Chapter XXVI: Canto THE TENTH: I (4)

The London winter's ended in July--
Sometimes a little later. I don't err
In this: whatever other blunders lie
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver
My Muse a glass of _Weatherology_;
For Parliament is our barometer:
Let Radicals its other acts attack,
Its sessions form our only almanack.

XLIV.

When its quicksilver's down at zero,--lo!
Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage!
Wheels whirl from Carlton Palace to Soho,
And happiest they who horses can engage;
The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row
Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age;
And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces,
Sigh--as the postboys fasten on the traces.

XLV.

They and their bills, "Arcadians both,"[665] are left
To the Greek Kalends of another session.
Alas! to them of ready cash bereft,
What hope remains? Of _hope_ the full possession,
Or generous draft, conceded as a gift,
At a long date--till they can get a fresh one--
Hawked about at a discount, small or large;
Also the solace of an overcharge.

XLVI.

But these are trifles. Downward flies my Lord,
Nodding beside my Lady in his carriage.
Away! away! "Fresh horses!" are the word,
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage;
The obsequious landlord hath the change restored;
The postboys have no reason to disparage
Their fee; but ere the watered wheels may hiss hence,
The ostler pleads too for a reminiscence.

XLVII.

'T is granted; and the valet mounts the dickey--
That gentleman of Lords and Gentlemen;
Also my Lady's gentlewoman, tricky,
Tricked out, but modest more than poet's pen
Can paint,--_"Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!"_[666]
(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then,
If but to show I've travelled: and what's Travel,
Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?)

XLVIII.

The London winter and the country summer
Were well nigh over. 'T is perhaps a pity,
When Nature wears the gown that doth become her,
To lose those best months in a sweaty city,
And wait until the nightingale grows dumber,
Listening debates not very wise or witty,
Ere patriots their true _country_ can remember;--
But there's no shooting (save grouse) till September.

XLIX.

I've done with my tirade. The World was gone;
The twice two thousand, for whom Earth was made,
Were vanished to be what they call alone--
That is, with thirty servants for parade,
As many guests, or more; before whom groan
As many covers, duly, daily laid.
Let none accuse old England's hospitality--
Its quantity is but condensed to quality.

L.

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline
Departed like the rest of their compeers,
The peerage, to a mansion very fine;
The Gothic Babel of a thousand years.
None than themselves could boast a longer line,
Where Time through heroes and through beauties steers;
And oaks as olden as their pedigree
Told of their Sires--a tomb in every tree.

LI.

A paragraph in every paper told
Of their departure--such is modern fame:
'T is pity that it takes no further hold
Than an advertisement, or much the same;
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.
The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim--
"Departure, for his country seat, to-day,
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.

LII.

"We understand the splendid host intends[md]
To entertain, this autumn, a select
And numerous party of his noble friends;
'Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct,
The Duke of D---- the shooting season spends,
With many more by rank and fashion decked;
Also a foreigner of high condition,
The envoy of the secret Russian mission."

LIII.

And thus we see--who doubts the Morning Post?
(Whose articles are like the "Thirty-nine,"
Which those most swear to who believe them most)--
Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordained to shine,
Decked by the rays reflected from his host,
With those who, Pope says, "greatly daring dine."--[667]
'T is odd, but true,--last war the News abounded
More with these dinners than the killed or wounded;--

LIV.

As thus: "On Thursday there was a grand dinner;
Present, Lords A.B.C."--- Earls, dukes, by name
Announced with no less pomp than Victory's winner:
Then underneath, and in the very same
Column: date, "Falmouth. There has lately been here
The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to Fame,
Whose loss in the late action we regret:
The vacancies are filled up--see Gazette."

LV.

To Norman Abbey[668] whirled the noble pair,--
An old, old Monastery once, and now
Still older mansion--of a rich and rare
Mixed Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal: it lies, perhaps, a little low,
Because the monks preferred a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind.

LVI.

It stood embosomed in a happy valley,
Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid oak[669]
Stood like Caractacus, in act to rally
His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters; as Day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird.

LVII.

Before the mansion lay a lucid Lake,[670]
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its softened way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods[671] sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fixed upon the flood.

LVIII.

Its outlet dashed into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding,
Its shriller echoes--like an infant made[me]
Quiet--sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allayed,
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw.

LIX.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile
(While yet the Church was Rome's) stood half apart
In a grand Arch, which once screened many an aisle.
These last had disappeared--a loss to Art:
The first yet frowned superbly o'er the soil,
And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,
Which mourned the power of Time's or Tempest's march,
In gazing on that venerable Arch.[mf]

LX.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,
Twelve Saints had once stood sanctified in stone;
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,
But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,
When each house was a fortalice--as tell
The annals of full many a line undone,--
The gallant Cavaliers,[672] who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.

LXI.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned,
The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child,
With her Son in her blesséd arms, looked round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoiled:
She made the earth below seem holy ground.
This may be superstition, weak or wild;
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.

LXII.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepened glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the Sun like Seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their Hallelujahs quenched like fire.

LXIII.

But in the noontide of the moon, and when[mg]
The wind is wingéd from one point of heaven,
There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
Is musical--a dying accent driven
Through the huge Arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the night wind by the waterfall,
And harmonised by the old choral wall:

LXIV.

Others, that some original shape, or form
Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
(Though less than that of Memnon's statue,[673] warm
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fixed hour)
To this grey ruin: with a voice to charm,
Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower;
The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
The fact:--I've heard it,--once perhaps too much.[674]

LXV.

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain played,
Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint--
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,
And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
The spring gushed through grim mouths of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain Glory, and his vainer troubles.

