&c. are the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen should be welcome to all who recollect on whom it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been and may be many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do they may be right or wrong- -but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox Prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!" I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this doubledealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and but enough for the present.

Pisa, July, 1822.

CANTO THE SIXTH.

"THERE is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood,"-you know the rest 2, And most of us have found it now and then;

At least we think so, though but few have guess'd The moment, till too late to come again.

But no doubt every thing is for the best Of which the surest sign is in the end: When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. II.

There is a tide in the affairs of women

Which, taken at the flood, leads-God knows where: Those navigators must be able seamen

Whose charts lay down its current to a hair;

Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen 3

With its strange whirls and eddies can compare: Men with their heads reflect on this and thatBut women with their hearts on heaven knows what!

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;
I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;
But I detest all fiction even in song,

And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong,

She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it)

Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine
Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

IX.

I am not, like Cassio," an arithmetician,"
But by "the bookish theoric " 5 it appears,
If 'tis summ'd up with feminine precision,
That, adding to the account his Highness' years,

Law, author of the "Serious Call," edited an edition of his works.]

Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was ridiculed by the Romans, who observed, that Martia entered the house of Hortensius very poor, but returned to the bed of Cato loaded with treasures.- PLUТАКСН.

5

["Forsooth, a great arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle kn

s

More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,"&c.

- Othello.1

The fair Sultana err'd from inanition;

For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly — the heart.

X.

It is observed that ladies are litigious

Upon all legal objects of possession,

And not the least so when they are religious,

Which doubles what they think of the transgression;

With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,

As the tribunals show through many a session,
When they suspect that any one goes shares
In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.
XI.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,

The heathen also, though with lesser latitude, Are apt to carry things with a high hand,

And take, what kings call" an imposing attitude;" And for their rights connubial make a stand, [tude: When their liege husbands treat them with ingratiAnd as four wives must have quadruple claims, The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.

A sincere woman's breast, -for over-warm Or over-cold annihilates the charm.

XVI.

For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 't is no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth,

Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth,

And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer At a sad discount: while your over chilly Women, on t' other hand, seem somewhat silly.

XVII.

That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,
For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,
Who fain would have a mutual flame confess'd,
And see a sentimental passion glow,
Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest,
In his monastic concubine of snow; — +
In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is
Horatian, "Medio tu tutissimus ibis."

XVIII.

We leave this royal couple co repose :

A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep,
Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes:
Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep
As any man's clay mixture undergoes.

Our least of sorrows are such as we weep;
"T is the vile daily drop on drop which wears
The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.
XXI.

A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill

To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,

A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted,

A bad old woman making a worse will,

Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain ; these are paltry things, and yet I've rarely seen the man they did not fret.

3 See Waverley.

4" The blessed Francis, being strongly solicited one day by the emotions of the flesh, pulled off his clothes and Scourged himself soundly: being after this inflamed with a wonderful fervour of mind, he plunged his naked body into a great heap of snow. The devil, being overcome, retired immediately, and the holy man returned victorious into his cell." -See BUTLER's Lives of the Saints.

XXII.

I'm a philosopher; confound them all!

Bills, beasts, and men, and—no! not womankind! With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,

And then my stoicism leaves nought behind Which it can either pain or evil call,

And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth, Is more than I know- the deuce take them both! XXIII.

So now all things are d-n'd one feels at ease,
As after reading Athanasius' curse,
Which doth your true believer so much please :
I doubt if any now could make it worse
O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,

'Tis so sententious, positive, and terse,
And decorates the book of Common Prayer,
As doth a rainbow the just clearing air.
XXIV.

Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or

At least one of them! - Oh, the heavy night,
When wicked wives, who love some bachelor,
Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light
Of the grey morning, and look vainly for

Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite-
To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake
Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake!

XXV.

These are beneath the canopy of heaven,

Also beneath the canopy of beds,
Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given

For rich men and their brides to lay their heads
Upon, in sheets white as what bards call "driven
Snow." Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds.
Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been
Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean.

XXVI.

Don Juan in his feminine disguise,

With all the damsels in their long array,
Had bow'd themselves before th' imperial eyes,
And at the usual signal ta'en their way
Back to their chambers, those long galleries
In the seraglio, where the ladies lay
Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there
Beating for love, as the caged bird's for air.
XXVII.

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse

The tyrant's wish," that mankind only had One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:" My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, And much more tender on the whole than fierce; It being (not now, but only while a lad) That womankind had but one rosy mouth, To kiss them all at once from North to South. XXVIII.

Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands

And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied In such proportion! But my Muse withstands The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,

[The bards of Queen Caroline were continually, the period of her trial, ringing the changes on the snow" of her purity.]

2 Caligula see Suetonius. "Being in a r people, for favouring a party in the Circensian position to him, he cried out, I wish the Rom but one neck.'"

Or travelling in Patagonian lands;

So let us back to Lilliput, and guide Our hero through the labyrinth of love, In which we left him several lines above. XXIX.

He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, 3
At the given signal join'd to their array;
And though he certainly ran many risks,
Yet he could not at times keep, by the way,
(Although the consequences of such frisks

Are worse than the worst damages men pay
In moral England, where the thing 's a tax,)
From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.
XXX.

Still he forgot not his disguise : — along

The galleries from room to room they walk'd, A virgin-like and edifying throng,

By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd

A dame who kept up discipline among

The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd, Without her sanction on their she-parades: Her title was "the Mother of the Maids."

