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VII.

Why call the miser miserable? as
I said before the frugal life is his,
Which in a saint or cynic ever was

The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause,

And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities? Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial;Then there's more merit in his self-denial.

VIII.

He is your only poet;-passion, pure

And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays, Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure;

On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze; While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dies Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.

IX.

The lands on either side are his: the ship
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, (1) unloads
For him the fragrant produce of each trip;
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,
And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip;

His very cellars might be kings' abodes;
While he, despising every sensual call,
Commands the intellectual lord of all.

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X.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race, (')
A hospital, a church, and leave behind

-

Some dome surmounted by his meagre face: Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind

Even with the very ore which makes them base; Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation, Or revel in the joys of calculation.

XI.

But whether all, or each, or none of these
May be the hoarder's principle of action,
The fool will call such mania a disease:

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What is his own? Go-look at each transaction, Wars, revels, loves- do these bring men more ease Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction?"

Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser! Let spendthrifts' heirs enquire of yours-who's wiser?

XII.

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins

(Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests

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Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp: Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

(1) ["Die, and endow a college, or a cat.”— POPE.]

XIII.

"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,". " for love

[bard;

Is heaven, and heaven is love:"(1)—so sings the Which it were rather difficult to prove

(A thing with poetry in general hard). Perhaps there may be something in " the grove," At least it rhymes to "love:" but I'm prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If "courts" and "camps" be quite so sentimental.

XIV.

But if Love don't, Cash does, and Cash alone :

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Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides; Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none; Without cash, Malthus tells you "take no So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own [brides." (2) High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides: And as for "Heaven being Love," why not say honey Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 'tis Matrimony.

(1)

["Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

And men below, and saints above,

And love is heaven, and heaven is love."

Lay of the Last Minstrel.]

(2) [Mr. Malthus tells us, that the way to reduce our poor-rates is to persuade the lower orders to continence; to discourage them, as much as possible, from marrying; to preach wedding-sermons to them, if they will marry, upon the immorality of breeding, - that being a luxury reserved only for those who can afford it; and if they will persist in so improper and immoral a practice, after so solemn and well-timed a warning, to leave them to the punishment of severe want, and rigidly deny all parish assistance. No public relief is to be given to the starving infant; it is worth nothing to society, for its place will be presently supplied, and society, therefore, has no further business than to hang the mother, if she should shorten the sufferings of her babe rather than see it die of want. The rich are to be called upon for no sacrifices; nothing more is required

XV.

Is not all love prohibited whatever,

Excepting marriage? which is love, no doubt, After a sort; but somehow people never [out: With the same thought the two words have help'd Love may exist with marriage, and should ever, And marriage also may exist without; But love sans bans is both a sin and shame, And ought to go by quite another name.

XVI.

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Now if the "court," and "
camp," and "
Recruited all with constant married men,
Who never coveted their neighbour's lot,
I say that line's a lapsus of the pen ;-
Strange too in my "buon camerado" Scott,
So celebrated for his morals, when
My Jeffrey held him up as an example (1)
To me;-of which these morals are a sample.

of them, than that they should harden their hearts. That we may not be suspected of exaggerating the detestable heard-heartedness of his system, we present it in his own language. SOUTHEY.]

(1) [We have no notion that Lord Byron had any mischievous intention in these publications, and readily acquit him of any wish to corrupt the morals, or impair the happiness of his readers; but it is our duty to say, that much of what he has published appears to us to have this tendency. How opposite to this is the system, or the temper, of the great author of Waverley. With all his unrivalled power of invention and judgment, of pathos and pleasantry, the tenour of his sentiments is uniformly generous, indulgent, and good humoured; and so remote from the bitterness of misanthropy, that he never indulges in sarcasm, and scarcely, in any case, carries his merriment so far as derision. But the peculiarity by which he stands most broadly and proudly distinguished from Lord Byron is, that beginning, as he frequently does, with some ludicrous or satirical theme, he never fails to raise out of it some feelings of a generous or gentle kind, and to end by exciting our tender pity, or deep respect, for those

XVII.

Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded,
And that's enough; succeeded in my youth,
The only time when much success is needed:

And my success produced what I, in sooth,
Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded-
Whate'er it was, 'twas mine; I've paid, in truth,
Of late, the penalty of such success,
But have not learn'd to wish it any less.

XVIII.

That suit in Chancery,—which some persons plead
In an appeal to the unborn, whom they,
In the faith of their procreative creed,
Baptize posterity, or future clay,-
To me seems but a dubious kind of reed
To lean on for support in any way;
Since odds are that posterity will know
No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

XIX.

Why, I'm posterity-and so are you;

And whom do we remember? Not a hundred. Were every memory written down all true,

The tenth or twentieth name would be but blunder'd;

very individuals or classes of persons who seemed at first to be brought on the stage for our mere sport and amusement; — thus making the ludicrous itself subservient to the cause of benevolence- and inculcating, at every turn, and as the true end and result of all his trials and experiments, the love of our kind, and the duty and delight of a cordial and genuine sympathy with the joys and sorrows of every condition of men. - JEFFREY, in the Edinburgh Review for 1822.]

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