Part 4 — FAMILY POETRY. R. HARRIS BARHAM

Zooks! I must woo the Muse to-day, Though line before I never wrote! "On what occasion?" do you say? Our Dick has got a long-tail'd coat!!

Not a coatee, which soldiers wear Button'd up high about the throat, But easy, flowing, debonair, In short a CIVIL long-tail'd coat.

A smarter you'll not find in town, Cut by Nugee, that snip of note; A very quiet olive brown 's the color of Dick's long-tail'd coat.

Gay jackets clothe the stately Pole, The proud Hungarian, and the Croat, Yet Esterhazy, on the whole Looks best when in a long-tail'd coat

Lord Byron most admired, we know, The Albanian dress, or Suliote, But then he died some years ago, And never saw Dick's long-tail'd coat;

Or past all doubt the poet's theme Had never been the "White Capote," Had he once view'd in Fancy's dream, The glories of Dick's long-tail'd coat!

We also know on Highland kilt Poor dear Glengarry used to dote, And had esteem'd it actual guilt I' "the Gael" to wear a long-tail'd coat!

No wonder 'twould his eyes annoy, Monkbarns himself would never quote "Sir Robert Sibbald," "Gordon," "Ray," Or "Stukely" for a long-tail'd coat.

Jackets may do to ride or race, Or row in, when one's in a boat, But in the boudoir, sure, for grace There's nothing like Dick's long-tail'd cost,

Of course in climbing up a tree, On terra-firma, or afloat, To mount the giddy topmast, he Would doff awhile his long-tail'd coat.

What makes you simper, then, and sneer? From out your own eye pull the mote! A PRETTY thing for you to jeer— Haven't YOU, too, got a long-tail'd coat?

Oh! "Dick's scarce old enough," you mean. Why, though too young to give a note, Or make a will, yet, sure Fifteen 's a ripe age for a long-tail'd coat.

What! would you have him sport a chin Like Colonel Stanhope, or that goat O' German Mahon, ere begin To figure in a long-tail'd coat?

Suppose he goes to France—can he Sit down at any table d' hote, With any sort of decency, Unless he's got a long-tail'd coat?

Why Louis Philippe, Royal Cit, There soon may be a sans culotte, And Nugent's self may then admit The advantage of a long-tail'd coat.

Things are not now as when, of yore, In tower encircled by a moat, The lion-hearted chieftain wore A corselet for a long-tail'd coat;

Then ample mail his form embraced, Not like a weasel or a stoat, "Cribb'd and confined" about the waist, And pinch'd in like Dick's long-tail'd coat

With beamy spear or biting ax, To right and left he thrust and smote— Ah! what a change! no sinewy thwacks Fall from a modern long-tail'd coati

More changes still! now, well-a-day! A few cant phrases learned 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 e'er 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 rhyme's begun 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.