Chapter VI: Canto THE FIRST: 14 (2)

Under the bed they searched, and there they found--
No matter what--it was not that they sought;
They opened windows, gazing if the ground
Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;
And then they stared each others' faces round:
'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought,
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
Of looking _in_ the bed as well as under.

CXLV.

During this inquisition Julia's tongue[ad]
Was not asleep--"Yes, search and search," she cried,
"Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffered long
A husband like Alfonso at my side;
But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain,
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.

CXLVI.

"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,
If ever you indeed deserved the name,
Is 't worthy of your years?--you have threescore--
Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same--
Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore
For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?
Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,
How dare you think your lady would go on so?

CXLVII.

"Is it for this I have disdained to hold
The common privileges of my sex?
That I have chosen a confessor so old
And deaf, that any other it would vex,
And never once he has had cause to scold,
But found my very innocence perplex
So much, he always doubted I was married--
How sorry you will be when I've miscarried!

CXLVIII.

"Was it for this that no Cortejo[74] e'er
I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,
Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel?
Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were,
I favoured none--nay, was almost uncivil?
Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly,
Who took Algiers,[75] declares I used him vilely?

CXLIX.

"Did not the Italian _Musico_ Cazzani
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?
Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,[76]
Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?
Were there not also Russians, English, many?
The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,
And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,
Who killed himself for love (with wine) last year.

CL.

"Have I not had two bishops at my feet?
The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez;
And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?
I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:
I praise your vast forbearance not to beat
Me also, since the time so opportune is--
Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger,
Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?

CLI.

"Was it for this you took your sudden journey,
Under pretence of business indispensable
With that sublime of rascals your attorney,
Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible
Of having played the fool? though both I spurn, he
Deserves the worst, his conduct's less defensible,
Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee,
And not from any love to you nor me.

CLII.

"If he comes here to take a deposition,
By all means let the gentleman proceed;
You've made the apartment in a fit condition:--
There's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need--
Let everything be noted with precision,
I would not you for nothing should be fee'd--
But, as my maid's undressed, pray turn your spies out."
"Oh!" sobbed Antonia, "I could tear their eyes out."

CLIII.

"There is the closet, there the toilet, there
The antechamber--search them under, over;
There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,
The chimney--which would really hold a lover.[ae]
I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care
And make no further noise, till you discover
The secret cavern of this lurking treasure--
And when 't is found, let me, too, have that pleasure.

CLIV.

"And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown
Doubt upon me, confusion over all,
Pray have the courtesy to make it known
_Who_ is the man you search for? how d' ye call
Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown--
I hope he's young and handsome--is he tall?
Tell me--and be assured, that since you stain
My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.

CLV.

"At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,
At that age he would be too old for slaughter,
Or for so young a husband's jealous fears--
(Antonia! let me have a glass of water.)
I am ashamed of having shed these tears,
They are unworthy of my father's daughter;
My mother dreamed not in my natal hour,
That I should fall into a monster's power.

CLVI.

"Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous,
You saw that she was sleeping by my side,
When you broke in upon us with your fellows:
Look where you please--we've nothing, sir, to hide;
Only another time, I trust, you'll tell us,
Or for the sake of decency abide
A moment at the door, that we may be
Dressed to receive so much good company.

CLVII.

"And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;
The little I have said may serve to show
The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er[af]
The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:--
I leave you to your conscience as before,
'T will one day ask you _why_ you used me so?
God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief!--
Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?"

CLVIII.

She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all;--her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.

CLIX.

The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
Antonia bustled round the ransacked room,
And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom
Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
Knowing they must be settled by the laws.

CLX.

With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,
Following Antonia's motions here and there,
With much suspicion in his attitude;
For reputations he had little care;
So that a suit or action were made good,
Small pity had he for the young and fair,
And ne'er believed in negatives, till these
Were proved by competent false witnesses.

CLXI.

But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,
And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;
When, after searching in five hundred nooks,
And treating a young wife with so much rigour,
He gained no point, except some self-rebukes,
Added to those his lady with such vigour
Had poured upon him for the last half-hour,
Quick, thick, and heavy--as a thunder-shower.

CLXII.

At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs,
And indications of hysterics, whose
Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,
Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:
Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;[77]
He saw too, in perspective, her relations,
And then he tried to muster all his patience.

CLXIII.

He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,
But sage Antonia cut him short before
The anvil of his speech received the hammer,
With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,
Or madam dies."--Alfonso muttered, "D--n her,"[78]
But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.

CLXIV.

With him retired his _"posse comitatus,"_
The attorney last, who lingered near the door
Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
Antonia let him--not a little sore
At this most strange and unexplained "_hiatus_"
In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore
An awkward look; as he revolved the case,
The door was fastened in his legal face.

CLXV.

No sooner was it bolted, than--Oh Shame!
Oh Sin! Oh Sorrow! and Oh Womankind!
How can you do such things and keep your fame,
Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?
Nothing so dear as an unfilched good name!
But to proceed--for there is more behind:
With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,
Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, from the bed.

