At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides
Half her attractions-probably from pity-
And rather calmly into the heart glides,
Than storms it, as a foe would take a city;
But once there (if you doubt this, pr'ythee try),
She keeps it for you, like a true ally.

LXXV.

She cannot step as does an Arab barb,

Or Andalusian girl from mass returning, Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,

Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning: Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warble those bravuras (which I still am learning To like, though I have been seven years in Italy, And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily):

LXXVI.

She cannot do these things, nor one or two Others, in that off hand and dashing style Which takes so much-to give the devil his due Nor is she quite so ready with her smile, Nor settles all things in one interview

(A thing approved, as saving time and toil):But though the soil may give you time and Well cultivated, it will render double. [trouble,

LXXVII.

And if, in fact, she takes to a grande passion,
It is a very serious thing indeed :
Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice, or fashion,
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead,
The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,
Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed:

But the tenth instance will be a tornado,

;

And as for chastity, you'll never bind it

By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads, But aggravate the crime you've not prevented, By rendering desperate these who had else repented.

LXXXI.

But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd Upon the moral lessons of mankind : Besides, he had not seen, of several hundred, A lady altogether to his mind.

A little blasé-'tis not to be wonder'd

At, that his heart had got a tougher rind; And, though not vainer from his past success, No doubt his sensibilities were less.

LXXXII.

He also had been busy, seeing sights

The Parliament and all the other houses; Had sat beneath the gallery at nights,

To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses)

The world to gaze upon those northern lights, Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull* browses:

He had also stood, at times, behind the throne; But Grey† was not arrived, and Chatham‡ gone.

LXXXIII.

He saw, however, at the closing session,

That noble sight, when really free the nation, A king in constitutional possession

Of such a throne as is the proudest station, Though despots know it not-till the progression Of freedom shall complete their education.

LXXVIII.

The reason's obvious: if there's an éclat,
They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias;
And when the delicacies of the law

Have fill'd the papers with their comments
Society, that china without flaw, [various,
(The hypocrite!) will banish them, like Marius,
To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt;
For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.

LXXIX.

Perhaps this is as it should be ;-it is

A comment on the Gospel's 'Sin no more, And be thy sins forgiven ;'-but, upon this,

I leave the saints to settle their own score. Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss, An erring woman finds an opener door For her return to Virtue-as they call That lady who should be at home to all.

LXXX.

For me, I leave the matter where I find it, Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads People some ten times less, in fact, to mind it, And care but for discoveries, and not deeds;

To eye or heart-it is the people's trust.

LXXXIV.

There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) A Prince, the prince of princes, at the time, With fascination in his very bow,

And full of promise, as the spring of prime. Though royalty was written on his brow,

He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime, Of being without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.

LXXXV.

And Juan was received, as hath been said, Into the best society; and there Occurr'd what often happens, I'm afraid,

However disciplined and debonnaire :The talent and good humour he display'd,

Besides the mark'd distinction of his air, Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation, Even though himself avoided the occasion.

For a description and print of this inhabitant of the Polar Region and native country of the Aurora Borealis, see Parry's Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage.

f Charles, second Earl Grey, succeeded to the title in 1907. The first Lord Chatham died May, 1778.

Is not to be put hastily together; And as my object is morality

(Whatever people say), I don't know whether I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry,

But harrow up his feelings, till they wither; And hew out a huge monument of pathos, As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.*

LXXXVII.

Here the twelfth canto of our introduction
Ends. When the body of the book's begun,
You'll find it of a different construction [done:
From what some people say 'twill be, when
The plan at present's simply in concoction.
I can't oblige you, reader, to read on:
That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit [it.
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear

Remember, reader! you have had before The worst of tempests and the best of battles, That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore, Besides the most sublime of-Heaven knows

what else:

An usurer could scarce expect much moreBut my best canto, save one on astronomy, Will turn upon 'political economy."

LXXXIX.

That is your present theme for popularity: Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake, It grows an act of patriotic charity

To show the people the best way to break. My plan (but I, if but for singularity, Reserve it) will be very sure to take. Meantime, read all the national-debt sinkers, And tell me what you think of our great thinkers.

1.

I NOW mean to be serious;-it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too
serious

A jest at Vice, by Virtue's call'd a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,

Although, when long, a little apt to weary us: And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn, As an old temple dwindled to a column.

