LXXXVI.

Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate!
They fight for freedom who were never free;
A Kingless people for a nerveless state,

Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee,
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery:

Fond of a land which gave them nought but life,
Pride points the path that leads to Liberty;
Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife,
War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!"(!)

6.

And when, beneath the evening star,
She mingles in the gay Bolero,

Or sings to her attuned guitar

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero,
Or counts her beads with fairy hand
Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper,

Or joins devotion's choral band,

To chaunt the sweet and hallow'd vesper;

7.

In each her charms the heart must move
Of all who venture to behold her;
Then let not maids less fair reprove
Because her bosom is not colder :

Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam
Where many a soft and melting maid is,
But none abroad, and few at home,

May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz.

(1) " War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza. [In his proclamations, also, he stated, that, should the French commit any robberies, devastations, and murders, no quarter should be given them. The dogs by whom he was beset, he said, scarcely left him time to clean his sword from their blood, but they still found their grave at Saragoza. All his addresses were in the same spirit. "His language," says Mr. Southey, "had the high tone, and something of the inflation of Spanish romance, suiting the character of those to whom it was directed." See History of the Peninsular War, vol. iii. p. 152.-E.]

LXXXVII.

Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know
Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife:
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe
Can act, is acting there against man's life:
From flashing scimitar to secret knife,
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need
may he guard the sister and the wife,

So

So may he make each curst oppressor bleed So may such foes deserve the most remorseless

deed! (1)

(1) The Canto, in the original MS., closes with the following stanzas:Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,

Sights, Saints, Antiques, Arts, Anecdotes, and War,

Go! hie ye hence to Paternoster Row

Are they not written in the Book of Carr,*

Green Erin's Knight and Europe's wandering star!

Then listen, Reader, to the Man of Ink,

Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar;
All these are coop'd within one Quarto's brink,

This borrow, steal,-don't buy,- and tell us what you think.
There may you read, with spectacles on eyes,
How many Wellesleys did embark for Spain,
As if therein they meant to colonize,
How many troops y-cross'd the laughing main
That ne'er beheld the said return again :
How many buildings are in such a place,
How many leagues from this to yonder plain,
How many relics each cathedral grace,

And where Giralda stands on her gigantic base.

There may you read (Oh, Phoebus, save Sir John
That these my words prophetic may not err)

All that was said, or sung, or lost, or won,
By vaunting Wellesley or by blundering Frere,

* Porphyry said, that the prophecies of Daniel were written after their completion, and such may be my fate here; but it requires no second sight to foretell a tome: the first glimpse of the knight was enough. [We have already stated (antè, vol. vii. p. 283.), that Lord Byron had met Sir John Carr at Cadiz, and implored "not to be put down in black and white."

LXXXVIII.

Flows there a tear of pity for the dead? Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain; Look on the hands with female slaughter red; Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain, Then to the vulture let each corse remain; Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw, [stain, Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe: Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw!

LXXXIX.

Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done; Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees: It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees More than her fell Pizarros once enchain'd: Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustain'd, While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrain'd.

He that wrote half the "Needy Knife-Grindēr."*

Thus poesy the way to grandeur paves

Who would not such diplomatists prefer?

But cease, my Muse, thy speed some respite craves,

Leave Legates to their house, and armies to their graves,

Yet here of mention may be made,

Who for the Junta modell'd sapient laws,
Taught them to govern ere they were obey'd:
Certes, fit teacher to command, because

* [The " Needy Knife-grinder," in the Anti-jacobin, was a joint production of Frere and Canning.-E.]

XC.

Not all the blood at Talavera shed,

Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,
Not Albuera lavish of the dead,

Have won for Spain her well asserted right.
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?
When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,
Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil!

XCI.

And thou, my friend! (1)-since unavailing woe Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strainHad the sword laid thee with the mighty low, Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain: But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain, By all forgotten, save the lonely breast, And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest! What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest?

(1) The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month, I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction:

"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain,
And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. [This and the fol

XCII.

Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most! Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear! Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, In dreams deny me not to see thee here! And Morn in secret shall renew the tear Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose.

XCIII.

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage: Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page, If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so: Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doom'd to go: Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell'd.

lowing stanza were added in August, 1811. For an account of young Wingfield, see antè, vol. vii. p. 139. Matthews was the son of the late John Matthews, Esq. (the representative of Herefordshire in the parliament of 1802-6), and brother of the author of "The Diary of an Invalid," also untimely snatched away. — E.]