CLXVI.

He had been hid--I don't pretend to say
How, nor can I indeed describe the where--
Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay,
No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
But pity him I neither must nor may
His suffocation by that pretty pair;
'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut
With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.[ag]

CLXVII.

And, secondly, I pity not, because
He had no business to commit a sin,
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws;--
At least 't was rather early to begin,
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the Devil.[ah]

CLXVIII.

Of his position I can give no notion:
'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,
How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,
Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,
When old King David's blood grew dull in motion,
And that the medicine answered very well;
Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,
For David lived, but Juan nearly died.

CLXIX.

What's to be done? Alfonso will be back
The moment he has sent his fools away.
Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,
But no device could be brought into play--
And how to parry the renewed attack?
Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:
Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,
But pressed her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.

CLXX.

He turned his lip to hers, and with his hand
Called back the tangles of her wandering hair;
Even then their love they could not all command,
And half forgot their danger and despair:
Antonia's patience now was at a stand--
"Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there,"
She whispered, in great wrath--"I must deposit
This pretty gentleman within the closet:

CLXXI.

"Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night--
_Who_ can have put my master in this mood?
What will become on 't--I'm in such a fright,
The Devil's in the urchin, and no good--
Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?
Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?
You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,
My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.

CLXXII.

"Had it but been for a stout cavalier[79]
Of twenty-five or thirty--(come, make haste)
But for a child, what piece of work is here!
I really, madam, wonder at your taste--
(Come, sir, get in)--my master must be near:
There, for the present, at the least, he's fast,
And if we can but till the morning keep
Our counsel--(Juan, mind, you must not sleep.)"

CLXXIII.

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,
Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
She loitered, and he told her to be gone,
An order somewhat sullenly obeyed;
However, present remedy was none,
And no great good seemed answered if she staid:
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
She snuffed the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

CLXXIV.

Alfonso paused a minute--then begun
Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;
He would not justify what he had done,
To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;
But there were ample reasons for it, none
Of which he specified in this his pleading:
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learned call "_rigmarole._"

CLXXV.

Julia said nought; though all the while there rose
A ready answer, which at once enables
A matron, who her husband's foible knows,
By a few timely words to turn the tables,
Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,--
Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;
'T is to retort with firmness, and when he
Suspects with _one_, do you reproach with _three_.

CLXXVI.

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,--
Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known;
But whether 't was that one's own guilt confounds--
But that can't be, as has been often shown,
A lady with apologies abounds;--
It might be that her silence sprang alone
From delicacy to Don Juan's ear,
To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.

CLXXVII.

There might be one more motive, which makes two;
Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded,--
Mentioned his jealousy, but never who
Had been the happy lover, he concluded,
Concealed amongst his premises; 't is true,
His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded;
To speak of Inez now were, one may say,
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.

CLXXVIII.

A hint, in tender cases, is enough;
Silence is best: besides, there is a _tact_[80]--
(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,
But it will serve to keep my verse compact)--
Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough,
A lady always distant from the fact:
The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
There's nothing so becoming to the face.

CLXXIX.

They blush, and we believe them; at least I
Have always done so; 't is of no great use,
In any case, attempting a reply,
For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;
And when at length they're out of breath, they sigh,
And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose
A tear or two, and then we make it up;
And then--and then--and then--sit down and sup.

CLXXX.

Alfonso closed his speech, and begged her pardon,
Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,
And laid conditions he thought very hard on,
Denying several little things he wanted:
He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,
With useless penitence perplexed and haunted;[ai]
Beseeching she no further would refuse,
When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.

CLXXXI.

A pair of shoes![81]--what then? not much, if they
Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these
(No one can tell how much I grieve to say)
Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,
Was but a moment's act.--Ah! well-a-day!
My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze!
Alfonso first examined well their fashion,
And then flew out into another passion.

CLXXXII.

He left the room for his relinquished sword,
And Julia instant to the closet flew.
"Fly, Juan, fly! for Heaven's sake--not a word--
The door is open--you may yet slip through
The passage you so often have explored--
Here is the garden-key--Fly--fly--Adieu!
Haste--haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet--
Day has not broke--there's no one in the street."

CLXXXIII.

None can say that this was not good advice,
The only mischief was, it came too late;
Of all experience 't is the usual price,
A sort of income-tax laid on by fate:
Juan had reached the room-door in a trice,
And might have done so by the garden-gate,
But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,
Who threatened death--so Juan knocked him down.

CLXXXIV.

Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;
Antonia cried out "Rape!" and Julia "Fire!"
But not a servant stirred to aid the fight.
Alfonso, pommelled to his heart's desire,
Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night;
And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;
His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,
And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.

CLXXXV.

Alfonso's sword had dropped ere he could draw it,
And they continued battling hand to hand,
For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it;
His temper not being under great command,
If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,
Alfonso's days had not been in the land
Much longer.--Think of husbands', lovers' lives!
And how ye may be doubly widows--wives!

