A MOST puissant picture-scouring Prince,
Whose charger never has been known to wince
Before a bayonet or cannon ball,
Resolved Sebastopol’s beleaguered wall
In one more brief campaign should tumble down
Beneath the terrors of his fatty frown.
What said Napoleon?
This Napoleon said,
And shook ambiguously the imperial head.
“Let others trench, and undermine, and storm,
Prince! you have higher duties to perform,
Leave you one Titian only half extinct,
One Claude, one Rubens.”
Thus he spake, and winkt.