VI.

And is there not religion, and reform,

Peace, war, the taxes, and what 's called the « nation?" The struggle to be pilots in a storm?

The landed and the monied speculation?

The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm,
Instead of love, that mere hallucination?
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

VII.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd,
Right honestly, « he liked an honest hater!»'
The only truth that yet has been confest

Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest:-
For my part, I am but a mere spectator,
And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is,
Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles;

VIII.

But neither love nor hate in much excess;

Though 't was not once so. If I sneer sometimes, It is because I cannot well do less,

And now and then it also suits my rhymes.

I should be very willing to redress

Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes,

Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale

Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

IX..

Of all tales 't is the saddest-and more sad,
Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,
And still pursues the right;—to curb the bad,
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight,
His guerdon: 't is his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;-
A sorrier still is the great moral taught
By that real epic unto all who 've thought.

-

X.

Redressing injury, revenging wrong,

To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong,

From foreign yoke to free the helpless native; Alas! must noblest views, like an old song,

Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative?

A jest, a riddle, fame through thin and thick sought? And Socrates himself but wisdom's Quixote?

XI.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away;
A single laugh demolish'd the right arm
Of his own country;-seldom since that day

Has Spain had heroes. While romance could charm, The world gave ground before her bright array;

And therefore have his volumes done such harm,

That all their glory, as a composition,

Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.

XII.

I'm at my old lunes »-digression, and forget
The Lady Adeline Amundeville;

The fair most fatal Juan ever met,

Although she was not evil nor meant ill; But destiny and passion spread the net,

(Fate is a good excuse for our own will)

And caught them;-what do they not catch, methinks? But I'm not OEdipus, and life's a sphinx.

XIII.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare

To venture a solution: « davus sum!» And now I will proceed upon the pair.

Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum, Was the queen-bee, the glass of all that's fair;

Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb. The last's a miracle, and such was reckon'd,

And since that time there has not been a

second.

XIV.

Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation,
And wedded unto one she had loved well—
A man known in the councils of the nation,
Cool, and quite English, imperturbable,
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion,

Proud of himself and her: the world could tell
Nought against either, and both seem'd secure—
She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

XV.

It chanced some diplomatical relations,
Arising out of business, often brought
Himself and Juan in their mutual stations

Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught
By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience,
And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought,
And form'd a basis of esteem, which ends
In making men what courtesy calls friends.

XVI.

And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as
Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow
In judging men-when once his judgment was
Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe,
Had all the pertinacity pride has,

Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow,
And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided,
Because its own good pleasure hath decided.

XVII.

His friendships therefore, and no less aversions, Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but more His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians

And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before. His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians,

Of common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at-the mere ague still Of men's regard, the fever or the chill.

XVIII.

'Tis not in mortals to command success;

But do you more, Sempronius-don't deserve it.» And take my word, word, you won't have any less:

Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it; Give gently way, when there 's too great a press; And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it,For like a racer or a boxer training,

'T will make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.

XIX.

Lord Henry also lik'd to be superior,

As most men do, the little or the great;

The

very lowest find out an inferior, At least they think so, to exert their state Upon: for there are very few things wearier Than solitary pride's oppressive weight, Which mortals generously would divide, By bidding others carry while they ride.

XX.

In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal,
O'er Juan he could no distinction claim;

In years he had the advantage of time's sequel;

And, as he thought, in country much the sameBecause bold Britons have a tongue and free quill, At which all modern nations vainly aim; And the Lord Henry was a great debater, So that few members kept the house up later.