L. A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine, Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin, The animals aforesaid occupied Their station: there were valets, secretaries, In other vehicles; but at his side Sat little Leila, (2) who survived the parries He made 'gainst Cossacque sabres, in the wide Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies Her note, she don't forget the infant girl Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl. LII. Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile, Man, 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, "grand Cuvier!" Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err: But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore. LIII. Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love. I cannot tell exactly what it was; He was not yet quite old enough to prove Parental feelings, and the other class, Call'd brotherly affection, could not move His bosom,-for he never had a sister: (Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides, As acids rouse a dormant alkali), Although ('t will happen as our planet guides) His youth was not the chastest that might be, There was the purest Platonism at bottom Of all his feelings-only he forgot 'em. LV. Just now there was no peril of temptation; Thro' his means and the church's might be paved. But one thing's odd, which here must be inserted, The little Turk refused to be converted. LVI. "T was strange enough she should retain the impression Through such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter; But though three bishops told her the transgression, Perhaps she had nothing to confess:-no matter; Whate'er the cause, the church made little of itShe still held out that Mahomet was a prophet. LVII. In fact, the only Christian she could bear Was Juan; whom she seem'd to have selected A guardian green in years, a ward connected LVIII. Ah! if he had, how much he would have miss'd her! They journey'd on through Poland and through War LIV. And still less was it sensual; for besides That he was not an ancient debauchee by hostile Tartar hordes, but recovered by the arms of her majesty, and at present ornamented from stage to stage with magnificent tents, where we are supplied with breakfast, collation, dinner, supper, and lodging; and our encampments, decorated with all the pomp of Asiatic splendour, present a noble military spectacle. The empress has left, in each town, presents to the amount of 100,000 rubles. Each day of rest is marked by the gift of some diamonds, by balls, by fire-works, and by illuminations extending for leagues in every direction. During the last two months I have been daily employed in throwing money out of our carriage-windows, and have thus distributed the value of some millions of livres." Lettres et Pensées.-L. E. (1) Byron himself had at least this similarity to his hero, having a remarkable fondness for animals. Mr. Medwin says, that when his Lordship was travelling to Pisa-"Seven servants, five carriages, nine horses, a monkey, a bull-dog and mastiff, two cats, three peafowls, and some hens (I do not know whether I have classed them in order of rank), formed part of his live stock." This, by the way, is a curious enumeration, and curious in more respects than one. As Mr. Medwin has booked the "five carriages" in the catalogue of' live objects, we see nothing for it but to write down modern coach-builders as the discoverers of some wondrous secret for animating their creations with the Promethean spark.-P. E. (2) Byron's natural daughter, Allegra, was probably the original of Leila.-P. E. (3) In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her favourite, assumed the name and arms of the " Birons" of France, which families are yet extant with that of England. There are still the daughters of Courland of that name; one of them I remember seeing in England in the blessed year of the Allies (1814), the Duchess of S, to whom the English Duchess of Somerset presented me as a namesake.- ["Ernest John Biren, become so famous by his great advancements, and his not less extraordinary reverses of fortune, was born in Courland, of a family of mean extraction. His grandfather had been head-groom to James, the third Duke of Courland, and obtained from his master the present of a small estate in land..... In 1714, he made his appearance at St. Petersburgh, and solicited the place of page to the Princess Charlotte, wife of the Tzarovitch Alexey; but, being contemptuously rejected as a person of mean extraction, retired to Mittau, where he chanced to ingratiate himself with Count Bestucheff, master of the household to Anne, widow of Frederic William Duke of Courland, who resided at Mittau. Being of a handsome figure and polite address, he soon gained the good-will of the duchess, and became her secretary and chief favourite. On her being declared sovereign of Russia, Anne called Biren to Petersburgh, and the secretary soon became Duke of Courland, and first minister or rather despot of Russia. On the death of Anne, which happened in 1740, Biren, being declared regent, continued daily increasing his vexations and cruelties, till he was arrested, on the 18th of December, only twenty days after he had been appointed to the regency; and at the revolution that ensued, he was exiled to the frozen shores of the Oby." Tooke.-L. E. "Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw, LIX. Let this not seem an anti-climax :-"Oh! My guard! my old guard !"(1) exclaim'd that god of Think of the Thunderer's falling down below [clay, Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh ! Alas! that glory should be chill'd by snow! But should we wish to warm us on our way Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name And sea-sick passengers turn'd somewhat pale; At length they rose, like a white wall along Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame. (2) | And made the very billows pay them toll. They saw at Canterbury the cathedral; Black Edward's helm, (1) and Becket's bloody Were pointed out as usual by the bedral, [stone,(2) In the same quaint uninterested tone:There's glory again for you, gentle reader! All Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone, (3) Half-solved into those sodas or magnesias, Which form that bitter draught, the human species. LXXIV. The effect on Juan was of course sublime: He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw And being told it was "God's house," she said The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low (1) On the tomb of the prince lies a whole-length brass figure of him, his armour with a hood of mail, and a scullcap enriched with a coronet, which has been once studded with jewels, but only the collets now remain.