CLXXXVI.

Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,
And Juan throttled him to get away,
And blood ('t was from the nose) began to flow;
At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,
Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,
And then his only garment quite gave way;
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,
I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.

CLXXXVII.

Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found
An awkward spectacle their eyes before;
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swooned,
Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;
Some half-torn drapery scattered on the ground,
Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:
Juan the gate gained, turned the key about,
And liking not the inside, locked the out.

CLXXXVIII.

Here ends this canto.--Need I sing, or say,
How Juan, naked, favoured by the night,
Who favours what she should not, found his way,[aj]
And reached his home in an unseemly plight?
The pleasant scandal which arose next day,
The nine days' wonder which was brought to light,
And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,
Were in the English newspapers, of course.

CLXXXIX.

If you would like to see the whole proceedings,
The depositions, and the Cause at full,
The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings
Of Counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,
There's more than one edition, and the readings
Are various, but they none of them are dull:
The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,[82]
Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.[83]

CXC.

But Donna Inez, to divert the train
Of one of the most circulating scandals
That had for centuries been known in Spain,
At least since the retirement of the Vandals,
First vowed (and never had she vowed in vain)
To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;
And then, by the advice of some old ladies,
She sent her son to be shipped off from Cadiz.

CXCI.

She had resolved that he should travel through
All European climes, by land or sea,
To mend his former morals, and get new,
Especially in France and Italy--
(At least this is the thing most people do.)
Julia was sent into a convent--she
Grieved--but, perhaps, her feelings may be better[ak]
Shown in the following copy of her Letter:--

CXCII.

"They tell me 't is decided you depart:
'T is wise--'t is well, but not the less a pain;
I have no further claim on your young heart,
Mine is the victim, and would be again:
To love too much has been the only art
I used;--I write in haste, and if a stain
Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;
My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.

CXCIII.

"I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
State, station, Heaven, Mankind's, my own esteem,
And yet can not regret what it hath cost,
So dear is still the memory of that dream;
Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast,
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:
I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest--
I've nothing to reproach, or to request.

CXCIV.

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,[al]
'T is a Woman's whole existence; Man may range
The Court, Camp, Church, the Vessel, and the Mart;
Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory, offer in exchange
Pride, Fame, Ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these can not estrange;
Men have all these resources, We but one,[84]
To love again, and be again undone."[am]

CXCV.

"You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,[an]
Beloved and loving many; all is o'er
For me on earth, except some years to hide
My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core:
These I could bear, but cannot cast aside
The passion which still rages as before,--
And so farewell--forgive me, love me--No,
That word is idle now--but let it go.[ao]

CXCVI.

"My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;
But still I think I can collect my mind;[ap]
My blood still rushes where my spirit's set,
As roll the waves before the settled wind;
My heart is feminine, nor can forget--
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.[aq]

CXCVII.

"I have no more to say, but linger still,
And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,
And yet I may as well the task fulfil,
My misery can scarce be more complete;
I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;
Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet,
And I must even survive this last adieu,
And bear with life, to love and pray for you!"

CXCVIII.

This note was written upon gilt-edged paper
With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new;[ar]
Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper,
It trembled as magnetic needles do,
And yet she did not let one tear escape her;
The seal a sun-flower; _"Elle vous suit partout,"_[85]
The motto cut upon a white cornelian;
The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.

CXCIX.

This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but whether
I shall proceed with his adventures is
Dependent on the public altogether;
We'll see, however, what they say to this:
Their favour in an author's cap's a feather,
And no great mischief's done by their caprice;
And if their approbation we experience,
Perhaps they'll have some more about a year hence.

CC.

My poem's epic, and is meant to be
Divided in twelve books; each book containing,
With Love, and War, a heavy gale at sea,
A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,
New characters; the episodes are three:[as]
A panoramic view of Hell's in training,
After the style of Virgil and of Homer,
So that my name of Epic's no misnomer.

CCI.

All these things will be specified in time,
With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,
The _Vade Mecum_ of the true sublime,
Which makes so many poets, and some fools:
Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme,
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I've got new mythological machinery,
And very handsome supernatural scenery.

CCII.

There's only one slight difference between
Me and my epic brethren gone before,
And here the advantage is my own, I ween
(Not that I have not several merits more,
But this will more peculiarly be seen);
They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore
Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,
Whereas this story's actually true.

CCIII.

If any person doubt it, I appeal
To History, Tradition, and to Facts,
To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,
To plays in five, and operas in three acts;[at]
All these confirm my statement a good deal,
But that which more completely faith exacts
Is, that myself, and several now in Seville,
_Saw_ Juan's last elopement with the Devil.

CCIV.

If ever I should condescend to prose,
I'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a Bottle,[au]
Or, Every Poet his _own_ Aristotle."

CCV.

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk,[86] the third so quaint and mouthy:
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,
And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:
Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor
Commit--flirtation with the muse of Moore.

