CANTO VII.

When the sale of new books is not so fleet
As they who print them think is necessary,
May likewise put off for a time what story
Sometimes calls "murder," and at others "glory."
XXVII.

Whether it was their engineer's stupidity,
Their haste, or waste, I neither know nor care,
Or some contractor's personal cupidity,

Saving his soul by cheating in the ware
Of homicide, but there was no solidity

In the new batteries erected there;

They either miss'd, or they were never miss'd,
And added greatly to the missing list.

XXIX.

At seven they rose, however, and survey'd
The Russ flotilla getting under weigh;
'Twas nine, when still advancing undismay'd,
Within a cable's length their vessels lay
Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade,

Which was return'd with interest, I may say,
And by a fire of musketry and grape,
And shells and shot of every size and shape.(2)
XXX.

For six hours bore they without intermission
The Turkish fire, and, aided by their own
Land-batteries, work'd their guns with great precision:
At length they found mere cannonade alone
By no means would produce the town's submission,
And made a signal to retreat at one.
One bark blew up, a second, near the works
Running aground, was taken by the Turks.(3)
XXXI.

The Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men;
But when they saw the enemy retire,

(1) "On calcula mal la distance; le même esprit fit manquer l'effet de trois brùlots; on se pressa d'allumer la mèche, ils brulèrent au milieu du fleuve, et quoiqu'il fut six heures du matin, les Turcs, encore couchés, n'en prirent aucun ombrage." Hist. de la Nouv. Russie, t. ii. p. 203.-L. E.

(2) "ler déc. 1790. La flottille Russe s'avança vers les sept heures; il en était neuf lorsqu'elle se trouva à cinquante toises de la ville d'Ismael; elle souffrit, avec une constance calme, un feu de mitraille et de mousqueterie..." Ibid. p. 204.-L. E.

...

(3) "Près de six heures: les batteries de terre secondaient la flottille; mais on reconnut alors que les canonnades ne suffisaient pas pour réduire la place, on fit la retraite à une heure. Un lançon sauta pendant l'action, un autre dériva par la force du courant, et fut pris par les Turcs." Ibid.-L. E.

(4) "Properly madmen: a species of troops who, in the Turkish army, act as the forlorn hope."-D'Herbelot.

(5) "Les Turcs perdirent beaucoup de monde et plusieurs vaisseaux: à peine la retraite des Russes fut-elle remarquée, que les plus braves d'entre les ennemis se jetèrent dans de petites barques et essayèrent une descente: le Comte de Damas les mit en fuite, et leur tua plusieurs officiers et grand nombre de soldats." Hist. de la N. R. t. ii. p. 204.-L. E.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

(6) "On ne tarirait pas si on voulait rapporter tout ce que les Russes firent de mémorable dans cette journée; pour Ibid. conter les hauts faits d'armes, pour particulariser toutes les actions d'éclat, il faudrait composer des volumes." -L. E.

(7) "Parmi les étrangers, le Prince de Ligne se distingua de manière à mériter l'estime générale; de vrais chevaliers français, attirés par l'amour de la gloire, se montrèrent dignes d'elle: les plus marquants étaient le jeune Duc de Richelieu, Ibid.-L. E. les Comtes de Langeron et de Damas."

(8) Letters and Reflections of the Austrian Field-Marshal, Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne, edited by the Baroness de Staël-Holstein. 2 vols. 1899.-L. E.

(9) Charles Joseph, Comte de Ligne, was born at Brussels. Being, in 1782, sent by the Emperor Joseph II. on a mission to Catherine, he became a great favourite with her. She appointed him field marshal, and gave him an estate in the Crimea. In 1788, he was sent to assist Potemkin at the He died in 1814.-L. E. siege of Oczakoff.

(10) "L'Amiral Ribas déclara, en. plein conseil, que ce n'était qu'en donnant l'assaut qu'on obtiendrait la place: cet avis parut hardi; on lui opposa mille raisons, auxquelles il répondit par de meilleures." Hist. de la N. R. t. ii. p. 205. -L. E.