-L. E. (2) Becket was assassinated in the cathedral, in 1171.L. E. (3) The French inscription on the Black Prince's monument is thus translated, in the History of Kent : "Whoso thou be that passest by I little thought on the hour of death So long as I enjoyed breath, 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, Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction, LXXVII. And when I think upon a pot of beer But I won't weep!—and so drive on, postilions! As the smart boys spurr'd fast in their career, Juan admired these highways of free millions; A 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! 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, On that sweet ore which every body nurses. LXXX. So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn Great riches here I did possess, (4) "Under his proud survey the city lies,⚫ And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise, Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd, And is, to him who rightly things esteems, No other in effect than what it seems; LXXXI. The sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from As one who, though he were not of the race, A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; LXXXIII. But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper, He paused and so will I; as doth a crew Our old acquaintance; and at least I'll try Because they are so;-a male Mrs. Fry, (2) With a soft besom will I sweep your halls, And brush a web or two from off the walls. (4) "O for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come, On Roncesvalles died." Marmion.-L. E. (5) "The celebrated and ingenious Bishop of Cloyne, in his Principles of Human Knowledge, denies, without any ceremony, the existence of every kind of matter whatever; nor does he think this conclusion one that need, in any degree, stagger the incredulous. Some truths there are,' LXXXVI. Teach them the decencies of good threescore; Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late 'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, CANTO XI. I. WHEN Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," II. What a sublime discovery 't was to make the That all's ideal-all ourselves: I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schist 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 III. For ever and anon comes Indigestion (Not the most (6) "dainty Ariel "), and perplexes. Our soarings with another sort of question: And that which after all my spirit vexes, says he, 'so near and obvious to the mind, that a ma need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this in portant one to be, that all the choir of heaven, and farmi ture of earth, in a word, all those bodies which compƐse the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind.' This deduction, however singular, w readily made from the theory of our perceptions laid dowa by Descartes and Mr. Locke, and at that time generally received is the world. According to that theory, we perceive nothing but ideas which are present in the mind, and which have se dependence whatever upon external things; so that we ha no evidence of the existence of any thing external to minds. Berkeley appears to have been altogether in earnest, in maintaining his scepticism concerning the existence matter: and the more so, as he conceived this system to highly favourable to the doctrines of religion, since it re moved matter from the world, which had already been the stronghold of the atheists." Brewster.-L. E. (6) "Prosp. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I shall miss thee, But yet thou shalt have freedom." Tempest.-L. E Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on, If it be chance; or if it be according To the old text, still better :-lest it should Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording, As several people think such hazards rude. They're right; our days are too brief for affording Space to dispute what no one ever could Decide, and every body one day will Know very clearly-or at least lie still. "And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station; X. "Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay But what they please; and if that things be dear, 'Tis only that they love to throw away Their cash, to show how much they have a-year. Here laws are all inviolate; none lay Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear: Here" he was interrupted by a knife, With, "Damn your eyes! your money or your life!" XI. These freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre, Juan, who did not understand a word Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!" And even that he had so rarely heard, He sometimes thought 't was only their "Salam," Or "God be with you!"-and 't is not absurd To think so: for half English as I am (To my misfortune), never can I say Ì heard them wish "God with you," save that way; XIII. Juan yet quickly understood their gesture, And, being somewhat choleric and sudden, Drew forth a pocket-pistol from his vesture, And fired it into one assailant's puddingWho fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture, And roar'd out, as he writhed his native mud in, Unto his nearest follower or henchman, "O Jack! I'm floor'd by that'ere bloody Frenchman!" XIV. On which Jack and his train set off at speed, And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance, Came up, all marvelling at such a deed, And offering as usual, late assistance. Juan, who saw the moon's late minion (2) bleed As if his veins would pour out his existence, Stood calling out for bandages and lint, And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint. XV. "Perhaps," thought he, "it is the country's wont To welcome foreigners in this way: now I recollect some innkeepers who don't minions of the moon: and let men say, we be men of good government; being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance westeal." Henry IV.-L. E. |