Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

94
"Would any man beleave that this picture was soald at my sale for about a twenty-fifth part
of what it cost me? It was bought in by Maryhann, though: 'O dear Jeames,' says she, often
(kissing of it & pressing it to her art), 'it isn't ansum enough for you, and hasn't got your
angellick smile and the igspreshn of your dear dear i's.'
"Hangelina's pictur was kindly presented to me by Countess B., her mamma, though of
coarse I paid for it. It was engraved for the 'Book of Bewty' the same year.
"With such a perfusion of ringlits I should scarcely have known her—but the ands, feat, and
i's, was very like. She was painted in a gitar supposed to be singing one of my little
melladies; and her brother Southdown, who is one of the New England poits, wrote the
follering stanzys about her:—
"LINES UPON MY SISTER'S PORTRAIT.
"BY THE LORD SOUTHDOWN.
"The castle towers of Bareacres are fair upon the lea,
Where the cliffs of bonny Diddlesex rise up from out the sea:
I stood upon the donjon keep and view'd the country o'er,
I saw the lands of Bareacres for fifty miles or more.
I stood upon the donjon keep—it is a sacred place,—Where
floated for eight hundred years the banner of my race;
Argent, a dexter sinople, and gules an azure field,
There ne'er was nobler cognizance on knightly warrior's shield.
"The first time England saw the shield 'twas round a Norman neck,
On board a ship from Valery, King William was on deck.
A Norman lance the colors wore, in Hastings' fatal fray—St.
Willibald for Bareacres! 'twas double gules that day!
O Heaven and sweet St. Willibald! in many a battle since
A loyal-hearted Bareacres has ridden by his Prince!
At Acre with Plantagenet, with Edward at Poitiers,
The pennon of the Bareacres was foremost on the spears!
"'Twas pleasant in the battle-shock to hear our war-cry ringing:
O grant me, sweet St. Willibald, to listen to such singing!
Three hundred steel-clad gentlemen, we drove the foe before us,