CCXII.

"Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventâ
Consule Planco," Horace said, and so
Say I; by which quotation there is meant a
Hint that some six or seven good years ago
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)
I was most ready to return a blow,
And would not brook at all this sort of thing
In my hot youth-when George the Third was King.

CCXIII.

But now at thirty years my hair is grey

(I wonder what it will be like at forty?

I thought of a peruke the other day-)

My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squandered my whole summer while 't was May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I

Have spent my life, both interest and principal,

And deem not, what I deemed—my soul invincible.

CCXIV.

No more-no more-Oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see

Extracts emotions beautiful and new,

Hived 2 in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee.
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew ?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.

CCXV.

No more-no more-Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once all in all, but now a thing apart,

Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
The illusion 's gone for ever, and thou art
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,

i. I thought of dyeing it the other day.—[MS.]

1. [Hor., Od. III. C. xiv. lines 27, 28.]

2. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza cvii. line 2.]

And in thy stead I 've got a deal of judgment, Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.

CCXVI.

My days of love are over; me no more 1

The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before,
In short, I must not lead the life I did do ;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.

CCXVII.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token

O'er which reflection may be made at leisure : Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, I 've spoken, "Time is, Time was, Time 's past:"2-a chymic

treasure

Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes-
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

CCXVIII.

What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill

A certain portion of uncertain paper:

Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;

I.

"Me nec femina, nec puer

Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui,

Nec certare juvat mero;

Nec vincire novis tempora floribus."

Hor., Od. IV. i. 30.

[In the revise the words nec puer Jam were omitted. On this Hobhouse comments, "Better add the whole or scratch out all after femina."-" Quote the whole then-it was only in compliance with your settentrionale notions that I left out the remnant of the line."-[B.]]

2. [For "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen head to speak," see The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon (Reprint, London, 1815, pp. 13-18; see, too, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, ed. Rev. Alexander Dyce, 1861, pp. 153-181.]

3 ["Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?" etc.
Beattie's Minstrel, Bk. I. stanza i. lines 1, 2.]

For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"

To have, when the original is dust,

i.

A name, a wretched picture and worse bust. 1

CCXIX.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first Pyramid

And largest, thinking it was just the thing

To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid; But somebody or other rummaging,

Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:

Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.2

CCXX.

But I, being fond of true philosophy,

Say very often to myself, "Alas!

All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You 've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again-'t would pass-
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse."

i. A book-a damned bad picture-and worse bust.—[MS.]

1. [Byron sat for his bust to Thorwaldsen, in May, 1817.]

2. [This stanza appears to have been suggested by the following passage in the Quarterly Review, April, 1818, vol. xix. p. 203: "[It was] the opinion of the Egyptians, that the soul never deserted the body while the latter continued in a perfect state. To secure this union, King Cheops is said, by Herodotus, to have employed three hundred and sixty thousand of his subjects for twenty years in raising over the 'angusta domus' destined to hold his remains, a pile of stone equal in weight to six millions of tons, which is just three times that of the vast Breakwater thrown across Plymouth Sound; and, to render this precious dust still more secure, the narrow chamber was made accessible only by small, intricate passages, obstructed by stones of an enormous weight, and so carefully closed externally as not to be perceptible.Yet, how vain are all the precautions of man! Not a bone was left of Cheops, either in the stone coffin, or in the vault, when Shaw entered the gloomy chamber."]

3. ["Don't swear again-the third 'damn.'"-[H.]-[Revise.]]

CCXXI.

But for the present, gentle reader! and

i.

Still gentler purchaser! the Bard-that 's I Must, with permission, shake you by the hand, And so "your humble servant, and Good-bye!" We meet again, if we should understand

Each other; and if not, I shall not try

Your patience further than by this short sample— 'T were well if others followed my example.

CCXXII.

"Go, little Book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters-go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,

The World will find thee after many days." 1
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can't help putting in my claim to praise-
The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.

Nov. 1, 1818.

i. Must bid you both farewell in accents bland.—[MS.]

1. [Lines 1-4 are taken from the last stanza of the Epilogue to the Lay of the Laureate, entitled "L'Envoy." (See Poetical Works of Robert Southey, 1838, x. 174.)]

CANTO THE SECOND.'

I.

OH ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions-

It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations

In Juan's case were but employed in vain,
Since, in a way that 's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.i

II.

Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,

At least, had he been nurtured in the North ;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,

But then exceptions always prove its worth-
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce

Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III.

I can't say that it puzzles me at all,

If all things be considered: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,

A

never mind ;-his tutor, an old ass ;

i. Lost that most precious stone of stones—his modesty.—[MS.]

1. Begun at Venice, December 13, 1818,-finished January 20,

1819.

VOL. VI.

G