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I am no flatterer-you've supp'd full of flattery :
They say you like it too-'tis no great wonder.
He whose whole life has been assault and battery,
At last may get a little tired of thunder;
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder,
Call'd' Saviour of the Nations'-not yet saved,
And Europe's Liberator'-still enslaved.

I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,
And send the sentinel before your gate

A slice or two from your luxurious meals:
He fought, but has not fed so well of late.

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Some hunger, too, they say the people feels :There is no doubt that you deserve your ration, But pray give back a little to the nation.

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I don't mean to reflect-a man so great as
You, my lord Duke! is far above reflection:
The high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus,
With modern history has but small connexion :
Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,

You need not take them under your direction;
And half a million for your Sabine farm

Is rather dear !-I'm sure I mean no harm.

Great men have always scorn'd great recompenses: Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,

Not leaving even his funeral expenses:

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George Washington had thanks, and nought beside,
Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is) 6
To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,
And as a high-soul'd minister of state is
Renown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis.

Never had mortal man such opportunity,
Except Napoleon, or abused it more:

You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity
Of tyrants and been blest from shore to shore:

And now- -what is your fame? Shall the Muse tuno

it ye?

Now that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er ? Go! hear it in your famish'd country's cries! Behold the world! and curse your victories !

As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe
Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,
But which 'tis time to teach the hireling tribe
Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts,
Must be recited-and without a bribe.

You did great things: but not being great in mind,
Have left undone the greatest-and mankind.

LONDON

(CANTO X, lxxxi-lxxxvii).

THE sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from
A half-unquench'd volcano, o'er a space
Which well beseem'd the Devil's drawing-room,'
As some have qualified that wondrous place:
But Juan felt, though not approaching home,

As one who, though he were not of the race,
Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother,
Who butcher'd half the earth, and bullied t'other.
A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye

Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head-and there is London Town!

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But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke
Appear'd to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper):

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ΙΟ

The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke
Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper,
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.

He paused and so will I; as doth a crew
Before they give their broadside. By and by,
My gentle countrymen, we will renew

Our old acquaintance; and at least I'll try
To tell you truths you will not take as true,
Because they are so ;-a male Mrs. Fry,
With a soft besom will I sweep your halls,
And brush a web or two from off the walls.

Oh Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why

Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin
With Carlton, or with other houses? Try
Your hand at harden'd and imperial sin.
To mend the people's an absurdity,

A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,
Unless you make their betters better :-Fie!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

Teach them the decencies of good threescore ;
Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses;
Tell them that youth once gone returns no more,
That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses;
Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore,

Too dull even for the dullest of excesses,
The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal,

A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.

Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late
On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated,

To set up vain pretence of being great,

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'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state; And tell them- -But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but by and by I'll prattle Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle.

BYRON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

(CANTO XI, liii-lxiii).

JUAN knew several languages-as well

He might and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell

His qualities (with them) into sublime :
Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Mævia Mannish,
Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all
The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,
At great assemblies or in parties small,
He saw ten thousand living authors pass,
That being about their average numeral ;
Also the eighty 'greatest living poets,'
As every paltry magazine can show it's.

In twice five years the 'greatest living poet,'
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 'tis an imaginary thing.
Even I-albeit I'm sure I did not know it,

Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,

Was reckon'd, a considerable time,

The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero

My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain:
La Belle Alliance of dunces down at zero,
Now that the Lion 's fall'n, may rise again :

But I will fall at least as fell my hero;
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

ΤΟ

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Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after: but now grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble

With poets almost clergymen, or wholly :
And Pegasus has a psalmodic amble

Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol-by the hilts!

Still he excels that artificial hard

Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vine
Yields him but vinegar for his reward.-

That neutralised dull Dorus of the Nine;
That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard;
That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line :—
Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least
The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest.-

Then there's my gentle Euphues,-who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He'll find it rather difficult some day

To turn out both, or either, it may be.
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway;
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;
And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian Savage Landor'
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

John Keats-who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk about the gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;

'Tis strange the mind, that fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain-or none will know
The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders

His last award, will have the long grass grow

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