Of feeling for however habit sears

Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade
Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow
Will touch even heroes-and such was Suwarrow.
LXX.

He said, and in the kindest Calmuck tone,-
"Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean
By bringing women here? They shall be shown
All the attention possible, and seen

In safety to the waggons, where alone

In fact they can be safe. You should have been Aware this kind of baggage never thrives: Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives."

LXXI.

"May it please your excellency," thus replied

Our British friend, "these are the wives of others, And not our own. I am too qualified

By service with my military brothers

To break the rules by bringing one's own bride
Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers
The hearts of the heroic on a charge,
As leaving a small family at large.

LXXII.

"But these are but two Turkish ladies, who With their attendant aided our escape, And afterwards accompanied us through

A thousand perils in this dubious shape. To me this kind of life is not so new;

To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape: I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely, Request that they may both be used genteelly." LXXIII.

Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,
Look'd on, as if in doubt if they could trust
Their own protectors; nor was their surprise
Less than their grief (and truly not less just)
To see an old man, rather wild than wise

In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust,
Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,
More fear'd than all the sultans ever seen.
LXXIV.

For every thing seem'd resting on his nod,

As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god,

To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad

(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,)
With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt
How power could condescend to do without.
LXXV.

John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay,
Though little versed in feelings oriental,
Suggested some slight comfort in his way:

Don Juan, who was much more sentimental,
Swore they should see him by the dawn of day,
Or that the Russian army should repent all:
And, strange to say, they found some consolation
In this for females like exaggeration.

LXXVI.

And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses, They parted for the present-these to await, According to the artillery's hits or misses,

What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate

(Uncertainty is one of many blisses,

A mortgage on Humanity's estate)While their beloved friends began to arm, To burn a town which never did them harm. LXXVII. Suwarrow, who but saw things in the gross, Being much too gross to see them in detail, Who calculated life as so much dross,

And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail, And cared as little for his army's loss

(So that their efforts should at length prevail) As wife and friends did for the boils of Job, What was 't to him to hear two women sob?

Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now

To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain, With deadlier engines and a speedier blow,

Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign; And yet, like all men else, I must allow,

To vie with thee would be about as vain As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood; But still we moderns equal you in blood; LXXXI.

If not in poetry, at least in fact;

And fact is truth, the grand desideratum! Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act, There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum. But now the town is going to be attack'd;

Great deeds are doing-how shall I relate 'em? Souls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches To colour up his rays from your despatches.

LXXXII.

Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!

Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wounded! Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty, When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded! Oh, Cæsar's Commentaries! now impart, ye

Shadows of glory! lest I be (confounded)

A portion of your fading twilight hues,
So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse.

LXXXIII.

When I call "fading" martial immortality,
I mean, that every age and every year,
And almost every day, in sad reality,
Some sucking hero is compell'd to rear,

XXXVI.

There was a man, if that he was a man,-
Not that his manhood could be call'd in question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span

Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted,
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.

XXXVII.

This was Potemkin (1)—a great thing in days
When homicide and harlotry made great;
If stars and titles could entail long praise,
His glory might half equal his estate.
This fellow, being six foot high, could raise
A kind of fantasy proportionate

In the then sovereign of the Russian people,
Who measured men as you would do a steeple.

XXXVIII.

While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent
A courier to the prince, and he succeeded
In ordering matters after his own bent;

I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,
But shortly he had cause to be content.

In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,
And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border
Were briskly fired and answer'd in due order.(2)
XXXIX.

But on the thirteenth, when already part
Of the troops were embark'd, the siege to raise,
A courier on the spur inspired new heart
Into all panters for newspaper praise,

As well as dilettanti in war's art,

By his despatches couch'd in pithy phrase; Announcing the appointment of that lover of Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff (3)

XL.

