Round all the confines of the yielded waist, Ascending with affection truly loyal! Thus front to front the partners move or stand, The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand; And all in turn may follow in their rank, The Earl of Asterisk-and Lady- Blank; Sir Such-a-one-with those of fashion's host, For whose blest surnames -vide "Morning Post" (Or if for that impartial print too late, Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date) Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow, The genial contact gently undergo; - Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, -if it can. women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by forceand when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous. (1) In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous, question -literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera. Vide Morier's Travels. O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, (1) and many more! [will And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite But ye who never felt a single thought For what our morals are to be, or ought; Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say-would you make those beauties quite so cheap? (1) [I once heard Sheridan repeat, in a ball-room, some verses, which he had lately written on waltzing; and of which I remember the following "With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance, Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance. In such sweet posture our first parents moved, While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved, Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false, Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz. One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip: For so the law 's laid down by Baron Trip." This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal authority on the sub ject of waltzing, was, at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles.- MOORE.] Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Approach the lip which all, without restraint, Her mind with these is gone, and with it go Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore, forgive !-at every ball My wife now waltzes My son (or stop-'tis needless to enquire— These little accidents should ne'er transpire; Some ages hence our genealogic tree Will wear as green a bough for him as me)— THE GIAOUR; A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE.(1) "One fatal remembrance-one sorrow that throws MOORE (1) [The "Giaour" was published in May 1813, and abundantly sustained the impression created by the two first cantos of Childe Harold. It is obvious that in this, the first of his romantic narratives, Lord Byron's versification reflects the admiration he always avowed for Mr. Coleridge's "Christabel," the irregular rhythm of which had already been adopted in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." The fragmentary style of the composition was suggested by the then new and popular "Columbus" of Mr. Rogers. As to the subject, it was not merely by recent travel that the author had familiarized himself with Turkish history. "Old Knolles," he said at Missolonghi, a few weeks before his death, "was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much influence on my future wishes to visit the Levant, and gave, perhaps, the oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." In the margin of his copy of Mr. D'Israeli's essay on "The Literary Character," we find the following note: -"Knolles, Cantemir, De Tott, Lady M. W. Montague, Hawkins's translation from Mignot's History of the Turks, the Arabian Nights. All travels or histories, or books upon the East, I could meet with, I had read, as well as Ricaut, before I was ten years old.” — E.] |