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
made by a king of
Hungary, but sent
An orator of Athens said to
by Richard the First, Demosthenes, The Athenians
Coeur-de-Lion, of will kill you if they wax mad.
England, to the Demosthenes replied, And they
Popewith thebreast-will kill you if they be in good
plate of the bishop sense.
of Beauvais.

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
battle of Issus and Demetrius, king of Macedon,
during the siege of had a petition offered him divers
Tyre. and not im- times by an old woman, and an-
mediately after the swered he had no leisure:
passage of the Gra- whereupon the woman said
nicus, that this is aloud, Why then give over to
said to have oc- be king.
curred.

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:
The public knew no more than does this rhyme;
No scandals made the daily press a curse-
Morals were better, and the fish no worse.

CL.

He saw, with his own eyes, the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular anywhere:
His empire also was without a bound;

'Tis true, a little troubled, here and there,
By rebel pachas and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to the 'Seven Towers,'
CLI.

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent

To lodge there when a war broke out according
To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant,
Those scoundrels who have never had a sword in
Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent

Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording
Their lies, yclept despatches, without risk or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.

CLII.

He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons,
Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd,
The former in a palace, where like nuns

They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad,
When she, whose turn it was, was wed at once,

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
Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne,
One or the other, but which of the two

Could yet be known unto the Fates alone;
Meantime the education they went through

Was princely, as the proofs have always shown;
So that the heir-apparent still was found
No less deserving to be hang'd than crown'd.
CLIV.

His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse

[brows,

With all the ceremonies of his rank,
Who clear'd her sparkling eyes, and smooth'd her
As suits a matron who has play'd a prank;
These must seem doubly mindful of their vows,
To save the credit of their breaking bank;
To no men are such cordial greetings given,
As those whose wives have made them fit for heaven.
CLV.

His Highness cast around his great black eyes,
And looking, as he always look'd, perceived
Juan amongst the damsels, in disguise,

At which he seem'd no whit surprised nor grieved;
But just remark'd, with air sedate and wise,
While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz heaved,
'I see you've bought another girl; 'tis pity
That a mere Christian should be half so pretty."

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
Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.'
Ferney, with its inscription-Deo erexit Voltaire.'
Thirdly, In the Life of Burns, Mr. C. quotes Shak

To gild refined gold, to paint the rose,
Or add fresh perfume to the violet.'
This version by no means improves the original, which

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,
Which, taken at the flood-you know the rest,
And most of us have found it, now and then;
At least we think so, though but few have guess'd
The moment, till too late to come again;

But no doubt everything is for the best-
Of which the surest sign is in the end: [mend.
When things are at the worst, they sometimes

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;
Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen,

With its strange whirls and eddies, can compare:
Men with their heads reflect on this and that-
But women with their hearts on Heaven knows
what.

III.

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,
Young, beautiful, and daring-who would risk
A throne, the world, the universe, to be

Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk
The stars from out the sky, than not be free
As are the billows when the breeze is brisk-
Though such a she's a devil (if there be one,)
Yet she would make full many a Manichean,

IV.

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset
By commonest ambition, that when passion
O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,

Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.
If Antony be well remember'd yet,

'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
Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now;

But whether such things do or do not weigh,
All who have loved or love will still allow
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say;
And Love's a god, or was before the brow
Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears
Of-but Chronology best knows the years.
VII.

We left our hero and third heroine in

A kind of state more awkward than uncommon;
For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin,
For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:
Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,

And don't agree at all with the wise Roman,
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.

VIII.

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;
I own it, I deplore it, I condeinn it;
But I detest all fiction even in song,

And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.
Her reason being weak, her passions strong,

She thought that her lord's heart (even could she
claim it)

Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine
Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

IX.

I am not, like Cassio, 'an arithmetician,
But by 'the bookish theoric' it appears,
If 'tis summ'd up with feminine precision,

That, adding to the account his Highness' years,
The fair Sultana err'd from inanition;

For were the Sultan just to all his dears,
She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part
Of what should be monopoly-the heart.

X.

It is observed that iadies are litigious
Upon all legal objects of possession,
And not the least so when they are religious,
Which doubles what they think of the transgres

sion;

With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,

As the tribunals show through many a session,
When they suspect that any one goes shares
In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.
XI.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,
The heathen also, though with less latitude,