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His Highness was a man of solemn port,
Savl'd to the nose, and bearded to the
eyes,

Satch'd from a prison to preside at court,
His lately bowstrung brother caused his
rise;
He was as good a sovereign of the sort
A any mention'd in the histories
Of Cantemir.
or Knolles, where few shine
Save Solyman, the glory of their line.

He went to mosque in state, and said his

He saw with his own eyes the moon was
round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journey'd fifty miles and
found

No sign that it was circular any where;
His empire also was without a bound:
Tis true, a little troubled here and there,
By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to "the Seven
Towers;"

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent To lodge there when a war broke out, according

To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword in

Their dirty diplomatic hand, to vent
Their spleen in making strife, and safely
wording

Their lies, yclep'd despatches, without
risk or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.

He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons,
Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd,
The former in a palace, where like nuns
They lived till someBashaw was sent abroad,
When she, whose turn it was, wedded at once,
Sometimes at six years old-though this
seems odd,

'Tis true; the reason is, that the Bashaw
Must make a present to his sire in law.

His sons were kept in prison till they grew
Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne,
One or the other, but which of the two
Could yet be known unto the Fates alone;
Meantime the education they went through
Was princely, as the proofs have always

shown: So that the heir-apparent still was found With more than Oriental scrupulosity; "No less deserving to be hang'd than crown'd.

prayers

He left to his vizier all state-affairs,
And show'd but little royal curiosity:
I know not if he had domestic cares-
process proved connubial animosity;
Fear wives and twice five hundred maids,

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low and then there happen'd a slight slip,
Little was heard of criminal or crime;
The story scarcely pass'd a single lip-
The sack and sea had settled all in time,
From which the secret nobody could rip:
The Public knew no more than does this
rhyme;

His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse
With all the ceremonies of his rank,

Who clear'd her sparkling eyes and smooth'd

her brows

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His Highness cast around his great black

eyes,

To scandals made the daily press a curse—
Morals were better, and the fish no worse. And looking, as he always look'd, perceived

Juan amongst the damsels in disguise, At which he seem'd no whit surprised nor grieved,

But just remark'd with air sedate and wise, While still a fluttering sighGulbeyazheaved, "I see you've bought another girl; 'tis pity That a mere christian should be half so pretty."

This compliment, which drew all eyes upon The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake.

Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone :

Oh, Mahomet! that his Majesty should take Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one Of them his lips imperial ever spake! There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,

But etiquette forbade them all to giggle.

The Turks do well to shut-at least, sometimes

The women up-because in sad reality,
Their chastity in these unhappy climes
Is not a thing of that astringent quality,
Which in the north prevents precarious
crimes,

And makes our snow less pure than our
morality;
The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice,
Has quite the contrary effect on vice.

Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,
Though not for want of matter; but 'tis time,
According to the ancient epic laws,
To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.
Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,
The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;
Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps,
perhaps

You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

CANTOS VI. VII. VIII.

THE details of the Siege of Ismail in two of the following Cantos (i. e. the 7th and 8th) are taken from a French work, entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really

occurred, particularly the circumstance his saving the infant, which was the actua case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then young volunteer in the Russian service and afterwards the founder and benefacto of Odessa, where his name and memory ca never cease to be regarded with reverence In the course of these cantos, a stanza o two will be found relative to the lat Marquis of Londonderry, but written som time before his decease.-Had that person' Oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave That he was an amiable man in private life, may or may not be true; but with this the Public have nothing to do; and a to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a Minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in intention and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannized over a country It is the first time indeed since the Normans that England has been insulted by a Minis ter (at least) who could not speak English and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop

Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the Minister was an elegant Lunatic-a sentimental Suicidehe merely cut the “carotid artery” (blessings on their learning!) and lo! the Pageant, and the Abbey! and "the Syllables of Dolour yelled forth" by the Newspapers

and the harangue of the Coroner in an eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased-(an Anthony worthy of such a Caesar) and the nauseous and atrocions cant of a degraded Crew of Conspirators against all that is sincere or honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law- a felon or a madmanand in either case no great subject for panegyric *). In his life he was what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani")

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Europe. It may at least serve as some solation to the Nations, that their Oppresare not happy, and in some instances ge so justly of their own actions as to ripate the sentence of mankind. — Let ear no more of this man, and let Ireland ave the ashes of her Grattan from the ctuary of Westminster. Shall the Patriot Humanity repose by the Werther of ites!!!

with regard to the objections which have made on another score to the already ished Cantos of this poem, I shall conmyself with two quotations from Vol

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La padeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et refugiée sur les lèvres."

Ins les moeurs sont depravées, plus xpressions deviennent mesurées; on regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu

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There is a tide in the affairs of women Which taken at the flood leads"- God knows where:

is the real fact, as applicable to the led and hypocritical mass which the present English generation, and Those navigators must be able seamen nly answer they deserve. The hack-Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair; and lavished title of Blasphemer-Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen with radical, liberal, jacobin, With its strange whirls and eddies can er, are the charges which the,

compare:

knows what!

are daily ringing in the ears of Men with their heads reflect on this and that, ho will listen-should be welcome But women with their hearts or heaven sho recollect on whom it was origiestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ it to death publicly as Blasphemers, have been and may be many who oppose the most notorious abuses ame of God and the mind of man. secution is not refutation, nor even the “wretched Infidel,” as he is A throne, the world, the universe, to be is probably happier in his prison Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk e proudest of his assailants. With The stars from out the sky, than not be free ions I have nothing to de- they As are the billows when the breeze is brisk— right or wrong- but he has suf-Though such a she's a devil (if that there e them, and that very suffering for

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,

Young, beautiful, and daring-who would

risk

be one),

ice-sake will make more proselytes Yet she would make full many a Manichean.
n than the example of heterodox *)
to Christianity, suicide statesmen
ssion, or overpensioned homicides
mpious alliance which insults the
with the name of "Holy!" I have
to trample on the dishonoured or
d; but it would be well if the
ts to the Classes from whence those
sprung should abate a little of the
hich is the crying sin of this double-But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes,
and false-speaking time of selfish Outbalance all the Caesar's victories.
8, and--but enough for the present.

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset
By commonest Ambition, that when Passion
O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,
Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.
If Anthony be well remember'd yet,
Tis not his conquests keep his name in
fashion;

He died at fifty for a queen of forty;

For then wealth,

Then Lord Sandwich said "he did not know I wish their years had been fifteen and rence between Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy"ton, the bishop, replied, “Orthodoxy, my my oozy,and Heterodoxy is another man's A prelate of the present day has discovered, a third kind of doxy, which has not greatly in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham Church-of-Englandism."

twenty, kingdoms, worlds, are Remember when, though I had no great but a sport-I plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I

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