The 200-year-old Longleat poem written to prove rhyming is easy
An archive has revealed a handwritten copy of a 200-year-old poem originally written to prove rhyming is easy after an argument at a breakfast table.Marking World Poetry Day, Longleat in Wiltshire has revealed the little-known poem that shows you can find at least 32 words which rhyme with Longleat.It was composed by Countess of Morley Frances Talbot, a published writer at the time. There was speculation that she could have been behind Jane Austen's classics when they were first published anonymously.The 64-line copy of the poem is contemporary to the time and is within the huge archives at the estate.
Longleat's archivist Emma Challinor said the countess wrote the poem on a four-hour carriage ride to Bath.The poem is essentially praising the house and estate, she added.One of the rhyming couplets in it reads: "With every luxury replete, all charms the senses at Longleat".It also refers to the estate's tradition of giving local children from the nearby village of Horningsham a Christmas treat."And when the wish'd-for Christmas treat, awaits them ready at Longleat, with merry hearts they grateful eat their beef and pudding at Longleat."Written in about 1820, the poem did get published in 1829, despite only being penned as a light-hearted joke. It is in 'The Casket: A Miscellany, Consisting of Unpublished Poems'.
Ms Challinor explained those at the breakfast table with Lady Morley included Henry Luttrell, a well-known writer and politician at the time.
Ms Challinor said the archive at Longleat was "huge".She added: "It's quite difficult to quantify. There's rooms and rooms because it covers the whole of the estate that used to be owned by the family from the 16th Century and even earlier because they inherited the state papers when they inherited the manor."The collections include 44,000 books in seven libraries.Longleat is planning an exhibition later in the year looking at the estate in the time period the poem was written called Genteel tourists: Georgian visitors to Longleat.
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