LXXXIV. I've seen the landholders without a rap— cap- LXXXV. I've seen small poets, and great prosers, and I've seen the funds at war with house and land- By slaves on horseback-I have seen malt liquors Exchanged for << thin potations» by John Bull « LXXXVI. I've seen John half detect himself a fool.- Ye villains!» and above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what you see. LXXXVII. But how shall I relate in other cantos Of what befel our hero in the land, But 't is as well at once to understand, LXXXVIII. What Juan saw, and underwent, shall be And recollect the work is only fiction, Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction, Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt This-when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out. LXXXIX. Whether he married with the third or fourth Offspring of some sage, husband-hunting countess, Or whether with some virgin of more worth (I mean in fortune's matrimonial bounties) He took to regularly peopling earth, Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is,— Or whether he was taken in for damages, For being too excursive in his homages, XC. Is yet within the unread events of time. Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back Against the same given quantity of rhyme, For being as much the subject of attack, As ever yet was any work sublime, By those who love to say that white is black. So much the better!-I may stand alone, But would not change my free thoughts for a throne. END OF CANTO XI. 7 VOL. III. NOTES TO CANTO XI. Note 1, page 73, stanza xix. So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing? The advance of science and of language has rendered it unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was very popular, at least in my early days : « On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, In spite of each gallows old scout; If you at the spellken can't hustle, You'll be hobbled in making a clout. «Then your blowing will wax gallows haughty, She 'll surely turn snitch for the forty That her Jack may be regular weight.»> If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who I trust still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his goodhumour and athletic as mental accomplishments. Note 2, page 76, stanza xxix. St James's Palace and St James's « Hells.»> « Hells,» gaming-houses. What their number may now be in this life, I know not. Before I was of age I knew them pretty accurately, both "gold» and « silver." I was once nearly called out by an acquaintance because when he asked me where I thought that his soul would be found hereafter, I answered, «In Silver Hell.» 7. |