BYRON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

(DON JUAN, Canto xi. Stanzas 53-60.)

JUAN knew several languages—as well

He might—and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell

His qualities (with them) into sublime : Lady Fitz-Frisky and Miss Mævia Mannish, Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all
The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,
At great assemblies or in parties small,
He saw ten thousand living authors pass,
That being about their average numeral ;
Also the eighty "greatest living poets,"
As every paltry magazine can show it's.

In twice five years the "greatest living poet,"
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 'tis an imaginary thing.

Even I-albeit I'm sure I did not know it,

Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,—

Was reckon❜d a considerable time,

The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

T

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero

My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain: "La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero,

Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again : But I will fall at least as fell my hero;

Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign ; Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,

With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after; but now grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble

With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;

And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble

Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol-by the hilts!

Then there's my gentle Euphues; who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He'll find it rather difficult some day

To turn out both, or either, it may be.

Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor" Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk about the gods of late
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain-or none will know
The conqueror at least; who, ere time renders

His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low

Their chances ;-they're too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.

POETICAL PRODUCTION.

(DON JUAN, Canto xiv. Stanzas 10, 11.)

HAVE brought this world about my ears, and eke

The other; that's to say, the clergy—who

[pon my head have bid their thunders break
In pious libels by no means a few.
.nd yet I can't help scribbling once a week,
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.
1 youth I wrote because my mind was full,
.nd now because I feel it growing dull.

ut "

why then publish?"—There are no rewards Of fame or profit when the world grows weary. ask in turn,—Why do you play at cards?

Why drink? Why read?-To make some hour less dreary.

: occupies me to turn back regards

On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery;

nd what I write I cast upon the stream,

o swim or sink-I have had at least my dream.

THE LIGHTER SIDE.

(DON JUAN, Canto iv. Stanzas 3, 4.)

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,

And wish'd that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion : Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow

Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,

'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep, 'Tis that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, for we must steep

Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep;
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;

A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

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