i.

Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed,

And asked why such a structure had been raised :

LXXV.

And being told it was "God's House," she said.
He was well lodged, but only wondered how
He suffered Infidels in his homestead,

The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low
His holy temples in the lands which bred

The True Believers ;-and her infant brow Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.

LXXVI.

On! on through meadows, managed like a garden,
A paradise of hops and high production;
For, after years of travel by a bard in

Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction,
A green field is a sight which makes him pardon
The absence of that more sublime construction,
Which mixes up vines-olives-precipices-
Glaciers-volcanoes-oranges and ices.

LXXVII.

And when I think upon a pot of beer

But I won't weep!-and so drive on, postilions! As the smart boys spurred fast in their career, Juan admired these highways of free millionsA country in all senses the most dear

To foreigner or native, save some silly ones, Who "kick against the pricks" just at this juncture, And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.

LXXVIII.

What a delightful thing 's a turnpike road!
So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving
The Earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad
Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.
Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the god
Had told his son to satisfy his craving

of higher stations,

And for their pains get smarter puncturations.—[MS. erased.]

With the York mail;-but onward as we roll,
Surgit amari aliquid-the toll! 1

LXXIX.

Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!

Take lives-take wives-take aught except men's purses:

As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,

Such is the shortest way to general curses.2
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant
On that sweet ore which everybody nurses.-
Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,
But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket:

LXXX.

So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken
To your instructor. Juan now was borne,
Just as the day began to wane and darken,

O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn
Toward the great city.-Ye who have a spark in
Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn
According as you take things well or ill;—
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!

LXXXI.

The Sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from
A half-unquenched volcano, o'er a space
Which well beseemed 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 butchered half the earth, and bullied ť other.3

1. [See Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza xxxii. line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 93, note 16.]

2. [See The Prince (Il Principe), chap. xvii., by Niccolò Machiavelli, translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, 1897, p. 121: But above all [a Prince] must abstain from the property of others. For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."]

3. [India; America.]

LXXXII.

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!

LXXXIII.

But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke
Appeared to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper):
The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke

Are bowed, and put the Sun out like a taper,
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.

LXXXIV.

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,1 With a soft besom will I sweep your halls, And brush a web or two from off the walls.

LXXXV.

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 hardened and imperial Sin.
To mend the People 's an absurdity,

A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,

1. [Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) began her visits to Newgate in 1813. In 1820 she corresponded with the Princess Sophie of Russia, and at a later period she was entertained by Louis Philippe, and by the King of Prussia at Kaiserwerth. She might have, she may have, admonished George IV. "with regard to all good things."]

Unless you make their betters better :--Fie!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

LXXXVI.

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 1 is a bore,

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

A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.

LXXXVII.

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,

"T is 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 2 in Roncesvalles' battle.. 3

i. Like an old Roman trumpet ere a battle.--[MS. erased.]

1. [See The Age of Bronze, line 768, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 578, note 1.]

2.

["O for a blast of that dread horn,

On Fontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come,

When Rowland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,

On Roncesvalles died."

Marmion, Canto VI. stanza xxxiii. lines 7-12.]

3. B. Genoa, Oct. 6th, 1822. End of Canto 10th

CANTO THE ELEVENTH.

I.

WHEN Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it-'t was no matter what he said:
They say his system 't is in vain to batter,

Too subtle for the airiest human head;
And yet who can believe it? I would shatter
Gladly all matters down to stone or lead,
Or adamant, to find the World a spirit,
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.

II.

What a sublime discovery 't was to make the
Universe universal egotism,

That all 's ideal-all ourselves!-I'll stake the

World (be it what you will) that that's no schism. Oh Doubt!-if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee,

But which I doubt extremely-thou sole prism Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit! Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.

1. [Berkeley did not deny the reality of existence, but the reality of matter as an abstract conception. "It is plain," he says (On the Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. ix.), "that the very notion of what is called matter or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it." Again, "It were a mistake to think that what is here said derogates in the least from the reality of things." His contention was that this reality depended, not on an abstraction called matter, "an inert, extended unperceiving substance," but on "those unextended, indivisible substances or spirits, which act, and think, and perceive them [unthinking_beings]."—Ibid., sect. xci., The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., 1820, i. 27, 69, 70.]