart knights, a puny race
In stays, with locks _en papillote_,
While cuirass, cuisses, greaves give place
To silk-net _Tights_, and long-tail'd Coat.

Worse changes still! now, well-a-day!
A few cant phrases learnt by rote
Each beardless booby spouts away,
A Solon, in a long-tail'd Coat.

Prates of "The march of intellect"--
--"The schoolmaster" _a Patriote_
So noble, who could ere suspect
Had just put on a long-tail'd Coat?

Alack! Alack! that every thick-
skull'd lad must find an antidote
For England's woes, because, like Dick.
He has put on a long-tail'd Coat.

But lo! my rhymes begin to fail,
Nor can I longer time devote;
Thus rhyme and time cut short the _tale_,
The _long tale_ of Dick's long-tail'd Coat.


_Blackwood's Magazine_.

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