CCVI.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,
His Pegasus, nor anything that's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"--
(There's _one_, at least, is very fond of this);
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
This is true criticism, and you may kiss--
Exactly as you please, or not,--the rod;
But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G--d!

CCVII.

If any person should presume to assert
This story is not moral, first, I pray,
That they will not cry out before they're hurt,
Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)
That this is not a moral tale, though gay:
Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show
The very place where wicked people go.

CCVIII.

If, after all, there should be some so blind
To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind,
Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they "the moral cannot find,"
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark, or critics, make,
They also lie too--under a mistake.

CCIX.

The public approbation I expect,
And beg they'll take my word about the moral,
Which I with their amusement will connect
(So children cutting teeth receive a coral);
Meantime they'll doubtless please to recollect
My epical pretensions to the laurel:
For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I've bribed my Grandmother's Review--the British.[87]

CCX.

I sent it in a letter to the Editor,
Who thanked me duly by return of post--
I'm for a handsome article his creditor;
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,
And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is--that he had the money.

CCXI.

I think that with this holy _new_ alliance
I may ensure the public, and defy
All other magazines of art or science,
Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I
Have not essayed to multiply their clients,
Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,
And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.

CCXII.

"_Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventâ
Consule Planco_"[88] Horace said, and so
Say I; by which quotation there is meant a
Hint that some six or seven good years ago
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)
I was most ready to return a blow,
And would not brook at all this sort of thing
In my hot youth--when George the Third was King.

CCXIII.

But now at thirty years my hair is grey--
(I wonder what it will be like at forty?
I thought of a peruke the other day--)[av]
My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
Have squandered my whole summer while 't was May,
And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
Have spent my life, both interest and principal,
And deem not, what I deemed--my soul invincible.

CCXIV.

No more--no more--Oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
Hived[89] in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee.
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.

CCXV.

No more--no more--Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once all in all, but now a thing apart,
Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,
And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment,
Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.

CCXVI.

My days of love are over; me no more[90]
The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before,--
In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.

CCXVII.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, I've spoken,
"Time is, Time was, Time's past:"[91]--a chymic treasure
Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes--
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

CCXVIII.

What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;[92]
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.[aw][93]

CCXIX.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first Pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.[94]

CCXX.

But I, being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, "Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again--'t would pass--
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse."

CCXXI.

But for the present, gentle reader! and
Still gentler purchaser! the Bard--that's I--
Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,[ax]
And so--"your humble servant, and Good-bye!"
We meet again, if we should understand
Each other; and if not, I shall not try
Your patience further than by this short sample--
'T were well if others followed my example.

CCXXII.

"Go, little Book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters--go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The World will find thee after many days."[95]
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can't help putting in my claim to praise--
The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.

Nov. 1, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

{11}[14] [Begun at Venice, September 6; finished November 1, 1818.]

[15] [The pantomime which Byron and his readers "all had seen," was an abbreviated and bowdlerized version of Shadwell's _Libertine_. "First produced by Mr. Garrick on the boards of Drury Lane Theatre," it was recomposed by Charles Anthony Delpini, and performed at the Royalty Theatre, in Goodman's Fields, in 1787. It was entitled _Don Juan; or, The Libertine Destroyed_: A Tragic Pantomimical Entertainment, In Two Acts. Music Composed by Mr. Gluck. "Scaramouch," the "Sganarelle" of Molière's _Festin de Pierre_, was a favourite character of Joseph Grimaldi. He was cast for the part, in 1801, at Sadler's Wells, and, again, on a memorable occasion, November 28, 1809, at Covent Garden Theatre, when the O.P. riots were in full swing, and (see the _Morning Chronicle_, November 29, 1809) "there was considerable tumult in the pit." According to "Boz" (_Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi_, 1846, ii. 81, 106, 107), Byron patronized Grimaldi's "benefits at Covent Garden," was repeatedly in his company, and when he left England, in 1816, "presented him with a valuable silver snuff-box." At the end of the pantomime "the Furies gather round him [Don Juan], and the Tyrant being bound in chains is hurried away and thrown into flames." The Devil is conspicuous by his absence.]

{12}[16] [Edward Vernon, Admiral (1684-1757), took Porto Bello in 1739.

William Augustus, second son of George II. (1721-1765), fought at the battles of Dettingen, 1743; Fontenoy, 1745; and at Culloden, 1746. For the "severity of the Duke of Cumberland," see Scott's _Tales of a Grandfather_, _Prose Works_, 1830, vii. 852, _sq_.

James Wolfe, General, born January 2, 1726, was killed at the siege of Quebec, September 13, 1759.

Edward, Lord Hawke, Admiral (1715-1781), totally defeated the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759.

Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1721-1792), gained the victory at Minden, August 1, 1759.

John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721-1790), commanded the British forces in Germany (1766-1769).

John Burgoyne, General, defeated the Americans at Germantown, October 3, 1777, but surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, October 17, 1778. He died in 1792.

Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral (1725-1786), was tried by court-martial, January-February, 1779, for allowing the French fleet off Ushant to escape, July, 1778. He was honourably acquitted.

Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral (1725-1799), known by the sailors as "Black Dick," defeated the French off Ushant, June 1, 1794.]

[17] [Compare _Macbeth_, act iv. sc. i, line 65.]

[18] ["In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Hazlitt's canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution (_The English Poets_, 1870, pp. 203, 204), I am accused of having 'lauded Buonaparte to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreaking my disappointment on the god of my idolatry.' The first lines I ever wrote upon Buonaparte were the 'Ode to Napoleon,' after his abdication in 1814. All that I have ever written on that subject has been done since his decline;--I never 'met him in the hour of his success.' I have considered his character at different periods, in its strength and in its weakness: by his zealots I am accused of injustice--by his enemies as his warmest partisan, in many publications, both English and foreign.

"For the accuracy of my delineation I have high authority. A year and some months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing at Venice my friend the honourable Douglas Kinnaird. In his way through Germany, he told me that he had been honoured with a presentation to, and some interviews with, one of the nearest family connections of Napoleon (Eugène Beauharnais). During one of these, he read and translated the lines alluding to Buonaparte, in the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_. He informed me, that he was authorized by the illustrious personage--(still recognized as such by the Legitimacy in Europe)--to whom they were read, to say, _that 'the delineation was complete,'_ or words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact;--but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt that I never flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are the incredible antitheses of his character.

"Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating _myself_ in _Childe Harold_, etc., etc. I have denied this long ago--but, even were it true, Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of human understanding was derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by imputing the basest of crimes,--viz. 'praising publicly the same man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity:'--the _first_ lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,--the _last_, though not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more fortunate since 1814?" For Byron's various estimates of Napoleon's character and career, see _Childe Harold_, Canto III, stanza xxxvi. line 7, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 238, note 1.]

{13}[19] [Charles François Duperier Dumouriez (1739-1823) defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, November 6, 1792, etc. He published his _Mémoires_ (Hamburg et Leipsic), 1794. For the spelling, see _Memoirs of General Dumourier_, written by himself, translated by John Fenwick. London, 1794. See, too, _Lettre de Joseph Servan_, Ex-ministre de la Guerre, _Sur le mémoire lu par M. Dumourier le 13 Juin à l'Assemblée Nationale; Bibiothèque Historique de la Révolution_, "Justifications," 7, 8, 9.]

[20] [Antoine Pierre Joseph Barnave, born 1761, was appointed President of the Constituent Assembly in 1790. He was guillotined November 30, 1793.

Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville, philosopher and politician, born January 14, 1754, was one of the principal instigators of the revolt of the Champ de Mars, July, 1789. He was guillotined October 31, 1793.

Marie Jean Antoine, Marquis de Condorcet, born September 17, 1743, was appointed President of the Legislative Assembly in 1792. Proscribed by the Girondins, he poisoned himself to escape the guillotine, March 28, 1794.

Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, born March 9, 1749, died April 2, 1791.

Jérôme Petion de Villeneuve, born 1753, Mayor of Paris in 1791, took an active part in the imprisonment of the king. In 1793 he fell under Robespierre's displeasure, and to escape proscription took refuge in the department of Calvados. In 1794 his body was found in a field, half eaten by wolves.

Jean Baptiste, Baron de Clootz (better known as Anacharsis Clootz), was born in 1755. In 1790, at the bar of the National Convention, he described himself as the "Speaker of Mankind." Being suspected by Robespierre, he was condemned to death, March 24, 1794. On the scaffold he begged to be executed last, "in order to establish certain principles." (See Carlyle's _French Revolution_, 1839, iii. 315.)

Georges Jacques Danton, born October 28, 1759, helped to establish the Revolutionary Tribunal, March 10, and the Committee of Public Safety, April 6, 1793; agreed to proscription of the Girondists, June, 1793; was executed with Camille Desmoulins and others, April 5, 1794.

Jean Paul Marat, born May 24, 1744, physician and man of science, proposed and carried out the wholesale massacre of September 2-5, 1792; was denounced to, but acquitted by, the Revolutionary Tribunal, May, 1793; assassinated by Charlotte Corday, July 13, 1793.

Marie Jean Paul, Marquis de La Fayette, born September 6, 1757, died May 19, 1834.

With the exception of La Fayette, who outlived Byron by ten years, and Lord St. Vincent, all "the famous persons" mentioned in stanzas ii.-iv. had passed away long before the First Canto of _Don Juan_ was written.]

{14}[21] [Barthélemi Catherine Joubert, born April 14, 1769, distinguished himself at the engagements of Cava, Montebello, Rivoli, and in the Tyrol. He was afterwards sent to oppose Suvóroff, and was killed at Novi, August 15, 1799.