II.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville

('Tis an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees, by those who wander still

Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,

And beauteous even where beauties most abound,

The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a pi

woman.

IV.

And, after that serene and somewhat duli

Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd, for days More quiet, when our moon's no more at full, Because indifference begins to lull We may presume to criticize or praise;

Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint that 'tis time to give the younger place.

V.

I know that some would fain postpone this e Reluctant, as all placemen, to resign

Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera, For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line:

The goodliest soil of body and of mind.

III.

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue;

I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best; An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue Is no great matter, so 'tis in request : 'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hueThe kindest may be taken as a test.

A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of

Alexander, with a city in one hand, and I believe a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander is gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over a nation

of freemen,

To irrigate the dryness of decline; And county meetings, and the Parliament, And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.

VI.

And is there not religion and reform,

Peace, war, the taxes, and what's card the 'Nation'?

The struggle to be pilots in a storm?

The landed and the money'd speculation? The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm,

Instead of love, that mere hallucination? Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure: Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

VII.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd,
Right honestly, he liked an honest hater!'*.
The only truth that yet has been confest
Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest :-
For my part, I am but a mere spectator;
And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is,
Much in the mood of Goethe's Mephistopheles;

VIII.

But neither love nor hate in much excess;
Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer some-
It is because I cannot well do less, [times,
And now and then it also suits my rhymes.
I should be very willing to redress [crimes,

Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish
Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

IX.

Of all tales 'tis the saddest-and more sad
Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,
And still pursues the right;-to curb the bad
His only object; and gainst odds to fight,
His guerdon: 'tis his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;-
A sorrier still is the great moral taught,
By that real epic, unto all who have thought.
X.

F Redressing injury, revenging wrong,

To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff;
Opposing singly the united strong,

From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:-
Alas! must noblest views, like an old song,

Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thick and thin sought!

And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?

XI.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away:

A single laugh demolish'd the right arm Of his own country :-seldom, since that day, Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,

The world gave ground before her bright array;

And therefore have his volumes done such

That all their glory, as a composition, [harm, Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.

XII.

I'm at my old lunes'-digression, and forget
The Lady Adeline Amundeville;
The fair most fatal Juan ever met,

Although she was not evil, nor meant ill;
But Destiny and Passion spread the net

(Fate is a good excuse for our own will), And caught them;-what do they not catch methinks?

But I'm not Edipus, and Life's a Sphinx.

• Sir, I like a good hater.'-See the Life of Dr Johnson, &c.

XIII.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare

To venture a solution: Davus sum l' And now I will proceed upon the pair.

Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum, Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that's fair; Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb:

The last's a miracle, and such was reckon'd; And since that time there has not been a second. XIV.

Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation,

And wedded unto one she had loved well

A man known in the councils of the nation,
Cool, and quite English, imperturbable,
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion,

Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against either, and both seem'd secure— She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

But Adeline had not the least occasion

For such a shield, which leaves but little merit To virtue proper or good education.

Her chief resource was in her own high spirit, Which judged mankind at their due estimation; And for coquetry, she disdain'd to wear it : Secure of admiration, its impression Was faint, as of an every-day possession. XXXII.

To all she was polite, without parade;

To some she show'd attention of that kind Which flatters, but is flattery convey'd

In such a sort as cannot leave behind A trace unworthy either wife or maid :A gentle, genial courtesy of mind, To those who were, or pass'd for, meritorious, Just to console sad glory for being glorious;

XXXIII.

Which is in all respects, save now and then,
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze
Upon the shades of those distinguish'd men,
Who were, or are, the puppet-shows of praise,
The praise of persecution. Gaze again

On the most favour'd, and, amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd,
What can ye recognize?—a gilded cloud.

XXXIV.

There also was, of course, in Adeline,

That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line Of anything which nature would express; Just as a mandarin finds nothing fine,—

At least his manner suffers not to guess, That anything he views can greatly please. Perhaps we have borrow'd this from the Chinese,

XXXV.

Perhaps from Horace his Nil admirari'
Was what he call'd the 'Art of Happiness;'
An art on which the artists greatly vary,
And have not yet attain'd to much success:
However, 'tis expedient to be wary :

Indifference, certes, don't produce distress;
And rash enthusiasm, in good society,
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.

XXXVI.

But Adeline was not indifferent; for

(Now for a commonplace!) beneath the snow,