Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wear-Was well received by persons of condition.

That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

it.

L.

LVII.

The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o'er sonnets, Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
And with the pages of the last review
Line the interior of their heads or bonnets,
Advanced in all their azure's highest hue:
They talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its
Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two;

And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?

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 its.

Before and after; but now, grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble
With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus has a psalmodic amble

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

LVIII.

Still he excels that artificial hard

Laborer in the same vineyard, though the vine
Yields him but vinegar for his reward,-

That neutralized dull Dorus of the Nine;
That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard;
That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line:-
Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least
The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest.-

LIX.

Then there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
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 Baotian, "Savage Landor,"
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

LX.

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'
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate:
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,5
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

LXI.

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain-or none will know
The conqueror at least; wno, 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 thirt
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty

LXII.

This is the literary lower empire,

LXIX.

Thrice happy he who, after a survey

Where the Prætorian bands take up the matter;-
A "dreadful trade," like his who "gathers sam-A
The insolent soldiery to sooth and flatter, [phire,"
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.
LXIII.

I think I know a trick or two, would turn

Their flanks :-but it is hardly worth my while
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 modest curtsy,
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.
LXIV.

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril

Among live poets and blue ladies, pass'd
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
Among the higher spirits of the day,
The sun's true son-no vapor, but a ray.

LXV.

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

Of the good company, can win a corner,
door that's in, or boudoir out of the way,
Where he may fix himself, like small "Jack
And let the Babel round run as it may, [Horner,'
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,
Or an approver, or a mere spectator,
Yawning a little as the night grows later.

LXX.

But this won't do, save by and by; and he
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,
Must steer with care through all that glittering sea
Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where
He deems it is his proper place to be;

Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill,
Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.
LXXI.

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views
Upon an heiress or his neighbor's bride,
Let him take care that that which he pursues
Is not at once too palpably descried.
Full many an eager gentleman oft rues

His haste: impatience is a blundering guide,
Amongst a people famous for reflection,
Who like to play the fool with circumspection.
LXXII.

But, if you can contrive, get next at supper;
Or, if forestall'd, get opposite and ogle.-
Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper
In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,
Which sits forever upon memory's crupper,
The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue! 11
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall

Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should. Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.

LXXIII.

But these precautionary hints can touch

Only the common run, who must pursue,
And watch, and ward; whose plans a word too much
Or little overturns; and not the few
Or many (for the number's sometimes such)
Whom a good mien, especially if new,
Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense,
Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.
LXXIV.

Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome,
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,
Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom,
Before he can escape from so much danger
As will environ a conspicuous man. Some
Talk about poetry, and "rack and manger,"
And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble ;-
I wish they knew the life of a young noble.
LXXV.

They are young, but know not youth-it is antici-
pated;

Handsome but wasted, rich without a sous; Their vigor in a thousand arms is dissipated; [Jew; Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to, a Both senates see their nightly votes participated

Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew; And, having voted, dined, drank, gamed, and The family vault receives another lord. [whored

Where is the world?" cries Young, at eighty-I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter,

"Where

The world in which a man was born?" Alas!
Where is the world of eight years past? 'Twas there-
I look for it 'tis gone, a globe of glass!
Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.
LXXVII.

Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows :
Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell:
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those

Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved
well?

Where are those martyr'd saints, the Five per Cents?
And where-oh, where the devil are the Rents?

Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider,
If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my "blue Peter,"
And sail for a new theme: I have seen-and shook
To see it-the king hiss'd, and then caress'd;
But don't pretend to settle which was best.

LXXXIV.

I have seen the landholders without a rap-
I have seen Joanna Southcote-I have seen
The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap-
I have seen that sad affair of the late queen
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap-
I have seen a Congress doing all that's mean-
I have seen some nations, like o'erloaded asses,
Kick off their burdens-meaning the high classes.

LXXXV.

But " carpe diem," Juan, " carpe, carpe!

To-morrow sees another race as gay

Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That? And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy.
The Honorable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old opera hat,

Married, unmarried, and remarried: (this is An evolution oft perform'd of late.)

Where are the Dublin shouts-and London hisses? Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were. LXXX.

"Life's a poor player "-then "play out the play, Ye villains!" and, above all, keep a sharp eye

Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be

Not what you seem, but always what you see.

LXXXVII.

But how shall I relate in other cantos
Of what befell our hero, in the land
Which 'tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;
A moral country? But I hold my hand-

Where the Lady Carolines and Franceses?
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,-
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels
Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies [nels?
Of fashion,-say what streams now fill those chan-You are not a moral people, and you know it
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent, Without the aid of too sincere a poet.
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

LXXXI.

Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes,
Have taken up at length with younger brothers;
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks: [mothers;
Some maids have been made wives-some merely
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:
In short, the list of alterations bothers.

[is

But 'tis as well at once to understand,

LXXXVIII.

What Juan saw and underwent shall be

My topic, with, of course, the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy;

And recollect the work is only fiction,
And that I sing of neither mine nor me.

Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction, Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt There's little strange in this, but something strange This-when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out The unusual quickness of these common changes.

LXXXII.

Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven

I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to The humblest individual under heaven,

Than might suffice a moderate century through. I knew that nought was lasting, but not even Change grows too changeable, without being new. Nought's permanent among the human race, Except the Whigs not getting into place.

LXXXIX.

Whether he married with the third or fourth [ess:
Offspring of some sage, husband-hunting count
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
(I mean in fortune's matrimonial bounties)
He took to regularly peopling earth,

Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is-
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages-

XC.

de unread events of time.

go forth, thou lay, which I will back
e same given quantity of rhyme,
eing as much the subject of attack

As ever yet was any work sublime,

By those who love to say that white is black.

So much the better!-I may stand alone,

VI.

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,

Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan
Is not a merely speculative hit,

But seats a nation or upsets a throne.
Republics also get involved a bit;

Colombia's stock hath holders not unknown
On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,

But would not change my free thoughts for a throne. Must get itself discounted by a Jew.

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 dyes 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, 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.

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:-
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
Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser! [fraction?"
Let spendthrift's heirs inquire 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 unclipp'd gold, where dully rests

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