Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Mathematics, Patronage, Government

    Imagines an argument between an 'ancient brocade; / From the days of Queen Anne' and a 'ball-dress with jupe en tube' inside a Duchess's wardrobe. The ancient brocade criticises the taste of its target, rather than the cost, because in its time 'we'd no Babbage'—an allusion to the large government grant awarded to Charles Babbage for his calculating engine.