CANTO THE TENTH.

I.

WHEN Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation-
"T is said (for I 'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation)-
A mode of proving that the Earth turned round
In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation;"
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,"
Since Adam-with a fall-or with an apple."

II.

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,

1

If this be true; for we must deem the mode In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose

Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,ii

i. In a most natural whirling of rotation.—[MS. erased.]
ii. Since Adam-gloriously against an apple.—[MS. erased.]
iii. To the then unploughed stars ———.—[MS. erased.]

1. [Neither Pemberton nor Whiston, who received from Newton himself the history of his first Ideas of Gravity, records the story of the falling apple. It was mentioned, however, to Voltaire by Catherine Barton (afterwards Mrs. Conduit), Newton's niece. We saw the apple tree in 1814. The tree was so much decayed that it was taken down in 1820" (Memoirs, etc., of Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir David Brewster, 1855, i. 27, note 1). Voltaire tells the story thus (Eléments de la Philosophie de Newton, Partie III. chap. iii.): “Un jour, en l'année 1666 [1665], Newton, retiré à la campagne, et voyant tomber des fruits d'un arbre, à ce que m'a conté sa nièce (Madame Conduit), se laissa aller à une méditation profonde sur la cause qui entraîne ainsi tous les corps dans une ligne qui, si elle était prolongée, passerait à peu près par le centre de la terre."—Euvres Complètes, 1837, v. 727.]

A thing to counterbalance human woes:1
For ever since immortal man hath glowed
With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon
Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.

III.

And wherefore this exordium?-Why, just now,
In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,
My bosom underwent a glorious glow,
And my internal spirit cut a caper:
And though so much inferior, as I know,

To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour,
Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye,
I wish to do as much by Poesy.

IV.

In the wind's eye I have sailed, and sail; but for
The stars, I own my telescope is dim ;
But at the least I have shunned the common shore,
And leaving land far out of sight, would skim
The Ocean of Eternity: 2 the roar

Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,
But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float
Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.

V.

We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom

Of favouritism, but not yet in the blush ;-
And far be it from my Muses to presume
(For I have more than one Muse at a push),
To follow him beyond the drawing-room:

It is enough that Fortune found him flush
Of Youth, and Vigour, Beauty, and those things
Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's wings.

VI.

But soon they grow again and leave their nest.
"Oh!" saith the Psalmist, "that I had a dove's

1. [Compare Churchill's Grave, line 23, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 47, note 1.

2. [Shelley entitles him "The Pilgrim of Eternity," in his Adonais (stanza xxx. line 3), which was written and published at Pisa in 1821.]

VOL. VI.

2 D

Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!"

And who that recollects young years and loves,— Though hoary now, and with a withering breast,

And palsied Fancy, which no longer roves

Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere,—but would much rather Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?

VII.

But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,
Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow,
So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,

Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!
Such difference doth a few months make.

You'd think

Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow; No more it doth-its ploughs but change their boys, Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.

VIII.

But coughs will come when sighs depart-and now
And then before sighs cease; for oft the one
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow
Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the Sun

Of Life reached ten o'clock: and while a glow,
Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done,
O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay,
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die,-how happy they

IX.

But Juan was not meant to die so soon :

We left him in the focus of such glory

As may be won by favour of the moon.
Or ladies' fancies-rather transitory

Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,
Because December, with his breath so hoary,
Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.

X.

Besides, he had some qualities which fix

Middle-aged ladies even more than young:

1. [Byron left Pisa (Palazzo Lanfranchi on the Arno) for the Villa Saluzzo at Genoa, in the autumn of 1822.]

The former know what's what; while new-fledged chicks Know little more of Love than what is sung

In rhymes, or dreamt (for Fancy will play tricks)

In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung. Some reckon women by their suns or years,

I rather think the Moon should date the dears.

XI.

And why? because she's changeable and chaste:
I know no other reason, whatsoe'er
Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,

May choose to tax me with; which is not fair,
Nor flattering to "their temper or their taste,"
As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air:1
However, I forgive him, and I trust

He will forgive himself;-if not, I must.

XII.

Old enemies who have become new friends

Should so continue-'t is a point of honour; And I know nothing which could make amends For a return to Hatred: I would shun her Like garlic, howsoever she extends

Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her. Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foesConverted foes should scorn to join with those.

XIII.

This were the worst desertion:-renegadoes,
Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,"

i. Malicious people · -[MS. erased.]

ii.

that essence of all Lie.-[MS. erased.]

1. ["We think the abuse of Mr. Southey by far too savage and intemperate. It is of ill example, we think, in the literary world, and does no honour either to the taste or the temper of the noble author." -Edinburgh Review, February, 1822, vol. xxxvi. p. 445.

"I have read the recent article of Jeffrey.... I suppose the long and the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature is."Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 80.]

Would scarcely join again the "reformadoes,"1
Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's sty;
And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes,
Whether in Caledon or Italy,

Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize
To pain, the moment when you cease to please.

XIV.

The lawyer and the critic but behold

The baser sides of literature and life,

And nought remains unseen, but much untold,
By those who scour those double vales of strife.
While common men grow ignorantly old,
The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,
Dissecting the whole inside of a question,
And with it all the process of digestion.

XV.2

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper,
And that's the reason he himself 's so dirty;
The endless soot3 bestows a tint far deeper
Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he
Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper,
At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty,
In all their habits;—not so you, I own;
As Cæsar wore his robe you wear your gown.*

XVI.

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,

Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe

1. "Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron Bradwardine in Waverley is authority for the word. [The word is certainly in Butler's Hudibras, Part II. Canto 2

"Although your Church be opposite

To mine as Black Fryars are to White,
In Rule and Order, yet I grant

You are a Reformado Saint."]

2. [Stanza xv. is not in the MS. The "legal broom," sc. Brougham, was an afterthought.]

3. Query, suit?-Printer's Devil.

4. [It has been argued that when "great Cæsar fell" he wore his "robe" to muffle up his face, and that, in like manner, Jeffrey sank the critic in the lawyer. A "deal likelier "interpretation is that Jeffrey wore "his gown" right royally, as Cæsar wore his "triumphal robe." (See Plutarch's Julius Cæsar, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 515.)]