Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine

The sea-coal fires, the earliest of the year;
Without doors too she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gained in yellow.

I have seen more than I'll say :-but we will see
How our villeggiatura will get on.

The party might consist of thirty-three

Of highest caste-the Brahmins of the ton.
I have named a few, not foremost in degree,
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may ruu.
By way of sprinkling, scattered amongst these
There also were some Irish absentees.

We have not room for the catalogue of the guests, who are enume. rated in the fourteenth canto with great power and bitterness.

Among these Juan was a great favorite: he shot and hunted with the men, and did both as well as the most thorough-bred Englishman, He talked with the ladies-never fell asleep after dinner-and danced like a gentleman. The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, a lady who loved agacerie, begins a serious flirtation with him:

She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,

Desirable, distinguished, celebrated

For several winters in the grand, grand Monde.
I'd rather not say what might be related
Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;
Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:
Her late performance had been a dead set.

At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville is vexed at the dead set which the duchess makes at the Spaniard, and entertains fears on his accoun which are by no means well founded, for Juan knows how to take care of himself at least as well as her ladyship, and too well to dread the attack of her Grace of Fitz-Fulke.

She then endeavours to persuade her husband to caution Juan; but he, like a wise man, declines, on the plea that he never interferes u the business of anybody but the king.

Lady Adeline's benevolence is not chilled by this repulse; but by

way of securing Juan from the wicked duchess, she recommends him to marry :

Next to the making matches for herself,

And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,
Arranging them like books on the same shelf,
There's nothing women love to dabble in
More (like a stockholder in growing pelf)
Than match-making in general: 'tis no sin
Certes, but a preventative, and therefore
That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore.
But never yet (except of course a miss
Unwed, or mistress never to be wed,

Or wed already, who object to this)

Was there chaste dame who had not in her head
Some drama of the marriage unities,

Observed as strictly both at board and bed

As those of Aristotle, though sometimes

They turn out melodrames or pantomimes.

She points out to him various ladies for this purpose, and, among others, one whom Lord Byron ought not to have introduced. It is surely enough, even for a poet's inalice, to wound and make miserable, without also making ridiculous, a woman whose only fault had beerrto believe that he was worthy of her hand. We do not hesitate to insert the passage, because it can do Lady Byron no harm: the heart which has borne the fierce and destructive blows which have been poured upon hers can neither fear nor feel such petty malignity as this:

There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea,

That usual paragon, an only daughter,

Who seemed the cream of equanimity,

Till skimmed-and then there was some milk and water,

With a slight shade of Blue too it might be,

Beneath the surface; but what did it matter?
Love's riotous, but marriage should have quiet,
And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet.

Among these unmarried ladies, however, Lady Amundeville forgot to mention one, Aurora Raby, whose charms entitled her to notice; and this omission, by a natural consequence, made Juan think the more of that young lady.

Lord Byron ends his fifteenth canto with preparing his readers for a ghost, and the manner in which he does it convinces us that he clung to the superstition-if superstition it be-of believing in spectral apparitions, together with many wise men, and many more who do not deserve that appellation, but who comprise the great majority of the whole world:

Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost?

No; but you have heard-I understand-be dumb!
And don't regret the time you may have lost,

For you have got that ple as ure still to come :

And do not think I mean to sneer at most

Of these things, or by ridicule benumb
That source of the sublime and the mysterious:-
For certain reasons, my belief is serious.

Serious? You laugh ;-you may; that will I not;
My smiles must be sincere or not at all.

I

say I do believe a haunted spot

Exists-and where? That shall I not recall,

Because I'd rather it should be forgot,

Shadows the soul of Richard' may appal.

In short, upon that subject I've some qualms very
Like those of the Philosopher of Malmsbury.*
The night (I sing by night-sometimes an owl,
And now and then a nightingale) is dim,
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn:
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl-
I wish to Heaven they would not look so grim;
The dying embers dwindle in the grate-

I think too that I have sate up too late :

And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way
To rhyme at noon-when I have other things
To think of, if I ever think-I say

I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,
And prudently postpone, until mid-day,
Treating a topic which, alas! but brings

* Hobbes; who, doubting of his own soul, paid that compliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of which he had some apprehension.

Shadows;-but you must be in my condition
Before you learn to call this superstition,

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
"Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves

Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

The sixteenth canto brings the spectre, for whose coming, lest his readers should be frightened, the poet thought fit to prepare them in the last. Juan has retired after a day of revelry to his chamber, and is sitting half undressed in a thoughtless mood-not a very usual one with him-when the adventure occurs:

As Juan mused on mutability,

Or on his mistress-terms synonymous

No sound except the echo of his sigh

Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent- ——or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.

It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, arrayed

In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appeared,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made ;

He moved as shadowy as the sisters weïrd,
But slowly; and, as he passed Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye

Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,

But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,

Coined from surviving superstition's mint,

Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,

Published by J. Robins and Co. London, December 24, 1824.