Read A ELEGY ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE of The Panjandrum Picture Book , free online book, by Randolph Caldecott, on ReadCentral.com.

By Dr. Oliver Goldsmith

Good people all,
with one accord,
Lament for
Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted
a good word

From those

who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass’d her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor

Who left

a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please
With manners wondrous winning;

And never follow’d wicked ways

Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber’d in her pew

But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The King himself has follow’d her

When she has walk’d before.

But now, her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short-all:
The Doctors found, when she was dead,
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,
For Kent Street well may say,
That had she lived a twelvemonth more,
She had not died to-day.

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GO TO: THE GREAT PANJANDRUM HIMSELF