(Untitled limerick)

Vanity Fair (UK), June 21, 1906
 

There is a keen preacher named Vaughan,
Who treads on Society’s caughan;
 When they read of his sneers
 These unfortunate Peers
Will wish they had never been baughan.

 


 

Printed unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse as “Two Limericks” for this issue in Money Received for Literary Work.

Note:

 

“SMART SOCIETY AND ITS SINS. Father Vaughan on the Sordid West End. ‘Unless it repents it will be turned into Hell.’ Continuing his discourses in condemnation of smart society, Father Bernard Vaughan at Farm-street Church, Berkeley Square, on Sunday morning addressed a crowded congregation to who he had some very plain things to say. Society nowadays was altogether too self-centered, catering only for self. Its fair votaries must be set up by the best milliner, and fed up by the best cook, and then, provided they are known at the opera by their diamonds, and in Mayfair by their motors, and at Cowes by their yachts, what did anything else matter, especially if they had a house for Ascot and a launch for Henley?” (Derby Daily Telegraph, June 18, 1906)

 

John Dawson