at excuses. 
  Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly
  Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d’hote and restaurant
  Have their shilling’s worth, their penny’s pennyworth even: 
  Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth! 
  Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected;
  Doubtless somewhere in some neighborhood have, and careful to keep, some
  Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their turn are enchanted
  Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies
  To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes. 
  Neither man’s aristocracy this, nor God’s, God knoweth!

  VII.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

    Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people! 
  Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions! 
  Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station? 
  Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture? 
  Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing,
  Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners? 
  Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervor
  Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance? 
  Dear, dear, what have I said? but, alas, just now, like Iago,
  I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;
  So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exaltation,
  Here in the Garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker
  That the works of his hand are all very good:  his creatures,
  Beast of the field and fowl, he brings them before me; I name them;
  That which I name them, they are,—­the bird, the beast, and the cattle. 
  But for Adam,—­alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam! 
  But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.

  VIII.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

  No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,
  Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so! 
  Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,
  Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them;
  Or on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast
  Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches,
  Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins,
      and children,
  But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship;
  And I recite to myself, how

Eager for battle here
Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno,
And with the bow to his shoulder faithful
He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly
His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia
The oak forest and the wood that bore him,
Delos and Patara’s own Apollo.[A]

[Footnote A: 

Hic avidus stetit
Vulcanus, hic matrona Juno, et
Nunquam humero positurus arcum;
Qui rore puro Castaliae lavat
Crines solutos, qui Lyciae tenet
Dumeta natalemque sylvum,
Delius et Patareus Apollo.]