'Totter'd, since the dawn was red, Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery;'
and, in another of his 'verses vain,' has practically limned the Gallery itself under the guise of 'Camelot':
'In Camelot, how gray and green The damsels dwell, how sad their teen; In Camelot, how green and gray The melancholy poplars sway. I wis I wot not what they mean, Or wherefore, passionate and lean, The maidens mope their loves between.'
The character of Burne-Jonesian art is here very happily hit off. Happy, too, is Mr. Lang's sketch of the Philistian features of the Academy:
'Philistia! Maids in muslin white With flannelled oarsmen oft delight To drift upon thy streams, and float In Salter's most luxurious boat; In buff and boots the cheery knight Returns (quite safe) from Naseby fight.'
But did not Praed long ago address 'The Portrait of a Lady at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy'? Has not Mr. Ashby-Sterry addressed 'Number One' in the said exhibition--also 'the portrait of a lady'? And, moreover, has not Mr. Austin Dobson made the Academy the scene of one of his brightly-written dialogues?--that in which the lady says:
'From now until we go in June I shall hear nothing but this tune: Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more; With all that critics, right or wrong, Have said of Leslie or of Long.'
Among the events of every season are the fashionable marriages, one of which is described for us by Mr. Frederick Locker in his 'St. George's, Hanover Square.' On the subject of the belles of the season I need not dwell. Praed's 'Belle of the Ballroom' was a provincial beauty; but not so, assuredly, was Pope's and Lord Peterborough's Mrs. Howard, Congreve's Miss Temple, Lord Chesterfield's Duchess of Richmond, Fox's Mrs. Crewe, Lord Lytton's La Marquise, Mr. Aïdè's Beauty Clare, or Mr. Austin Dobson's Avice. Of London balls and routs the poets have been many, including Edward Fitzgerald, C. S. Calverley, and Mr. Dobson again. The opera, so far as I know, has had very few celebrants in rhyme. The 'Monday Pops' figure in 'Patience' with the Grosvenor Gallery, but have not otherwise, I fancy, been distinguished in song. On the whole, however, the Season has received poetic tributes at once numerous and interesting.