XCIII.

Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord;
But Longbow wild as an Æolian harp,
With which the winds of heaven can claim accord,
And make a music, whether flat or sharp.

Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word:
At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp:
Both wits-one born so, and the other bred,
This by his heart-his rival by his head.

XCIV.

If all these seem a heterogeneous mass,
To be assembled at a country-seat,
Yet think a specimen of every class

Is better than a humdrum tête-à-tête.
The days of comedy are gone, alas!

When Congreve's fool could vie with Molière's bee Society is smoothed to that excess,

That manners hardly differ more than dress,

XCV.

Our ridicules are kept in the back ground,
Ridiculous enough, but also dull;
Professions too are no more to be found

Professional; and there is naught to cull
Of folly's fruit; for though your fools abound,

They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull. Society is now one polish'd horde,

Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bared.

XCVI.

But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning
The scanty but right well thresh'd ears of truth;
And, gentle reader! when you gather meaning,
You may be Boaz, and I-modest Ruth.
Further I'd quote, but Scripture, intervening,
Forbids. A great impression in my youth
Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries
"That scriptures out of church are blasphemies.”
XCVII.

But when we can, we glean in this vile age
Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist.

I must not quite omit the talking sage,
Kit-Cat, the famous conversationist,

Who, in his commonplace book had a page

Prepared each morn for evenings. "List, oh list!""Alas, poor ghost!"-What unexpected woes Await those who have studied their bons-mots!

XCVIII.

Firstly, they must allure the conversation
By many windings to their clever clinch;
And secondly, must let slip no occasion,
Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch,
But take an ell-and make a great sensation,
If possible; and thirdly, never flinch
When some smart talker puts them to the test,
But seize the last word, which no doubt's the best.

XCIX.

Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts;

The party we have touch'd on were the guests:
Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts
To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts.

I will not dwell upon ragouts or roasts,
Albeit all human history attests

That happiness for man-the hungry sinner!-
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.

c.

Witness the lands which "flow'd with milk and hɔney-
Held out unto the hungry Israelites:

To this we 've added since the love of money,
The only sort of pleasure which requites.

Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny:

We tire of mistresses and parasites:

[Cato.

But oh, ambrosial cash! ah! who would lose thee?

A moment's good thing may have cost them years Before they find an hour to introduce it,

And then, even then, some bore may make them lose it.

CX.

But all was gentle and aristocratic

In this our party; polish'd, smooth, and co'd,
As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic,
There now are no Squire Westerns, as of old;
And our Sophias are not so emphatic

But fair as then, or fairer to behold.
We 've no accomplish'd blackguards, like Tom Jones,
But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.

CXI.

They separated at an early hour;

That is, ere midnight-which is London's noon: But in the country, ladies seek their bower A little earlier than the waning moon. Peace to the slumbers of each folded flowerMay the rose call back its true colours soon! Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters, And lower the price of rouge-at least some winters,

CANTO XIV.

1.

Ir from great Nature's, or our own abyss
Of thought, we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss-
But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this

Much as old Saturn ate his progeny ;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

11.

But system doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast

You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one Nothing more true than not to trust your senses; And yet what are your other evidences?

For me,

I know naught; nothing I deny, Admit, reject, contemn; and what know you, Except perhaps that you were born to die? And both may after all turn out untrue. An age may come, font of eternity,

When nothing shall be either old or new. Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

IV.

A sleep without dreams, after a ough day
Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very suicide that pays his debt
At once without instalments (an old way

Of paying debts, which creditors regret)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.

V.

'Tis round him, near him, here, there, every where ; And there's a courage which grows out of fear, Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare

The worst to know it:—when the mountains rear Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there You look down o'er the precipice, and drear The gulf of rock yawns,-you can't gaze a minute Without an awful wish to plunge within it.

VI.

T is true, you do n't-but, pale and struck with terror,
Retire: but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,
The lurking bias, be it truth or error,

To the unknown; a secret prepossession,

XIII.

Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction;
She gathers a repertory of facts,

Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,
But mostly sings of human things and acts-
And that's one cause she meets with contradiction;
For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts;
And were her object only what's call'd glory,
With more ease too, she'd tell a different story.

XIV.

Love, war, a tempest-surely there's variety;
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;
A bird's-eye view too of that wild, Society;
A slight glance thrown on men of every station.
If you
have naught else, here's at least satiety
Both in performance and in preparation;

VII.

But what's this to the purpose? you will say.
Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation,
For which my sole excuse is 't is my way.
Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion,
I write what's uppermost without delay;

This narrative is not meant for narration,
But a mere airy and fantastic basis,

To build up common things with commonplaces.

VIII.

You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,
"Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"
And such a straw, borne on by human breath,

Is poesy, according as the mind glows;
A paper kite which flies 'twixt life and death,

A shadow which the onward soul behind throws
And mine's a bubble not blown up for praise,
But just to play with, as an infant plays.

IX.

The world is all before me-or behind;
For I have seen a portion of that same,
And quite enough for me to keep in mind ;-

Of passions, too, I 've proved enough to blame, To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind,

Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame: For I was rather famous in my time, Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme.

