One of his friends that stood by It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, afterwards said unto him, Mein his essay On Empire, hints that Solyman was the thinks you were not like your last of his line: on what authority I know not. These self last day, in argument with are his words: The destruction of Mustapha was so the Emperor: I could have anfatal to Solyman's line, as the succession of the Turks swered better myself. Why, from Solyman, until this day, is suspected to be un- said the philosopher, would you true, and of strange blood, for that Solyman II. was have me contend with him that thought to be supposititious.' But Bacon, in his his- commands thirty legions? torical authorities, is often inaccurate. I could give half-a-dozen instances from his apophthegms only. 155. Alexander, after the battle of Granicum, had very great offers made him by Darius. Consult ing with his captains concerning them, Parmenio said, Sure, I would accept of these offers, if I were as Alexander. Alexander answered. So would I, if I were as Parmenio. 158. Antigonus, when it was told him that the enemy had such volleys of arrows that they did hide the sun, said, That falls out well, for it is hot weather, and so we shall fight in the shade. OBSERVATIONS. 161. The There was one that found a great mass of money, digging underground in his grand father's house, and being someThis was not the what doubtful of the case sig portrait of a cardi-nified it to the emperor that he nal, but of the Pope's had found such treasure. master of the cere- emperor made a rescript thus: Use it. He writ back again, that the sum was greater than his state or condition could use. The emperor writ a new rescript thus: Abuse it. monies. This reply was not 221. There was a philosopher about Tiberius that, looking into the nature of Caius, said of him, that he was mire mingled with blood. 267. It was after the VOLTAIRE. This was said by Anacharsis the Scythian, and net by a Greek. This was not said in his citations from history, I have thought it necessary Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect by Antigonus, but in what regards so great a name (however trifling), to by a Spartan pre-support the assertion by such facts as more immedi viously to the battle ately occur to me. They are but trifles, and yet for of Thermopylæ. This happened under Augus us Cæsar, and not du such trifles a school-boy would be whipped (if still in the fourth forin); and Voltaire for half-a-dozen similar errors has been treated as a superficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned Warton:Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is imagined, and the first who has displayed the litera From which the secret nobody could rip: CL. He saw, with his own eyes, the moon was round, 'Tis true, a little troubled, here and there, Except in shape of envoys, who were sent To lodge there when a war broke out according Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording CLII. He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons, They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad, Sometimes at six years old-though this seems 'Tis true; the reason is, that the Bashaw fodd, Must make a present to his sire-in-law. ture and customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension. For another distinguished testimony to Voltaire's merits in literary research, see also Lord Holland's excellent Account of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 215, edition of 1817. CLIII. His sons were kept in prison, till they grew Could yet be known unto the Fates alone; Was princely, as the proofs have always shown; His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse [brows, With all the ceremonies of his rank, His Highness cast around his great black eyes, At which he seem'd no whit surprised nor grieved; CLVI. This compliment, which drew all eyes upon The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake; Anstey's Bath Guide was published in 1766. Smollett's Humphrey Clinker (the only work of Smollett's from which Tabitha, etc., could have been taken) was written during Smollett's last residence at Leghorn, in 1770,- Argal, if there has been any borrowing, Anstey must be the creditor, and not the debtor. I refer Mr. Campbell to his own data in his Lives of Smollett and Anstey. Secondly, Mr. Campbell says, in the Life of Cowper (note to page 358, vol. vii.), that he knows not to whom Cowper alludes in these lines: 'Nor he who, for the bane of thousands born, Voltaire has even been termed a 'shallow fellow,'by some of the same school who called Dryden's Ode 'a drunken song:-a school (as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete) the whole of whose filthy trash of Epics, Excursions, &c., &c., &c., is not worth the two words in Zaïre, Vous pleurez, or a single speech of Tancred:-a school, the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their tea-drinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient treachery in politics in the record of their accumulated pretences to virtue can produce no actions (were all their speare thus: good deeds drawn up in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the family of Calas, by that great and unequalled genius-the universal Voltaire. The Calvinist meant Voltaire, and the church of To gild refined gold, to paint the rose, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet,' etc. I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuracies is as follows: of the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced, merely to show our national injustice in condemning generally the greatest genius of France for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of England has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater intellect than Newton? King John. A great poet, quoting another, should be correct: he should also be accurate, when he accuses a ParBeing in the humour of criticism, I shall proceed, nassian brother of that dangerous charge 'borrowafter having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to ing. A poet had better borrow anything (excepting touch on one or two as trifling in the edition of the money) than the thoughts of another-they are always British Poets by the justly celebrated Campbell. But sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been I do this in good-will, and trust it will be so taken. If a lender, to be denounced as the debtor, as is the case anything could add to my opinion of the talents and of Anstey versus Smollett. true feeling of that gentleman, it would be his clas- As there is honour amongst thieves,' let there be sical, honest, and triumphant defence of Pope against the vulgar cant of the day, and its existing Grub Street. The inadvertencies to which I allude are,Firstly, In speaking of Anstey, whom he accuses of having taken his leading characters from Smollett. some amongst poets, and give each his due: none can afford to give it more than Mr. Campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which cannot be shaken, is the only poet of the times (except Rogers) who can be reproached (and in him it is indeed a reproach) with having written too little. THE details of the siege of Ismail, in two of the following cantos (ie. the seventh and eighth,) were taken from the French work entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie. Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry, but written some time before his decease. Had that person's 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 as 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 one of 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 minister (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 suicide; he 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 Antony worthy of such a Cæsar), and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law-a felon or a madman; and 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 of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions, as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics? With regard to the objections which have been made, on another score, to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire: La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres.'. . . . 'Plus les mœurs sont dépravées, plus les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu.' This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer --which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc., are the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen-should be welcome to all who recollect on whom it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been, and may be, many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the wretched infidel,' as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right or wrong; but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of Holy!' I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and-but enough for the present. THERE is a tide in the affairs of men, But no doubt everything is for the best- II There is a tide in the affairs of women, Which, taken at the flood, leads-God knows Those navigators must be able seamen, [where: Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair; With its strange whirls and eddies, can compare: III. And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk IV. Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. 'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion; But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, Outbalances all Cæsar's victories. V. He died at fifty, for a queen of forty: I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty; For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds, are but a sport-I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, ! Gave what I had-a heart; as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever. • See Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, act 4, scene iii. VI. 'Twas the boy's 'mite,' and, like the 'widow's,' may But whether such things do or do not weigh, We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon; And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, VIII. I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. She thought that her lord's heart (even could she Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine IX. I am not, like Cassio, 'an arithmetician, That, adding to the account his Highness' years, For were the Sultan just to all his dears, X. It is observed that iadies are litigious sion; With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, Now, if this holds good in a Christian land, Are apt to carry things with a high hand, And take what kings call an imposing attitude;' And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude; And as four wives must have quadruple claims, Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore:- To make the nuptial couch a Bed of Ware.' XIII. His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,- To those sad hungry jacobins, the worms, His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover (A'Highland welcome all the wide world over). XIV. Now, here we should distinguish; for howe'er Or rather bonnet. which the fair sex wear, A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, XVI. For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer, At a sad discount: while your over-chilly Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly. XVII. That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, * See Waverley, XVIII. The 'tu''s too much-but let it stand-the verse Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old hexameters; But, after all, there's neither tune nor time As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not-it succeeded, and success They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less; And no one virtue yet, except starvation, XX. We leave this royal couple to repose: A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes; Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep As any man's clay mixture undergoes; Our least of sorrows are such as we weep: 'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. ΧΧΙ. A scolding wife, a sullen son; a bill To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a percentage; a child cross, dog ill, A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted; A bad old woman making a worse will, Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain: these are paltry things, and yet I've rarely seen the man they did not fret. XXII. I'm a philosopher: confound them all! Bills, beasts, and men, and-no! not womankind! With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, And then my stoicism leaves nought behind Which it can either pain or evil call, And I can give my whole soul up to mind: Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth, Is more than I know-the deuce take them both! XXIII. So now all things are d-n'd, one feels at ease, 'Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, Gnlbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or |