's manners,
The ice of his lordship's champagne,

are among the most quoted. But this antithetical trick, of which Praed
was so fond, is repeated a little often in it; and it seems to me to
lack the freshness as well as the fire of the "Advice." On the other
hand, the "Letter from Teignmouth" is the best thing that even Praed has
ever done for combined grace and tenderness.

You once could be pleased with our ballads--
To-day you have critical ears;
You once could be charmed with our salads--
Alas! you've been dining with Peers;
You trifled and flirted with many--
You've forgotten the when and the how;
There was one you liked better than any--
Perhaps you've forgotten her now.
But of those you remember most newly,
Of those who delight or enthral,
None love you a quarter so truly
As some you will find at our Ball.

They tell me you've many who flatter,
Because of your wit and your song:
They tell me--and what does it matter?--
You like to be praised by the throng:
They tell me you're shadowed with laurel:
They tell me you're loved by a Blue:
They tell me you're sadly immoral--
Dear Clarence, that cannot be true!
But to me, you are still what I found you,
Before you grew clever and tall;
And you'll think of the spell that once bound you;
And you'll come--won't you come?--to our Ball!

Is not that perfectly charming?

It is perhaps a matter of mere taste whether it is or is not more
charming than pieces like "School and Schoolfellows" (the best of
Praed's purely Eton poems) and "Marriage Chimes," in which, if not Eton,
the Etonian set also comes in. If I like these latter pieces less, it
is not so much because of their more personal and less universal
subjects as because their style is much less individual. The resemblance
to Hood cannot be missed, and though I believe there is some dispute as
to which of the two poets actually hit upon the particular style first,
there can be little doubt that Hood attained to the greater excellence
in it. The real sense and savingness of that doctrine of the "principal
and most excellent things," which has sometimes been preached rather
corruptly and narrowly, is that the best things that a man does are
those that he does best. Now though

I wondered what they meant by stock,
I wrote delightful Sapphics,

and

With no hard work but B