66 I declare, as I'm alive,

She was last week but sixty-five;

I know she ne'er was much a beauty.

67 She's not so old as you would make her By more than one good year;

Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that.

Dr Syntax.

Oliver Goldsmith.

68 She writes but sixteen, in spite of sorrows.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

69 Most perfect in her innocence,

Yet she has reach'd her fifteenth year.

Goëthe.

70 She's just at the twilight at present,

When woman's declension begins.

71 She hath years on her back at the least fourscore,

And some people fancy a great many more;

Her nose it is hook'd,

Her back it is crook'd,

Her eyes small and red.

Moore.

Rev. R. H. Barham.

72 Not old, though something past her prime; Majestic in her person, tall, and straight,

And like a Roman matron's is her mien and gait.

73 She is a young thing

Just enter'd in her teens,

Fair as the day, and sweet as May,
Fair as the day, and always gay.

74 Upon her sad desponding brow

The cruel trenches of besieging age,

With seams, but most unseemly, 'gin to show
Her place is booking for the seventh stage;

Wordsworth.

Allan Ramsay.

And where her raven tresses used to flow,
Some locks that Time had left her in his rage,
And some mock ringlets, make her forehead shady,
A compound (like our Psalms) of tête and brady.
Bianca's Dream.-Hood.

75 Her spring is mellowing into summer

Young summer! at whose genial glow, the heart
Finds wishes and affections shooting up,

Known but by name before.

76 She was a child a week ago,

S. Knowles.

She is one now no more, oh, no!
Oh! who will solve the mystery?
Most surely love has been this way,
And love does wonders every day.

Trans.-L. Uhland.

77 In years you differ; you have thirty seen, While this young beauty counts but just fifteen.

78 Full sixty years the world has been her trade;
The wisest fool much time has ever made,
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.

79 She has her useful arts, and can contrive In time's despite, to stay at twenty-five.

80 She is a woman in her freshest age;
Of wondrous beauty, and of bounty rare;
With goodly grace, and comely personage,
That is on earth not easy to compare.

81 No more let youth its beauty boast, She still at thirty reigns a toast; And like the sun, as he declines,

More mildly but more sweetly shines.

Crabbe.

Pope.

Crabbe.

Spenser.

Brome.

82 Young she is not-it would be passing strange
If a young widow thrice her name should change.
-She has years beyond your reckoning seen,
Smiles and a widow, years and wrinkles screen.

83 You would not guess her age by looking at her, Nor from my sketch,—so we'll leave that matter.

84 The lady's of a lofty mien, Has pass'd her fiftieth year;

No smile, but of contempt, is seen

Upon that face severe.

85 She has beauty to engage the eye, A widow, still in her minority.

86

Crabbe.

Willis.

Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel.

With a sickly mien, she
Shows in her cheeks the roses of eighteen;
Practised to lisp and hang the head aside,
Faint into airs, and languish oft with pride.

87 A fat little punchy concern of sixteen—

Just beginning to flirt,

And ogle,-so pert.

Crabbe.

Pope.

Rev. R. H. Barham.

88 She is nearly one hundred and thirty years old,

And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose;
Though a dwarf in her youth (as her nurses have told),
She has, every year since, been outgrowing her clothes.

91

She is not very young, nor, between ourselves, remarkably handsome; and besides all that, she has but one eye.

S. Foote.

92 She's little-you don't wish her taller; Just half through the teens is her age;

And lady, or baby, to call her,

Were something to puzzle a sage.

Household Words.

93 Though she is far from that leap-year, whose leap,
In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap,
Hers may be fix'd at somewhere before thirty,
Say seven-and-twenty.

94

She is a lady

Ten years perhaps beyond her hey-day.

Byron.

Dr Syntax.

95 Her days are all before her, and her years are twenty-two.

Bon Gualtier.

XIII.

SHALL I DECLARE THE STATE OF YOUR AFFECTIONS?

1 You think that you are worthy to be loved,

2

Would she but love you, you would die for her. Alex. Smith.

You have told your tale,

And found that, when you lost your heart,

You play'd no losing game, but won a richer one. Knowles.

3 A maiden's youthful smiles have wove Around your heart the toils of love.

4 Out upon it!—you have loved

Three whole days together;

And are like to love three more

Hogg.

If it prove fair weather.

5 You've gazed too often, till your heart's as lost As any needle in a stack of hay:

Crosses belong to love, and yours is cross'd.

6 Now thou canst break thy fast, dine, sup, and sleep, Upon the very naked name of love.

Suckling.

Hood.

Shakspeare.