For Hoche and Marceau, _vide ante, Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 296.

Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello, born April 11, 1769, distinguished himself at Lodi, Aboukir, Acre, Austerlitz, Jena and, lastly, at Essling, where he was mortally wounded. He died May 31, 1809.

Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Voygoux, born August 27, 1768, won the victory at the Pyramids, July 21, 1798. He was mortally wounded at Marengo, June 14, 1800.

Jean Victor Moreau, born August 11, 1763, was victorious at Engen, May 3, and at Hohenlinden, December 3, 1800. He was struck by a cannon-ball at the battle of Dresden, August 27, and died September 2, 1813.]

{15}[22] [Hor., _Od._, iv. c. ix. 1. 25--
"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," etc.]

[23] [Hor., _Epist. Ad Pisones_, lines 148, 149--
"Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit--"]

[24] ["Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla."]

{16}[25] [In his reply to _Blackwood_ (No. xxix. August, 1819), Byron somewhat disingenuously rebuts the charge that _Don Juan_ contained "an elaborate satire on the character and manners of his wife." "If," he writes, "in a poem by no means ascertained to be my production there appears a disagreeable, casuistical, and by no means respectable female pedant, it is set down for my wife. Is there any resemblance? If there be, it is in those who make it--I can see none."--Letters, 1900, iv. 477. The allusions in stanzas xii.-xiv., and, again, in stanzas xxvii.-xxix., are, and must have been meant to be, unmistakable.]

[26] [Gregor von Feinagle, born? 1765, was the inventor of a system of mnemonics, "founded on the topical memory of the ancients," as described by Cicero and Quinctilian. He lectured, in 1811, at the Royal Institution and elsewhere. When Rogers was asked if he attended the lectures, he replied, "No; I wished to learn the Art of Forgetting" (_Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers_, 1856, p. 42).]

{17}[a]
_Little she spoke--but what she spoke was Attic all_,
_With words and deeds in perfect unanimity._--[MS.]

[27] [Sir Samuel Romilly, born 1757, lost his wife on the 29th of October, and committed suicide on the 2nd of November, 1818.--"But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. I have at least seen Romilly shivered, who was one of the assassins. When that felon or lunatic ... was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms--when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them [see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 324]--when he was bringing desolation ... on my household gods--did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event--a severe, domestic, but an unexpected and common calamity--would lay his carcase in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of Lunacy! Did he (who in his drivelling sexagenary dotage had not the courage to survive his Nurse--for what else was a wife to him at his time of life?)--reflect or consider what _my_ feelings must have been, when wife, and child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar,--and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment--while I was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs! But the wretch is in his grave," etc.-Letter to Murray, June 7, 1819, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 316.]

[28] [Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) published _Castle Rackrent_, etc., etc., etc., in 1800. "In 1813," says Byron, "I recollect to have met them [the Edgeworths] in the fashionable world of London.... She was a nice little unassuming 'Jeannie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch say; and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking" (_Diary_, January 19, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 177-179).]

[29] [Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) published, in 1782, _Easy Introduction to the Study of Nature_; _History of the Robins_ (dedicated to the Princess Sophia) in 1786, etc.]

[30] [Hannah More (1745-1833) published _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_ in 1809.]

[31] [Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, Canto II, line 17.]

{19}[32] [John Harrison (1693-1776), known as "Longitude" Harrison, was the inventor of watch compensation. He received, in slowly and reluctantly paid instalments, a sum of £20,000 from the Government, for producing a chronometer which should determine the longitude within half a degree. A watch which contained his latest improvements was worn by Captain Cook during his three years' circumnavigation of the globe.]

[33] "Description des _vertus incomparables_ de l'Huile de Macassar." See the Advertisement. [_An Historical, Philosophical and Practical Essay on the Human Hair_, was published by Alexander Rowland, jun., in 1816. It was inscribed, "To her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Cobourg."]

[b] _Where all was innocence and quiet bliss_.--[MS.]

[c] _And so she seemed, in all outside formalities_.--[MS.]

[34] ["'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan."--I _Henry IV._, act ii, sc 3, lines 19, 20.]

{21}[d] _Wishing each other damned, divorced, or dead_.--[MS.]

[35] [According to Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 55), Byron "was surprised one day by a Doctor and a Lawyer almost forcing themselves at the same time into my room. I did not know," he adds, "till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent: but what should I have thought, if I had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity?" Lady Byron, in her _Remarks on Mr. Moore's Life, etc_. (_Life_, pp. 661-663), says that Dr. Baillie (_vide post_, p. 412, note 2), whom she consulted with regard to her husband's supposed insanity, "not having had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on this point." It appears, however, that another doctor, a Mr. Le Mann (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 293, note 1, 295, 299, etc.), visited Byron professionally, and reported on his condition to Lady Byron. Hence, perhaps, the mention of "druggists."]

{22}[36] ["I deem it _my duty to God_ to act as I am acting."--Letter of Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh, February 14, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 311.]

