LXV.

Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet;
And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy’s day;
  Till her fancy was tinged by her presents—­
And first a Goldfinch excited her wish,
Then a spherical bowl with its Golden fish,
  And then two Golden Pheasants.

LXVI.

Nay, once she squall’d and scream’d like wild—­
And it shows how the bias we give to a child
  Is a thing most weighty and solemn:—­
But whence was wonder or blame to spring
If little Miss K.,—­after such a swing—­
Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing
  On the top of the Fish Street column?

HER EDUCATION.

LXVII.

According to metaphysical creed,
To the earliest books that children read
  For much good or much bad they are debtors—­
But before with their A B C they start,
There are things in morals, as well as art,
That play a very important part—­
  “Impressions before the letters.”

LXVIII.

Dame Education begins the pile,
Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian style,
  But alas for the elevation! 
If the Lady’s maid or Gossip the Nurse
With a load of rubbish, or something worse,
  Have made a rotten foundation.

LXIX.

Even thus with little Miss Kilmansegg,
Before she learnt her E for egg,
  Ere her Governess came, or her Masters—­
Teachers of quite a different kind
Had “cramm’d” her beforehand, and put her mind
  In a go-cart on golden casters.

LXX.

Long before her A B and C,
They had taught her by heart her L. S. D.
  And as how she was born a great Heiress;
And as sure as London is built of bricks,
My Lord would ask her the day to fix,
To ride in a fine gilt coach and six,
  Like Her Worship the Lady May’ress.

LXXI.

Instead of stories from Edgeworth’s page,
The true golden lore for our golden age,
  Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer,
Teaching the worth of Virtue and Health,
All that she knew was the Virtue of Wealth,
Provided by vulgar nursery stealth
  With a Book of Leaf Gold for a primer.

LXXII.

The very metal of merit they told,
And praised her for being as “good as gold”! 
  Till she grew as a peacock haughty;
Of money they talk’d the whole day round,
And weigh’d desert, like grapes, by the pound,
Till she had an idea from the very sound
  That people with nought were naughty.

LXXIII.