The verge of heaven; and in her large eyes A mixture of sensations might be scann'd, [wrought Of half voluptuousness and half command. CIX. Her form had all the softness of her sex, Her features all the sweetness of the devil, When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet somehow there was something somewhere wantAs if she rather order'd than was granting.- [ing, CX. Something imperial, or imperious, threw A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain Was thrown, as 'twere, about the neck of you,And rapture's self will seem almost a pain With aught which looks like despotism in view: Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain We would against them make the flesh obeyThe spirit, in the end, will have its way. CXI. Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet; Her state, (it is the custom of her nation,) A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign She was a sultan's bride, (thank Heaven, not mine!) CXII. "To hear and to obey" had been from birth Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will; CXIII. Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought; closed: There was no end unto the things she bought, Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused; Yet even her tyranny had such a grace, The women pardon'd all except her face CXIV. Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught Had his instructions where and how to deal: She had no prudence, but he had; and this Explains the garb which Juan took amiss. But to the main point, where we have been tending: I also would suggest the fitting time, And deem'd herself extremely condescending CXVII. And so it was, in proper time and place, But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face, Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing, Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace, And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing: These words went through his soul like Arab spears, So that he spoke not, but burst into tears. CXVIII. She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears, CXIX. And she would have consoled, but knew not how; There might arise some pouting petty care CXX. But nature teaches more than power can spoil, For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation, And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why, CXXI. But tears must stop like all things else; and soon Of one who dared to ask if "he had loved," To gentlemen in any such like case, CXXIV. Juan's was good; and might have been still better For having had him to the palace led, CXXV. At length, in an imperial way, she laid Her hand on his, and bending on his eyes, Look'd into his for love, where none replies: CXXVI. This was an awkward test, as Juan found, But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride; And seated her all drooping by his side. CXXVII. "Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proof I am not dazzled by this splendid roof; CXXVIII. This was a truth to us extremely trite, Not so to her who ne'er had heard such things; She hardly knew, to such perfection brings Aware of their due royal rights o'er men. Remember, or (if you cannot) imagine, Ye! who have kept your chastity when young, CXXXVI. A vulgar tempest 'twere to a typhoon To match a common fury with her rage, Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age- CXXXVII. A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd, Pass'd without words-in fact she could not speak; While some more desperate dowager has been waging | And then her sex's shame broke in at last, Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung Suppose, but you already have supposed, Of good examples; pity that so few by To educate-ye youth of Europe-you by! But when you have supposed the few we know, You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow. CXXXII. A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness, Of ladies, who can not have their own way; The love of offspring's nature's general law, This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer If I said fire flash'd from Gulbeyaz' eyes, 'Twere nothing-for her eyes flash'd always fire; For ne'er till now she knew a check'd desire: CXXXV. Her rage was but a minute's, and 'twas well- Like ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle; A sentiment till then in her but weak, As water through an unexpected leak, It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers CXXXIX. Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head; Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence CXL. She thought to stab herself, but then she had So that a poniard pierces if 'tis struck hard: CXLI. Juan was moved: he had made up his mind Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish, Rather than sin,-except to his own wish: CXLII. As through his palms Bob Acres' valor oozed, Just as a friar may accuse his vow, CXLIII. So he began to stammer some excuses; But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter, Just as a languid smile began to flatter CXLIV. "Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!" Your slave brings tidings-he hopes not too soon- CXLV. "Is it," exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, "as you say? CL. He saw with his own eyes the moon was round 'Tis true, a little troubled here and there, CLI. Except in shape of envoys, who were sent To lodge there when a war broke out, according Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording CLII. He had fifty daughters and four dozens sons, They lived till some bashaw was sent abroad, When she, whose turn it was, wedded at once, Sometimes at six years old-though this seems odd, And as you'd have me pardon your past scorn- 'Tis true; the reason is, that the bashaw Here they were interrupted by a humming [ing-"Must make a present to his sire in law. Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's coming!" CLVII. Is not a thing of that astringent quality, CLVIII. Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps. cease. PREFACE ΤΟ CANTOS VI. VII. AND VIII. [papers-and the harangue of the coroner in ar eulogy, over the bleeding body of the deceased-(an Antony worthy of such a Cæsar)—and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere or honorable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law-a felon or a madman-and in either case no great subject for panegyric. In his life he waswhat all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejanit of Europe. It may at least serve as a consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind.-Let us hear no more of this man, and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the Patriot of Humanity repose by the Werther of Politics!!! With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire : "La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." "Plus les mœurs sont depravées, plus les expressions devienment mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu." This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the and hypocritical mass which leavens the present following cantos (i. e. the 7th and 8th) are taken English generation, and is the only answer they from a French work, entitled, "Histoire de la Nou- deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of velle Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to blasphemer-which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circum- reformer, &c., are the changes which the hirelings stance of his saving the infant, which was the actual are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young should be welcome to all who recollect on whom volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and memory can never cease to be regarded with and so have been and may be many who dare to reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not Londonderry, but written some time before his de- refutation, nor even triumph: the wretched infidel, Had that person's oligarchy died with him, as he is called, is probably happier in his prison they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am than the proudest of his assailants. With his aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions or wrong-but he has suffered for them, and that of all whom his whole existence was consumed in very suffering for conscience' sake will make more endeavoring to enslave. That he was an amiable proselytes to Deism than the example of heterodox man in private life, may or may not be true; but prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to opwith this the public have nothing to do: and as to pression, or over-pensioned homicides to the imlamenting his death, it will be time enough when pious alliance which insults the world with the Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a name of "Holy!" I have no wish to trample minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as on the dishonored or the dead; but it would be the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect that ever tyrannized over a country. It is the first time, indeed, since the Normans, that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop. well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung, should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, andbut enough for the present. I say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; Of the manner of his death little need be said, but as the legitimates have always the law in their own mouths, let them make except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington the most of it. ↑ From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genins, or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been almost a universal one: an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If ever of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an man saved his country, Canning can; but will he? 1, for one, hope so. elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide-he merely orthodoxy and heterodoxy,"-Warburton, the bishop, replied, “Orthodoxy, cut the "carotid artery" (blessings on their learn-my lord, is my dory, and heterodoxy is another's man's doxy." A prelate ing!) and lo! the pageant, and the abbey, and of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has "the syllables of dolor yelled forth" by the news-Church-of-Englandism" When Lord Sandwich said "be did not know the difference between not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect, that which Bentham cal 1 |