Duke quotes

In enterprise of martial kind, When there was any fighting, He led his regiment from behind He found it less exciting. But when away his regiment ran, His place was at the fore,O That celebrated, Cultivated Underrated Nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro!

- Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
  Duke's song, The Gondoliers, act1.

And the softness of my body will be guarded by embrace By each button, hook, and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for?

- Amy Lowell
  'Patterns'.

After dinner to the Duke's house, and there sawTwelfth Night acted well, though it be but a silly play.

- Samuel Pepys
  Diary entry, 6 Jan.

The Duke takes a town in the same light-hearted way as he seduces a woman.

-John Pomfret
  Of Cardinal Duc de Richelieu, following his capture of the reputedly impregnable Fort St Phillip, Minorca, by taking his men up a cliff face to surprise the defenders. Quoted in Nancy Mitford Madame de Pompadour (1954), p.201.

   'And everybody praised the Duke, Who this great fight did win.' 'But what good came of it at last?' Quoth little Peterkin. 'Why that I cannot tell,'said he, 'But 'twas a famous victory.'

- Robert Southey
  'The Battle of Blenheim'.