[37] ["This is so very pointed."--[?Hobhouse.] "If people make application, it is their own fault."--[B.].--[_Revise._]

[38] ["There is some doubt about this."--[H.] "What has the 'doubt' to do with the poem? it is, at least, poetically true. Why apply everything to that absurd woman? I have no reference to living characters."--[B.].--[_Revise._] Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 54) attributes the "breaking open my writing-desk" to Mrs. Charlment (i.e. Mrs. Clermont) the original of "A Sketch," _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 540-544. It is evident from Byron's reply to Hobhouse's remonstrance that Medwin did not invent this incident, but that some one, perhaps Fletcher's wife, had told him that his papers had been overhauled.]

{23}[e] _First their friends tried at reconciliation_.--[MS.]

[f] _The lawyers recommended a divorce_.--[MS.]

{24}[g]
/ besides was \
_He had been ill brought up, < > bilious_.
\ besides being /

or, _The reason was, perhaps, that he was bilious_.--[MS.]

[h]
/ now but \
_And we may own--since he is < > earth_.--[MS.]
\ laid in /

[39] ["I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl,--any thing but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me.... Do you suppose I have forgotten it? It has, comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold opportunity offers."--Letter to Moore, September 19, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv, 262, 263. Compare, too--

"I had one only fount of quiet left,
And _that_ they poisoned! My pure household gods
Were shivered on my hearth, and o'er their shrine
Sate grinning Ribaldry and sneering Scorn."

_Marino Faliero_, act iii. sc. II, lines 361-364.]

{25}[i]
/ litigation--\
_Save death or < > so he died_.--[MS.]
\ banishment--/

{26}[40] [Compare Leigh Hunt on the illustrations to Andrew Tooke's _Pantheon_: "I see before me, as vividly now as ever, his Mars and Apollo ... and Venus very handsome, we thought, and not looking too modest in a 'light cymar.'"--_Autobiography_, 1860, p. 75.]

[j] _Defending still their Iliads and Odysseys_.--[MS.]

[41] See Longinus, Section 10, "Ἵνα μὴ ἕν τι περὶ αὐτὴν πάθος φαίνηται, παθῶν δὲ σύνοδος." [Greek: "I(/na mê\ e(/n ti peri\ au)tê\n pa/thos phai/nêtai, pathô~n de\ sy/nodos."]

["The effect desired is that not one passion only should be seen in her, but a concourse of passions" (_Longinis on the Sublime_, by W. Rhys Roberts, 1899, pp. 70, 71).

The Ode alluded to is the famous Φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν, κ.τ.λ. [Greek: Phai/netai/ moi kê~nos i)/sos theoi~sin, k.t.l.]

"Him rival to the gods I place;
Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,
Who listens and who looks on thee."

W.E. Gladstone.

"I do not think you are quite held out by the quotation. Longinus says the circumstantial assemblage of the passions makes the sublime; he does not talk of the sublime being soaring and ample."--[H.] "I do not care for this--it must stand."--[B.]--[_Marginal notes in Revise._]]

[42] [_Bucol._, Ecl. ii. "Alexis."]

{27}[k]
/ antique \ / elision \
Too much their < modest > bard by the < >--[MS.]
\ downright / \ omission /

[43] Fact! There is, or was, such an edition, with all the obnoxious epigrams of Martial placed by themselves at the end.

[In the Delphin _Martial_ (Amsterdam, 1701) the _Epigrammata Obscaena_ are printed as an Appendix (pp. 2-56), "[Ne] quiequam desideraretur a morosis quibusdam hominibus."]

{28}[44] See his _Confessions_, lib. i. cap. ix.; [lib. ii. cap. ii., _et passim_]. By the representation which Saint Augustine gives of himself in his youth, it is easy to see that he was what we should call a rake. He avoided the school as the plague; he loved nothing but gaming and public shows; he robbed his father of everything he could find; he invented a thousand lies to escape the rod, which they were obliged to make use of to punish his irregularities.

{30}[45] [Byron's early letters are full of complaints of his mother's violent temper. See, for instance, letter to the Hon. Augusta Byron, April 23, 1805. In another letter to John M.B. Pigot, August 9, 1806, he speaks of her as "Mrs. Byron '_furiosa_'" (_Letters_, 1898, i. 60, 101).]

[46] ["Having surrendered the last symbol of power, the unfortunate Boabdil continued on towards the Alpuxarras, that he might not behold the entrance of the Christians into his capital.... Having ascended an eminence commanding the last view of Granada, the Moors paused involuntarily to take a farewell gaze at their beloved city, which a few steps more would shut from their sight for ever.... The heart of Boabdil, softened by misfortunes, and overcharged with grief, could no longer contain itself. 'Allah achbar! God is great!' said he; but the words of resignation died upon his lips, and he burst into a flood of tears."--_Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada_, by Washington Irving, 1829, ii. 379-381.]