X.

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke
The other: that 's to say, the clergy-who
Upon my head have bid their thunders break
In pious libels by no means a few,
And yet I cant help scribbling once a week,
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.
In youth I wrote because my mind was full,
And now because I feel it growing dull.

XI.

But "why then publish ?"—There are no rewards
Of fame or profit, when the world grows weary.

I ask in turn, why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read?-To make some hour less
It occupies me to turn back regards

On what I've seen or ponder'd sad or cheery;
And what I write I cast upon the stream,
To swim or sink—I have had at least my dream.
XII.

I think that were I certain of success,
I hardly could compose another line:
So long I've battled either more or less,

That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.
This feeling 't is not easy to express,
And yet 't is not affected, I opine.

[dreary.

In play, there are two pleasures for your choosingThe one is winning, and the other losing.

Trade will be all the better for these cantos.

XV.

The portion of this world which I at present
Have taken up to fill the following sermon,
Is one of which there's no description recent :
The reason why is easy to determine:
Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,
A dull and family likeness through all ages,
Of no great promise for poetic pages.

XVI.

With much to excite, there's little to exalt; Nothing that speaks to all men and all times; A sort of varnish over every fault;

A kind of commonplace, even in their crimes; Factitious passions, wit without much salt,

A want of that true nature which sublimes Whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony Of character, in those at least who have got any.

XVII.

Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,

They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill; But then the roll-call draws them back afraid, And they must be or seem what they were: still Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;

But when of the first sight you have had your fill, It palls-at least it did so upon me, This paradise of pleasure and ennui.

XVIII.

When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,
Dress'd, voted, shone, and, may be, something more.
With dandies dined; heard senators declaining;
Seen beauties brought to market by the score;
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming;
There's little left but to be bored or bore.
Witness those "ci-devant jeunes hommes" who stem
The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.

XIX.

'T is said—indeed a general complaintThat no one has succeeded in describing The monde exactly as they ought to paint.

Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint, To furnish matter for their moral gibing; And that their books have but one style in conmon— My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman.

XX.

But this can't well be true, just now; for writers
Are grown of the beau monde a part potential:
I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters,
Especially when young, for that's essential.
Why do their sketches fail them as inditers

Of, what they deem themselves most consequential, The real portrait of the highest tribe?

'T is that, in fact, there's little to describe.

Haud ignara loquor:" these are nuga, " quarum Purs parva fui," but still art and part. Now I could much more easily sketch a haram,

A battle, wreck, or history of the heart, Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em For reasons which I choose to keep apart. "Vetato Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit,"

Which means, that vulgar people must not share it.

And therefore what I throw off is ideal

Lower'd, leaven'd like a history of Freemasons; Which bears the same relation to the real,

As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason's. The grand Arcanum's not for men to see all; My music has some mystic diapasons; And there is much which could not be appreciated In any manner by the uninitiated.

Alas! worlds fall-and woman, since she fell'd
The world, (as, since that history, less polite
Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held,)
Has not yet given up the practice quite.
Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell'd,

Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, Condemn'd to child-hed, as men for their sins, Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins,

A daily plague, which, in the aggregate,
May average on the whole with parturition.
But as to women, who can penetrate

The real sufferings of their she condition? Man's very sympathy with their estate

Has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, But form good housekeepers to breed a nation.

All this were very well, and can't be better;
But even this is difficult, Heaven knows!
So many troubles from her birth beset her,

Such smalt distinction between friends and foes,
The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter,

That but ask any woman if she'd choose (Take her at thirty, that is) to have been Female or male? a school-boy or a queen? XXVI.

"Petticoat influence" is a great reproach,
Which even those who obey would fain be thought
To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;

But, since beneath it upon earth we are brought
By various joltings of life's hackney-coach,
I for one venerate a petticoat-
A garment of a mystical sublimity,
No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.
XXVII.

Much I respect, and much I have adored,
In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil,
Which holds a treasure like a miser's hoard,
And more attracts by all it doth conceal-
A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword,
A loving letter with a mystic seal,
A cure for grief-for what can ever rankle
Before a petticoat and peeping ancle?
XXVIII.

And when upon a silent, sullen day,

With a Sirocco, for example, blowing,-
When even the sea looks dim with all its spray,
And sulkily the river's ripple 's flowing,
And the sky shows that very ancient gray,
The sober sad antithesis to glowing,-
"T is pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant,
To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.

And out-of-door hath showers, and mists, and sleet, With which I could not brew a pastoral.

But be it as it may, a bard must meet All difficulties, whether great or small,

To spoil his undertaking or complete,
And work away like spirit upon matter,
Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water. 10
xxxi.

Juan-in this respect at least like saints-
Was all things unto people of all sorts,
And lived contentedly, without complaints,

In camps, in ship, in cottages, or courts-
Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,
And mingling modestly in toils or sports.
He likewise could be most things to all women,
Without the coxcombry of certain she men.
XXXII.

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;

"T is also subject to the double danger
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange
Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger;
But Juan had been early taught to rar.ge

The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger,
So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,
Knew that he had a rider on his back.