The letter of the prince to the same marshal
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause
Been one to which a good heart could be partial-
Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;

(1) The following character of Prince Potemkin is from the pen of Count Ségur, who lived in habits of intimacy with him:-"In his person were collected the most opposite defects and advantages of every kind. He was avaricious and ostentatious, despotic and obliging, politic and confiding, licentious and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and indiscreet; lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and his favourites, yet frequently paying neither his household nor his creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, and he was always unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the activity of his mind, nor the indolence of his body. No dangers could appal his courage; no difficulties force him to abandon his projects. But the success of an enterprise always brought on disgust. Every thing with him was desultory; business, pleasure, temper, courage. His presence was a restraint on every company. He was morose to all that stood in awe of him, and caressed all such as accosted him with familiarity. None had read less than he; few people were better informed. One while he formed the project of becoming Duke of Courland; at another he thought of bestowing on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave intimation of an intention to make himself a bishop, or even a simple monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it was finished. In his youth be had pleased Catherine by the ardour of his passion, by his valour, and by his masculine beauty. Become the rival of Orloff, he performed for his sovereign whatever the most romantic passion could inspire.

But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all
With his proud brow, it merits slight applause,
Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,
"You will take Ismail at whatever price." (4)

XLI.

"Let there be light! said God, and there was light!" "Let there be blood!" says man, and there's a sea! The fiat of this spoil'd child of the Night

(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree More evil in one hour, than thirty bright

Summers could renovate, though they should be Lovely as those which ripen'd Eden's fruit; For war cuts up not only branch, but root.

XLII.

Our friends the Turks, who with loud "Allahs" DOW
Began to signalise the Russ retreat,(5)
Were damnably mistaken; few are slow

In thinking that their enemy is beat
(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though
I never think about it in a heat),

But here, I say, the Turks were much mistaken, Who, hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their bacon:

XLIII.

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew

In sight two horsemen, who were deem'd Cossacques For some time, till they came in nearer view;

They had but little baggage at their backs,
For there were but three shirts between the two;
But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,
Till, in approaching, were at length descried,
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.(6)

XLIV.

"Great joy to London now!" says some great fool,
When London had a grand illumination,
Which to that bottle-conjuror, John Bull,

Is of all dreams the first hallucination;
So that the streets of colour'd lamps are full,

That sage (said John) surrenders at discretion
His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,
To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense.

He put out an eye, to free it from a blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to meet death in battle, and returned with glory. He died in 1791, at the age of fifty-two."-L. E.

(2) “Ce projet, remis à un autre jour, éprouva encore les plus grandes difficultés; le courage de Ribas les surmonta: il ne s'agissait que de déterminer le Prince Potiemkin; il y reussit. Tandis qu'il se démenait pour l'exécution du projet agréé, on construisait de nouvelles batteries; on comptait, le 12 décembre, quatre-vingts pièces de canon sur le bord du Danube, et cette journée se passa en vives canonnades." Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie, t. ii. p. 205.-L. E.

(3) "Mais le 13, une partie des troupes était embarquée; on allait lever le siége: un courrier arrive; ce courrier annonce, de la part du Prince, que le Maréchal Souwarow va prendre le commandement des forces réunies sous Ismael." Ibid.-L. E.

(4) "La lettre du Prince Potiemkin à Sonwarow est trèscourte; elle peint le caractère de ces deux personnages. La voici dans toute sa teneur: Vous prendrez Ismael à quel prix que ce soit!'" Ibid.-L. E.

(5) "Le courrier est témoin des cris de joie (Allahs) du Ture, qui se croyait à la fin de ses maux." Ibid. —L. E.

(6) "Le 16, on voit venir de loin deux hommes courant à toute bride: on les prit pour des Kosaks; l'un était Souwarow, et l'autre son guide, portant un paquet gros comme le poing, et renfermant le bagage du général." Ibid.-L. E.

XLV.

'Tis strange that he should farther "damn his eyes," For they are damn'd; that once al-famous oath Is to the devil now no farther prize,

Since John has lately lost the use of both. Debt he calls wealth, and taxes Paradise;

And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth, Which stares him in the face, he won't examine, Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine.

XLVI.

But to the tale;-great joy unto the camp!

