These quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst-In love and war), how odd are the connections
So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain :
In vain !—As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands.

(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,
Or better, as the best examples say:
Napoleon's, Mary's (Queen of Scotland), should
Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,

Juan much flatter'd by her love, or lust-
I cannot stop to alter words once written;
And the two are so mix'd with human dust,
That he who names one, both perchance may
hit on :

Too wise to look through optics black or blue)-But in such matters Russia's mighty Empress

Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving
Of faithful pairs (I needs must rhyme with dove,
That good old steamboat which keeps verses
moving

[glove

Behaved no better than a common sempstress.

LXXVIII.

The whole court melted into one wide whisper,
And all lips were applied unto all ears
The elder ladies' wrinkles curl'd much crisper,
As they beheld; the youngest cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper

Smiled as she talk'd the matter o'er; but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army that stood by.

LXXIX.

All the ambassadors of all the powers,

Inquired who was this very new young man, Who promised to be great in some few hours? Which is full soon (though life is but a span). Already they beheld the silver showers

Of roubles rain, as fast as specie can.

Upon his cabinet, besides the presents

Of several ribands, and some thousand peasants.*

LXXX.

Catharine was generous-all such ladies are ;
Love, that great opener of the heart, and all
The ways that leads there, be they near or far,
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small-
Love-(though she had a cursed taste for war,
And was not the best wife, unless we call

'Gainst reason-reason ne'er was hand-and- Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 'tis better With rhyme, but always leant less to improving That one should die, than two drag on the The sound than sense); besides all these pre

tences

[senses

To love, there are those things which words name

LXXV.

fetter)

LXXXI.

Love had made Catharine make each lover's for-
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth, [tune,

Those movements, those improvements in our Whose avarice all disbursements did importune, bodies,

Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,
For such all women are at first, no doubt.
How beautiful that moment! and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our sensations! What a curious way
The whole thing is, of clothing souls in clay!

LXXVI.

The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,
To end or to begin with; the next grand
Is that which may be christen'd love canonical
Because the clergy take the thing in hand;
The third sort, to be noted in our chronicle,
As flourishing in every Christian land,
Is, when chaste matrons to their other ties
Add what may be call'd marriage in disguise.

LXXVII.

Well, we won't analyse-our story must

Tell for itself: the sovereign was smitten,

If history, the grand liar, ever saith

The truth; and though grief her old age might
shorten,

Because she put a favourite to death,
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,
And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station.

LXXXII.

But when the levée rose, and all was bustle
In the dissolving circle, all the nations'
Ambassadors began as 'twere to hustle [tions.
Round the young man with their congratula-
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle

Of gentle dames, among whose recreations
It is to speculate on handsome faces,
Especially when such lead to high places.

LXXXIII.

Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,
A general object of attention, made

A Russian estate was always valued by the number of slaves upon it.