{31}[l]
/ silence! hush!_ \
_I'll tell you a secret--< >--[MS.]
\ which you'll hush_ /

{32}[m] _Spouses from twenty years of age to thirty_ / strict \ _Are most admired by women of < > virtue_.--[MS.] \ staid /

[47] For the particulars of St. Anthony's recipe for hot blood in cold weather, see Mr. Alban Butler's _Lives of the Saints_.

["I am not sure it was not St. Francis who had the wife of snow--in that case the line must run, 'St. Francis back to reason.'"--[_MS. M._]

For the seven snow-balls, of which "the greatest" was his wife, see Life of "St. Francis of Assisi" (_The Golden Legend_ (edited by F.S. Ellis), 1900, v. 221). See, too, _the Lives of the Saints, etc._, by the Rev. Alban Butler, 1838, ii. 574.]

{34}[48] [The sorceress in Tasso's _Gerusalemme Liberata_. The story of Armida and Rinaldo forms the plot of operas by Glück and Rossini.]

[49]{35} _Thinking God might not understand the case_.--[MS. M., Revise.]

{36}[50] ["Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante." Dante, _Inferno_, canto v. line 138.]

{37}[51]

["Conscienzia m'assicura,
La buona compagnia che l'uom francheggia
Sotto l'osbergo del sentirsi pura."

_Inferno_, canto xxviii, lines 115-117.]

[n] _Deemed that her thoughts no more required control_.--[MS.]

{38}[52] [See Ovid, _Metamorph_., vii. 9, sq.]

{39}[53] Campbell's _Gertrude of Wyoming_--(I think)--the opening of Canto Second [Part III. stanza i. lines 1-4]--but quote from memory.

[54] [See Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_, chap. i. (ed. 1847, i. 14, 15); and _Dejection: An Ode_, lines 86-93.]

{40}[o]
_I say this by the way--so don't look stern_.
_But if you're angry, reader, pass it by_.--[MS.]

[55] [Juan Boscan, of Barcelona (1500-1544), in concert with his friend Garcilasso, Italianized Castilian poetry. He was the author of the _Leandro_, a poem in blank verse, of canzoni, and sonnets after the model of Petrarch, and of _The Allegory_.--_History of Spanish Literature_, by George Ticknor, 1888, i. 513.]

[56] [Garcias Lasso or Garcilasso de la Vega (1503-1536), of a noble family at Toledo, was a warrior as well as a poet, "now seizing on the sword and now the pen." After serving with distinction in Germany, Africa, and Provence, he was killed at Muy, near Frejus, in 1536, by a stone, thrown from a tower, which fell on his head as he was leading on his battalion. He was the author of thirty-seven sonnets, five canzoni, and three pastorals.--_Vide ibidem_, pp. 522-535.]

{42}[p]
_A real wittol always is suspicious_,
_But always also hunts in the wrong place_.--[MS.]

{43}[q] _Change horses every hour from night till noon_.--[MS.]

[r] _Except the promises of true theology_.--[MS.]

[57]

["Oh, Susan! I've said, in the moments of mirth,
What's devotion to thee or to me?
I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth,
And believe that _that_ heaven's in _thee._"

"The Catalogue," _Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little_, 1803, p. 128.]

{44}[s]
_She stood on Guilt's steep brink, in all the sense_
_And full security of Innocence_.--[MS.]

{45}[t] _To leave these two young people then and there.--[MS.]_

{46}[58] ["Age Xerxes.. eo usque luxuria gaudens, ut edicto præmium ei proponeret, qui novum voluptatis genus reperisset."--Val. Max, _De Dictis, etc._, lib. ix. cap. 1, ext. 3.]

[59] ["You certainly will be damned for all this scene."--[H.]]

{48}[60] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii. line 2, _Poetical Works_, ii. 329, note 3.]

[u] _Our coming, nor look brightly till we come_.--[MS.]

[v] _Sweet is a lawsuit to the attorney--sweet, etc_.--[MS.]

[61] [So, too, Falstaff, _Henry IV._, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79, 80.]

{49}[w]
_Who've made us wait--God knows how long already,_
_For an entailed estate, or country-seat,_
_Wishing them not exactly damned, but dead--he_
_Knows nought of grief, who has not so been worried--_
_'T is strange old people don't like to be buried_.--[MS.]

[62] [Byron has not been forgotten at Harrow, though it is a bend of the Cam (Byron's Pool), not his favourite Duck Pool (now "Ducker") which bears his name.]

{50}[63] [The reference is to the metallic tractors of Benjamin Charles Perkins, which were advertised as a "cure for all disorders, Red Noses," etc. Compare _English Bards, etc._, lines 131, 132--

"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas."

See _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 307, note 3.]

[64] [Edward Jenner (1749-1823) made his first experiments in vaccination, May 14, 1796. Napoleon caused his soldiers to be vaccinated, and imagined that the English would be gratified by his recognition of Jenner's discovery.