To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque, O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp, Presaging a most luminous attack;

Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,

Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,

He flitted to and fro, a dancing light,
Which all who saw it follow'd, wrong or right.

XLVII.

But, certes, matters took a different face;

There was enthusiasm and much applause, The fleet and camp saluted with great grace, And all presaged good fortune to their cause. Within a cannot-shot length of the place

They drew, constructed ladders, repair'd flaws In former works, made new, prepared fascines,(1) And all kinds of benevolent machines.

XLVIII.

'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind

· Makes that of multitudes take one direction, As roll the waters to the breathing wind,

Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection; Or as a little dog will lead the blind,

Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual; Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.

XLIX.

The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought
That they were going to a marriage-feast
(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,
Since there is discord after both, at least):
There was not now a luggage-boy but sought
Danger and spoil with ardour much increased; (2)
And why? because a little-odd—old man,
Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van.

L.

But so it was; and every preparation
Was made with all alacrity: the first
Detachment of three columns took its station,
And waited but the signal's voice to burst

(1) "Les succès multipliés de Souwarow, sa bravoure à toute épreuve, la confidence que le soldat avait en lui, produisirent un enthousiasme général: une salve des batteries du camp et de la flotte célébrèrent son arrivée, et l'espoir du succès ranima les esprits. Les choses prennent le même jour une autre tournure; le camp se rapproche et s'établit à la portée du canon de la place; on prépare des fascines, on construit des échelles, on établit des batteries nouvelles." Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, t. ii. p. 206.—L. E.

(2) "L'ardeur de Souwarow, son incroyable activité, son mépris des dangers, sa presque certitude de réussir, son àme enfin s'est communiquée à l'armée; il n'est pas jusqu'au dernier goujat qni ne désire d'obtenir l'honneur de monter à l'assaut."-L. E.

(3) "La première attaque était composée de trois colonnes

Upon the foe: the second's ordination

Was also in three columns, with a thirst
For glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter:
The third, in columns two, attack'd by water. (3)
LI.

New batteries were erected, and was held
A general council, in which unanimity,
That stranger to most councils, here prevail'd, (4)
As sometimes happens in a great extremity;
And every difficulty being dispell'd,

Glory began to dawn with due sublimity,
While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,
Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet. (5)

LII.

It is an actual fact that he, commander-
In-chief, in proper person deign'd to drill
The awkward squad, and could afford to squander
His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil;
Just as you'd break a sucking salamander

To swallow flame, and never take it ill:
He show'd them how to mount a ladder (which
Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch. (6)
LIII.

Also he dress'd up, for the nonce, fascines

Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks, And made them charge with bayonet these machines, By way of lesson against actual Turks; (7) And when well practised in these mimic scenes, He judged them proper to assail the works; At which your wise men sneer'd, in phrases witty: He made no answer; but he took the city.

LIV.

Most things were in this posture on the eve
Of the assault, and all the camp was in
A stern repose; which you would scarce conceive:
Yet men resolved to dash through thick and thin
Are very silent when they once believe

That all is settled:-there was little din,
For some were thinking of their home and friends,
And others of themselves and latter ends.

LV.

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,

Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering; For the man was, we safely may assert,

A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering; Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt,

Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering; Now Mars, now Momus; and, when bent to storm A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.

... trois autres colonnes, destinées à la seconde attaq: e. avaient pour chefs, etc.... la troisième attaque par eau n'a vait que deux colonnes." Ibid. p. 207.-L. E.

(4) "On construisit de nouvelles batteries le 18. On tint un conseil de guerre, en y examina les plans pour l'assaut, ils réunirent tous les suffrages." Ibid. p. 208.-L. E. (5) Fact: Suwaroff did this in person.

(6) "Le 19 et le 20. Souwarow exerça les soldats; il leur montra comment il fallait s'y prendre pour escalader; il en seigna aux recrues la manière de donner le coup de baion nette." Hist. de la N. R. t. ii. p. 208.-L. E.

(7) "Pour ces exercices d'un nouveau genre, il se servit de fascines disposées de manière à représenter un Turc." Ibid.-L. E.