L.

A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine,
All private favourites of Don Juan; (1)—for
(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)
He had a kind of inclination, or

Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin,
Live animals: an old maid of threescore
For cats and birds more penchant ne'er display'd,
Although he was not old, nor even a maid;—
LI.

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,
And with that gentle serious character,
As rare in living beings as a fossile

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;
He loved the infant orphan he had saved,
As patriots (now and then) may love a nation;
His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved
Owing to him;-as also her salvation

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,
She show'd a great dislike to holy water:
She also had no passion for confession;

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
In place of what her home and friends once were.
He naturally loved what he protected :
And thus they form'd a rather curious pair,

A guardian green in years, a ward connected
In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender;
And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender.

LVIII.

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,
Who march'd to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren!
To lose by one month's frost some twenty years
Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers.

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;
But Juan, season'd, as he well might be,
By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs
Which pass'd, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs.
LXV.

At length they rose, like a white wall along
The blue sea's border; and Don Juan felt-
What even young strangers feel a little strong
At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt-
A kind of pride that he should be among
Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt
Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole,

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
That casque, which never stoop'd except to Time.
Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe,
Who died in the then great attempt to climb
O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law
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 wonder'd how
He suffer'd 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

(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
Where these corps interred lie,
Understand what I shall say,
As at this time speak I may.
Such as thou art, sometime was I;
Such as I am, such shalt thou be.

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

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.
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant

On that sweet ore which every body 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! (4)

Great riches here I did possess,
Whereof I made great nobleness;
I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and
Great treasures, horses, houses, land.
But now a caitiff poor am I,
Deep in the ground, lo here I lie;
My beauty great is all quite gone,
My flesh is wasted to the bone;
And if you should see me this day,
I do not think but you would say,
That I had never been a man,
So much alter'd now I am."-L. E.

(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,
Seem at this distance but a darker cloud,

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
A half-unquench'd volcano, o'er a space
Which well beseem'd 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 butcher'd half the earth, and bullied t' other.(1)
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
Appear'd 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 bow'd, 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, (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,
When Rowland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,

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;
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 (3) is a bore,
Too dull even for the dullest of excesses,
The 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 pretences of being great,

'Tis 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 (4) in Roncesvalles' battle.

CANTO XI.

I.

WHEN Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it-'t was no matter what he said:
They say his system 'tis 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 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,
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,
Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder,
The world, which at the worst's a glorious blunder-
IV.

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;
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.

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
In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter
Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads,

Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,
In which the heedless gentleman who gads
Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,
May find himself within that isle of riches
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.
XII.

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
Differ, except in robbing with a bow,

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.