LI.

Juan, who was a little superficial,

And not in literature a great Drawcansir, Examined by this learned and especial

Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer: His duties warlike, loving or official,

His steady application as a dancer,

Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene,
Which now he found was blue instead of green.

LII.

However, he replied at hazard, with

A modest confidence and calm assurance,
Which lent his learned lucubrations pith,
And pass'd for arguments of good endurance.
That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith

(Who at sixteen translated " Hercules Furens" Into as furious English), with her best look, Set down his sayings in her common-place book.

LIII.

Juan knew several languages—as well

He might and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell

His qualities (with them) into sublime : Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Mævia Mannish, Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

LIV.

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all

The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,

At great assemblies or in parties small,
He saw ten thousand living authors pass,
That being about their average numeral;
Also the eighty" greatest living poets,"
As every paltry magazine can show it's.

LV.

In twice five years the "greatest living poet,"
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 't is an imaginary thing.

Even I-albeit I'm sure I did not know it,
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,-
Was reckon'd a considerable time,

The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

LVI.

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero

My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain: (1) "La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again: But I will fall at least as fell my hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

(1) [See antè, Vol. XV. p. 104.]

LVII.

Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after; but now grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble

With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble

Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol-by the hilts!

LVIII. (1)

Then there's my gentle Euphues; who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me ; (2)
He'll find it rather difficult some day

To turn out both, or either, it may be.

Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian" Savage Landor" (3) Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

LIX.

John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,

If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk about the gods of late,

(1) [A stanza is left blank in this place in the printed copies. Mr. Murray possesses no MS. of this Canto.]

" on

(2) [Some Reviewer had bestowed the title of "a Moral Byron Mr. Bryan Procter, author of Dramatic Sketches,' &c. &c. all published under the name of Barry Cornwall.']

(3) [See antè, Vol. XII. p. 248.]

Much as they might have been supposed to speak. (') Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;

'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, (2) Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

LX.

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain-or none will know
The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders
His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low

Their chances;-they're too numerous, like the thirty
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.

LXI.

This is the literary lower empire,

Where the prætorian bands take up the matter; A dreadful trade," like his who "gathers samphire," (3)

The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire. Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, And show them what an intellectual war is.

(1) [The Biographical Dictionary says,-" Being in delicate health, he was induced to try the climate of Italy, where he arrived in November, 1820, and died in the following December. His death has been attributed to the attacks of critics; but it was, in fact, owing to a consumptive complaint of long standing." Compare, however, antè, Vol. XV. p. 92.] (2) "Divinæ particulum auræ."

Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!"- Lear.]

LXII.

while

I think I know a trick or two, would turn
Their flanks;-but it is hardly worth my
With such small gear to give myself concern:
Indeed I've not the necessary bile ;
My natural temper's really aught but stern,

And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile; And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

LXIII.

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past
With some small profit through that field so sterile.
Being tired in time, and neither least nor last
Left it before he had been treated very ill;

And henceforth found himself more gaily class'd Amongst the higher spirits of the day,

The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.

LXIV.

His morns he pass'd in business-which dissected,
Was like all business, a laborious nothing

That leads to lassitude, the most infected
And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing, (')
And on our sofas makes us lie dejected,

And talk in tender horrors of our loathing
All kinds of toil, save for our country's good-
Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should.

(1) "Illita Nesseo tibi texta veneno."— OVID. Epist. ix.