Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, | There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, With the three-thousandth curtsey; there And show them what an intellectual war is. the waltzThe only dance which teaches girls to think Makes one in love even with its very faults. | Saloon, room, hall o'erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts, 'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb,
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 modern
curtsey,
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.
My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril
Amongst 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
Amongst the higher spirits of the day,
The sun's true son—no vapour, but a ray.
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
And gain an inch of staircase at a time.
Thrice happy he, who, after a survey
Of the good company, can win a corner,
A door that's in, or boudoir out of the way,
Where he may fix himself, like small "Jack
Horner,"
And let the Babel round run as it may,
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,
Or an approver, or a mere spectator,
Yawning a little as the night grows later.
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 glit-
tering 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,
Where Science marshals forth her own
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill
quadrille.
Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views Which grows no better, though 'tis time it Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride, Let him take care that that which he pursues
His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons,
Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour
In riding round those vegetable puncheons
Call'd Parks," where there is neither fruit
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 circum-
spection.
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 for ever upon memory's crupper,
The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in
vogne! Ill
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.
But these precautionary hints can touch
Only the common run, who must pursue,
Aud watch, and ward; whose plans a word
too much
Or little overturns; and not the few
Or many (for the number's sometimes such) | Where is his will? (That's not so soon Whom a good mien, especially if new,
Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or And where is "Fum" the Fourth,
They are young, but know not youth-it is anticipated;
"royal bird?" Gone down it seems to Scotland, to be fiddled
Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard: "Caw me, caw thee"-for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.
The Honourable 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
Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;
Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissi- My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they
Their cash comes from, their wealth goes
to a Jew; Both senates see their nightly votes parti
cipated Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew; And, having voted, dined, drank, gamed, and whored,
The family-vault receives another lord.
The humblest individual under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new:
Where's Brummel? Dish'd. Where's Long
Pole Wellesley? Diddled:
Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's Nought's permanent among the human race,
| Except the Whigs not getting into place.
I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a 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,
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.
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt
This-when I speak,I don't hint,but speak out.
Whether he married with the third or fourth
Offspring of some sage, husband-hunting
Countess,
I have seen the landholders without a rap -
I have seen Johanna Southcote-I have seen | Or whether with some virgin of more worth
The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties)
He took to regularly peopling earth,
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen Of which your lawful awful wedlock
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's-
fount is-
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages, -
a Congress doing all that's
I have seen
I have seen some nations like o'erloaded
Is yet within the unread events of time. Kick off their burthens-meaning the high | Thus far, go forth, thou Lay, which I will
Against the same given quantity of rhyme,
For being 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,
But would not change my free thoughts for
a throne.
Of all the barbarous Middle Ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man; it is-I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and
sage,
And don't know justly what we would be at-
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see. Too old for youth-too young, at thirty-
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
To herd with boys, or hoard with good
threescore,-
1 wonder people should be left alive;
But, since they are, that epoch is a bore:
Love lingers still, although 'twere late to
wive;
A moral country? But I hold my hand-
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;
And as for other love, the illusion's o'er;
But 'tis as well at once to understand, And money, that most pure imagination,
You are not a moral people, and you know it Gleams only through the dawn of its
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.
Oh Gold! why call we misers miserable? | Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;
Theirs is the best bower-anchor, the chain-
cable
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.
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
Ye who but see the saving man at table,
And scorn his temperate board,as none at all, Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,
Know not what visions spring from each
cheese-paring.
Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker;
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss; But making money,slowly first, then quicker, And adding still a little through each cross (Which will come over things) beats love or liquor,
The gamester's counter, or the statesman's
dross.
Oh Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank-credit like a bark of
Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O'er Congress, whether royalist or liberal? Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain? (That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all.)
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run
glibber all?
The shade of Bonaparte's noble daring? -
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow Christian
Baring.
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;
Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown
On 'Change; and even thy silver-soil, Peru,
Must get itself discounted by a Jew.
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 auste-
rities?
Because, you'll say, nought calls for such
a trial;-
Then there's more merit in his self-denial.
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.
"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove," -"for Love Is Heaven, and Heaven is Love:". so sings the bard; Which it were rather difficult to prove And sparkling on from heap to heap,displays,|(A thing with poetry in general hard).
He is your only poet; - passion, pure
I'm serious - so are all men upon paper; And why should I not form my speculation, And hold up to the sun my little taper? Mankind just now seem wrapt in meditation On Constitutions and Steam-boats of vapour;
Now if the "court" and "camp" and "grove" While sages write against all procreation,
Recruited all with constant married men,
Who never coveted their neighbour's lot,
I say that line's a lapsus of the pen;-
Strange too in my "buon camerado" Scott,
So celebrated for his morals, when
My Jeffrey held him up as an example
To me;-of which these morals are a sample.
Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded, And that's enough; succeeded in my youth, The only time when much success is needed: And my success produced what I in sooth Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded
Whate'er it was, 'twas mine; I've paid, in truth,
Of late the penalty of such success,
But have not learn'd to wish it any less.
That suit in Chancery,-which some persons plead
In an appeal to the unborn, whom they, In the faith of their procreative creed, Baptize Posterity, or future clay,—
Unless a man can calculate his means
Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.
That's noble! that's romantic! For my part, I think that "Philo-genitiveness” is— (Now here's a word quite after my own heart,
Though there's a shorter a good deal than this,
If that politeness set it not apart;
But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss)—
I say, methinks that "Philo-genitiveness
Might meet from men a little more for-
giveness.
And now to business. Oh, my gentle Juan!
Thou art in London-in that pleasant place
Where every kind of mischief's daily
brewing,
Which can await warm youth in its wild
'Tis true, that thy career is not a new one; Thou art no novice in the headlong chase Of early life; but this is a new land Which foreigners can never understand.
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