LXXXVIII.

"Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave,
"Your unexpected presence here will make
It necessary for myself to crave

Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mistake;

I hope it is so; and, at once to waive

All compliment, I hope so for your sake; You understand my meaning, or you shall." "Sir," (quoth the Turk) "'tis no mistake at all:

LXXXIX.

"That lady is my wife!" Much wonder paints
The lady's changing cheek, as well it might;
But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints,
Italian females don't do so outright;

They only call a little on their saints,

And then come to themselves, almost or quite; Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces, And cutting stays, as usual in such cases.

XC.

She said,-what could she say? Why, not a word:
But the Count courteously invited in

The stranger, much appeased by what he heard:
"Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within,"
Said he; "don't let us make ourselves absurd
In public, by a scene, nor raise a din,
For then the chief and only satisfaction
Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction."

XCI.

They enter'd, and for coffee call'd-it came,
A beverage for Turks and Christians both,
Although the way they make it's not the same.
Now Laura, much recover'd, or less loth
To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your pagan name?
Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth!
And how came you to keep away so long?
Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong?

XCII.

"And are you really, truly, now a Turk?
With any other women did you wive?
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?
Well, that's the prettiest shawl-as I'm alive!
You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.
And how so many years did you contrive
To-Bless me! did I ever? No, I never

Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?

XCIII.

"Beppo! that beard of yours becomes you not; It shall be shaved before you're a day older: Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot

Pray don't you think the weather here is colder? How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot

In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder Should find you out, and make the story known. How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown!"

XCIV.

What answer Beppo made to these demands
Is more than I know. He was cast away
About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands;
Became a slave of course, and for his pay

Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands
Of pirates landing in a neighbouring bay,
He join'd the rogues and prosper'd, and became
A renegado of indifferent fame.

XCV.

Put he grew rich, and with his riches grew so
Keen the desire to see his home again,
He thought himself in duty bound to do so,
And not be always thieving on the main;
Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,
And so he hired a vessel come from Spain,
Bound for Corfu : she was a fine polacca,
Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.

XCVI.

Himself, and much (heaven knows how gotten !) cash,
He then embark'd, with risk of life and limb,
And got clear off, although the attempt was rash;
He said that Providence protected him—
For my part, I say nothing lest we clash
In our opinions :-well, the ship was trim,
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,
Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.

XCVII.

They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading,
And self and live stock to another bottom,
And pass'd for a true Turkey-merchant, trading
With goods of various names, but I've forgot 'em.
However, he got off by this evading,

Or else the people would perhaps have shot him ; And thus at Venice landed to reclaim

His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.

XCVIII.

His wife received, the patriarch re-baptised him,
(He made the church a present, by the way ;)
He then threw off the garments which disguised him,
And borrow'd the Count's smallclothes for a day:
His friends the more for his long absence prized him,
Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay,

With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them,
For stories-but I don't believe the half of them.

XCIX.

Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age

With wealth and talking made him some amends; Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,

I've heard the Count and he were always friends. My pen is at the bottom of a page,

Which being finish'd, here the story ends; "Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done, But storios somehow lengthen when begun,22

NOTES TO BEPPO.

1.-Page 5, line 1.

ВЕРРО.

[AN extract from Mr. Frere's Specimen, which has long been out of print, will show how closely the versification resembles that of" Beppo."

"I'VE often wish'd that I could write a book,

Such as all English people might peruse;

I never should regret the pains it took,

That's just the sort of fame that I should choose:

To sail about the world like Captain Cook,

I'd sling a cot up for my favourite Muse,

And we'd take verses out to Demarara,
To New South Wales, and up to Niagara.

"Poets consume exciseable commodities,

They raise the nation's spirit when victorious,
They drive an export trade in whims and oddities,
Making our commerce and revenue glorious;
As an industrious and pains-taking body 'tis
That Poets should be reckon'd meritorious :
And therefore I submissively propose

To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose.

"Princes protecting Sciences and Art

I've often seen in copper-plate and print;
I never saw them elsewhere, for my part,
And therefore I conclude there's nothing in't:
But every body knows the Regent's heart;

I trust he won't reject a well-meant hint;
Each Board to have twelve members, with a seat
To bring them in per ann. five hundred neat:--

"From Princes I descend to the Nobility:

In former times all persons of high stations,
Lords, Baronets, and Persons of gentility,
Paid twenty guineas for the dedications;
This practice was attended with utility;

The patrons lived to future generations,
The poets lived by their industrious earning,-
So men alive and dead could live by Learning.

Then, twenty guineas was a little fortune;

Now, we must starve unless the times should mend:
Our poets now-a-days are deem'd importune

If their addresses are diffusely penn'd;

Most fashionable authors make a short one
To their own wife, or child, or private friend,
To show their independence, I suppose;
And that may do for Gentlemen like those.

Lastly, the common people I beseech

Dear people! if you think my verses clever,
Preserve with care your noble parts of speech,
And take it as a maxim to endeavour

To talk as your good mothers used to teach,
And then these lines of mine may last for ever;
And don't confound the language of the nation
With long-tail'd words in osity and ation."]

2.-Page 6, line 17.

This feast is named the Carnival, which being

["The Carnival," says Mr. Rose, "though it is gayer or duller, according to the genius of the nations which celebrate it, is, in its general character, nearly the same all over the peninsula. The beginning is like any other season; towards the middle you begin to meet masques and mummers in sunshine: in the last fifteen days the plot thickens; and during the three last all is hurly-burly. The shops are shut, all business is at a stand, and the drunken cries heard at night afford a clear proof of the pleasures to which these days of leisure are dedicated."]

3.-Page 7, line 32.

Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione,

[The Venus is in the Medici gallery. Giorgione was Lord Byron's favourite artist. "I know nothing," he wrote in 1820, " of pictures myself, and care almost as little, but to me there are none like the Venetian,above all, Giorgione."]

4.-Page 8, line 2.

And when you to Manfrini's palace go,

[The following is Lord Byron's account of his visit to this palace, in April, 1817.-" To-day, I have been over the Manfrini palace, famous for its pictures. What struck most in the general collection, was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day among the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer."]

5.-Page 8, line 8.

And self; but such a woman! love in life!

[This appears to be an incorrect description of the picture; as, according to Vasari and others, Giorgione never was married, and died young.]