XXXV.

Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer;
Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything:
Some thought her dress did not so much become her,
Or wonder'd at her ears without a ring;
Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,
Others contended they were but in spring;
Some thought her rather masculine in height,
While others wish'd that she had been so quite.

XXXVI.

But no one doubted on the whole, that she
Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,
And fresh, and "beautiful exceedingly,"

Who with the brightest Georgians 2 might compare: They wonder'd how Gulbeyaz, too, could be

So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)
Her throne and power, and every thing beside.
XXXVII.

But what was strangest in this virgin crew,
Although her beauty was enough to vex,
After the first investigating view,

They all found out as few, or fewer, specks
In the fair form of their companion new,

Than is the custom of the gentle sex,

When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen, In a new face, "the ugliest creature breathing."

XXXVIII.

And yet they had their little jealousies,

Like all the rest; but upon this occasion, Whether there are such things as sympathies Without our knowledge or our approbation, Although they could not see through his disguise, All felt a soft kind of concatenation, Like magnetism, or devilism, or what You please

- we will not quarrel about that:

XXXIX.

But certain 't is they all felt for their new Companion something newer still, as 't were A sentimental friendship through and through, Extremely pure, which made them all concur In wishing her their sister, save a few

Who wish'd they had a brother just like her, Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia, They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha.

XL.

Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka 4, and Dudù; in short,

(To save description) fair as fair can be Were they, according to the best report,

Though differing in stature and degree,

And clime and time, and country and complexion; They all alike admired their new connection.

1

["I guess, 't was frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-

Beautiful exceedingly."-COLERIDGE's Christabel.] 2" It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance: the men are formed for action, the women for love." GIBBON.

3 Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior,

XLI.

Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;

Katinka was a Georgian 3, white and red, With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm, And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to tread, But rather skim the earth; while Dudù's form Look'd more adapted to be put to bed, Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy, Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy. XLII.

A kind of sleepy Venus seem'd Dudù,

Yet very fit to "murder sleep" in those Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue, Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose : Few angles were there in her form, 't is true, Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose; Yet, after all, 't would puzzle to say where It would not spoil some separate charm to pare. XLIII.

She was not violently lively, but

Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,
They put beholders in a tender taking;
She look'd (this simile 's quite new) just cut
From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,
The mortal and the marble still at strife,
And timidly expanding into life.

4 [Katinka was the name of the youngest of the three girls, at whose house Lord Byron resided while at Athens, in 1810. See antè, p. 545.]

[The "good points" of a Georgian girl are a rosy or carnation tint on her cheek, which they call numuck, "the sait of beauty" dark hair, large black antelope eyes and arched eyebrows, a small nose or mouth, white teeth, long neck, delicate limbs and small joints. They are extremely beautiful, full of animation, grace, and elegance.- MORIER.1

It was a spacious chamber (Oda is

The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall Were couches, toilets-and much more than this I might describe, as I have seen it all, But it suffices-little was amiss;

'T was on the whole a nobly furnish'd hall,
With all things ladies want, save one or two,
And even those were nearer than they knew.
LII.

Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,
Not very dashing, but extremely winning,
With the most regulated charms of feature,

Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing, or unpleasing, still are like.

LIII.

But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,

Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it Than are your mighty passions and so forth,

Which, some call "the sublime:" I wish they'd try it: I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

[This brass, so famous in antiquity, is a mixture of gold, silver, and copper, and is supposed to have been produced by

LIV.

But she was pensive more than melancholy,
And serious more than pensive, and serene,
It may be, more than either-not unholy

Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.
The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly
Unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen,
That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;
She never thought about herself at all.

LV.

And therefore was she kind and gentle as

The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown, By which its nomenclature came to pass;

Thus most appropriately has been shown "Lucus à non lucendo," not what was,

But what was not; a sort of style that 's grown Extremely common in this age, whose metal The devil may decompose, but never settle:

LVI.

I think it may be of "Corinthian Brass," 1
Which was a mixture of all metals, but
The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass
This long parenthesis: I could not shut

It sooner for the soul of me, and class

My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put A kind construction upon them and me:

But that you won't—then don't—I am not less free.

LVII.

'Tis time we should return to plain narration,
And thus my narrative proceeds: - Dudù,
With every kindness short of ostentation,
Show'd Juan, or Juanna, through and through
This labyrinth of females, and each station [few:
Described-what's strange-in words extremely

I have but one simile, and that's a blunder,
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.
LVIII.

And next she gave her (I say her, because
The gender still was epicene, at least
In outward show, which is a saving clause)
An outline of the customs of the East,
With all their chaste integrity of laws,

By which the more a harem is increased,
The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties
Of any supernumerary beauties.

LIX.

And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:

Dudù was fond of kissing-which I'm sure That nobody can ever take amiss,

Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure, And between females means no more than thisThat they have nothing better near, or newer. "Kiss" rhymes to "bliss" in fact as well as verseI wish it never led to something worse.

LX.

In perfect innocence she then unmade
Her toilet, which cost little, for she was
A child of Nature, carelessly array'd:
If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,
'T was like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd,
Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,
When first she starts, and then returns to peep,
Admiring this new native of the deep.

the fusion of these metals, in which Corinth abounded, when it was sacked.]