OH, Wellington! (or "Villainton " -for Fame i
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punned it down to this facetious phrase-
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,)

You have obtained great pensions and much praise:
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,
Humanity would rise, and thunder "Nay!" 3

II.

I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinèt's affair in fact, 't was shabby,

i. Oh Wellington (or "Vilainton ") —.—[MS. B.]

1. [Stanzas i.-viii., which are headed "Don Juan, Canto III., July 10, 1819," are in the handwriting of (?) the Countess Guiccioli. Stanzas ix., x., which were written on the same sheet of paper, are in Byron's handwriting. The original MS. opens with stanza xi., "Death laughs," etc. (See letter to Moore, July 12, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 96.)]

2.

["Faut qu' lord Villain-ton ait tout pris;

N'y a plus d'argent dans c' gueux de Paris."

De Béranger," Complainte d'une de ces Demoiselles a l'Occasion des Affaires du Temps (Février, 1816)," Chansons, 1821, ii. 17. Compare a retaliatory epigram which appeared in a contemporary newspaper

"These French petit-maîtres who the spectacle throng,
Say of Wellington's dress qu'il fait vilain ton!
But, at Waterloo, Wellington made the French stare
When their army he dressed à la mode Angleterre !"]

3. Query, Ney?-Printer's Devil. [Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen, "the bravest of the brave" (see Ode from the French, stanza i. Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 431), born January 10, 1769, was arrested August 5, and shot December 7, 1815.]

4. [The story of the attempted assassination (February 11, 1818) of

And like some other things won't do to tell

Upon your tomb in Westminster's old Abbey. Upon the rest 't is not worth while to dwell,

Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby;1 the Duke of Wellington, which is dismissed by Alison in a few words (Hist. of Europe (1815-1852), 1853, i. 577, 578), occupies many pages of the Supplementary Despatches (1865, xii. 271-546). Byron probably drew his own conclusions as to the Kinnaird-Marinet incident, from the Letter to the Duke of Wellington on the Arrest of M. Marinet, by Lord Kinnaird, 1818. The story, which is full of interest, may be briefly recounted. On January 30, 1818, Lord Kinnaird informed Sir George Murray (Chief of the Staff of the Army of Occupation) that a person, whose name he withheld, had revealed to him the existence of a plot to assassinate the Duke of Wellington. At 12.30 a.m., February 11, 1818, the Duke, on returning to his Hôtel, was fired at by an unknown person; and then, but not till then, he wrote to urge Lord Clancarty to advise the Prince Regent to take steps to persuade or force Kinnaird to disclose the name of his informant. A Mr. G. W. Chad, of the Consular Service, was empowered to proceed to Brussels, and to seek an interview with Kinnaird. He carried with him, among other documents, a letter from the Duke to Lord Clancarty, dated February 12, 1818. A postscript contained this intimation: "It may be proper to mention to you that the French Government are disposed to go every length in the way of negotiation with the person mentioned by Lord Kinnaird, or others, to discover the plot."

Kinnaird absolutely declined to give up the name of his informant, but, acting on the strength of the postscript, which had been read but not shown to him, started for Paris with "the great unknown." Some days after their arrival, and while Kinnaird was a guest of the Duke, the man was arrested, and discovered to be one Nicholle or Marinet, who had been appointed receveur under the restored government of Louis XVIII., but during the Cent jours had fled to Belgium, retaining the funds he had amassed during his term of office. Kinnaird regarded this action of the French Government as a breach of faith, and in a "Memorial" to the French Chamber of Peers, and his Letter, maintained that the Duke's postscript implied a promise of a safe conduct for Marinet to and from Paris to Brussels. The Duke, on the other hand, was equally positive (see his letter to Lord Liverpool, May 30, 1818) "that he never intended to have any negotiations with anybody." Kinnaird was a "dog with a bad name.' He had been accused (see his Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, 1816, p. 16) of "the promulgation of dangerous opinions," and of intimacy "with persons suspected." The Duke speaks of him as "the friend of Revolutionists"! It is evident that he held the dangerous doctrine that a promise to a rogue is a promise, and that the authorities took a different view of the ethics of the situation. It is clear, too, that the Duke's postscript was ambiguous, but that it did not warrant the assumption that if Marinet went to Paris he should be protected. The air was full of plots. The great Duke despised and was inclined to ignore the pistol or the dagger of the assassin; but he believed that "mischief was afoot," and that "great personages" might or might not be responsible. He was beset by difficulties at every turn, and would have been more than mortal if he had put too favourabie a construction on the scruples, or condoned the imprudence of a "friend of Revolutionists."]

But though your years as man tend fast to zero,
In fact your Grace is still but a young Hero.

III.

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more :
You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch,

A prop not quite so certain as before:
The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor
(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).

IV.

You are "the best of cut-throats : "2-do not start; The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied :War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,

Unless her cause by right be sanctified. If you have acted once a generous part,

The World, not the World's masters, will decide, And I shall be delighted to learn who,

Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo ?

V.

I am no flatterer-you 've supped full of flattery: 3
They say you like it too-'t is 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,
Called "Saviour of the Nations"-not yet saved,-
And "Europe's Liberator "-still enslaved.*

1. [The reference may be to the Duke of Wellington's intimacy with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. Byron had 'passed that himself (see Letters, 1898, ii. 251, note 1, 323, etc.), and could hardly attack the Duke on that score.]

way

2.

["Thou art the best o' the cut-throats."

Macbeth, act iii. sc. 4, line 17.]

3.

["I have supped full of horrors."

Macbeth, act v. sc. 5, line 13.]

4. Vide speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo.

VI.

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.

1

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.

VII.

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 connection:
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.

VIII.

Great men have always scorned great recompenses : Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,

Not leaving even his funeral expenses:

2

George Washington had thanks, and nought beside, Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is) To free his country: Pitt too had his pride, And as a high-souled Minister of state is Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis.3

1. ["I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with four others. We were sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for Lord Wellington's hounds. I was very hungry, and thought it a good job at the time, as we got our own fill, while we broke the biscuit,- -a thing I had not got for some days. When thus engaged, the Prodigal Son was never once out of my mind; and I sighed, as I fed the dogs, over my humble situation and my ruined hopes."—Journal of a Soldier of the 71st Regiment, 1806 to 1815 (Edinburgh, 1822), pp. 132, 133.]

2. ["We are assured that Epaminondas died so poor that the Thebans buried him at the public charge; for at his death nothing was found in his house but an iron spit."-Plutarch's Fabius Maximus, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 140. See, too, Cornelius Nepos, Epam., cap. iii. "Paupertatem adeo facilè perpessus est, ut de Republicâ nihil præter gloriam ceperit."]

3. For Pitt's refusal to accept £100,000 from the merchants of

IX.

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 tune
it ye?

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

X.

As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,

To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe i
Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,
But which 't is 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.

XI.

Death laughs-Go ponder o'er the skeleton
With which men image out the unknown thing
That hides the past world, like to a set sun

Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring— Death laughs at all you weep for !-look upon

This hourly dread of all! whose threatened sting Turns Life to terror, even though in its sheath: Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

XII.

Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!
And yet was what you are; from ear to ear
It laughs not-there is now no fleshy bar

So called; the Antic long hath ceased to hear,
But still he smiles; and whether near or far,

He strips from man that mantle (far more dear

i. To you this one unflattering Muse inscribes.-[MS. erased.] London towards the payment of his debts, or £30,000 from the King's Privy Purse, see Pitt, by Lord Rosebery, 1891, p. 231.]