LXVI.

The Mansion's self was vast and venerable,
With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,
The cells, too, and Refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able,
Still unimpaired, to decorate the scene;
The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

LXVII.

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,
Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined,
Formed a whole which, irregular in parts,
Yet left a grand impression on the mind,
At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts:
We gaze upon a giant for his stature,
Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.

LXVIII.

Steel Barons, molten the next generation
To silken rows of gay and gartered Earls,
Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation:
And Lady Marys blooming into girls,
With fair long locks, had also kept their station:
And Countesses mature in robes and pearls:
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely,
Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.

LXIX.

Judges in very formidable ermine
Were there, with brows that did not much invite
The accused to think their lordships would determine
His cause by leaning much from might to right:
Bishops, who had not left a single sermon;
Attorneys-general, awful to the sight,
As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us)
Of the "Star Chamber" than of "Habeas Corpus."

LXX.

Generals, some all in armour, of the old
And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the lead;
Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold,
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed:[mh]
Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold:
Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contained the steed;
And, here and there, some stern high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.

LXXI.

But ever and anon, to soothe your vision,
Fatigued with these hereditary glories,
There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian,
Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's:[675]
Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone
In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted
His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

LXXII.

Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine;
There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain
Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic anchorite:--
But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain,
Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:
His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish[676]
Or Dutch with thirst--What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.[mi]

LXXIII.

Oh, reader! if that thou canst read,--and know,
'T is not enough to spell, or even to read,
To constitute a reader--there must go
Virtues of which both you and I have need;--
Firstly, begin with the beginning--(though
That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed:
Thirdly, commence not with the end--or, sinning
In this sort, end at last with the beginning.

LXXIV.

But, reader, thou hast patient been of late,
While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear,
Have built and laid out ground at such a rate,
Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer.
That Poets were so from their earliest date,
By Homer's "Catalogue of ships" is clear;
But a mere modern must be moderate--
I spare you then the furniture and plate.

LXXV.

The mellow Autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket:--lynx-like in his aim;
Full grows his bag, and wonder_ful_ his feats.
Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers!--'T is no sport for peasants.

LXXVI.

An English Autumn, though it hath no vines,
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along
The paths o'er which the far festoon entwines
The red grape in the sunny lands of song,
Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines;[mj]
The Claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her,
The very best of vineyards is the cellar.

LXXVII.

Then, if she hath not that serene decline
Which makes the southern Autumn's day appear
As if 't would to a second Spring resign
The season, rather than to Winter drear,--
Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,--
The sea-coal fires,[677] the "earliest of the year;"[678]
Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gained in yellow.

LXXVIII.

And for the effeminate _villeggialura_--
Rife with more horns than hounds--she hath the chase,
So animated that it might allure a
Saint from his beads to join the jocund race:
Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura,[679]
And wear the Melton jacket for a space:
If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame
Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game.[mk]

LXXIX.

The noble guests,[680] assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of--we give the sex the _pas_--
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;[ml][681]
The Ladies Scilly, Busey;--Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby,
And Mrs. Rabbi,[682] the rich banker's squaw;
Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep,
Who looked a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:

LXXX.

With other Countesses of Blank--but rank;
At once the "lie"[683] and the _élite_ of crowds;
Who pass like water filtered in a tank,
All purged and pious from their native clouds;
Or paper turned to money by the Bank:
No matter how or why, the passport shrouds
The _passée_ and the past; for good society
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety,--

LXXXI.

That is, up to a certain point; which point
Forms the most difficult in punctuation.
Appearances appear to form the joint
On which it hinges in a higher station;
And so that no explosion cry "Aroint
Thee, witch!"[684] or each Medea has her Jason;
Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)[mm]
_"Omne tulit punctum,_ quæ _miscuit utile dulci."_[685]

LXXXII.

I can't exactly trace their rule of right,
Which hath a little leaning to a lottery.
I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite
By the mere combination of a coterie;
Also a so-so matron boldly fight
Her way back to the world by dint of plottery,[mn]
And shine the very _Siria_,[686] of the spheres,
Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.

LXXXIII.

I have seen more than I'll say:--but we will see[mo]
How _our "villeggiatura"_ will get on.
The party might consist of thirty-three
Of highest caste--the Brahmins of the _ton_.
I have named a few, not foremost in degree,
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.
By way of sprinkling, scattered amongst these,
There also were some Irish absentees.

LXXXIV.

There was Parolles,[687] too, the legal bully,[mp]
Who limits all his battles to the Bar
And Senate: when invited elsewhere, truly,
He shows more appetite for words than war.
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly
Come out and glimmered as a six weeks' star.
There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker;
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.

LXXXV.

There was the Duke of Dash,[688] who was a--duke,
"Aye, every inch a" duke; there were twelve peers
Like Charlemagne's--and all such peers in _look_
And _intellect_, that neither eyes nor ears
For commoners had ever them mistook.
There were the six Miss Rawbolds--pretty dears!
All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet.

LXXXVI.

There were four Honourable Misters, whose
Honour was more before their names than after;
There was the _preux Chevalier de la Ruse_,[689]
Whom France and Fortune lately deigned to waft here,
Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse;
But the clubs found it rather serious laughter,
Because--such was his magic power to please--
The dice seemed charmed, too, with his repartees.

LXXXVII.

There was Dick Dubious,[690] the metaphysician,
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner;
Angle, the _soi-disant_ mathematician;
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.
There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian,
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner:
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,
Good at all things, but better at a bet.

LXXXVIII.

There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;[691]
And General Fireface,[692] famous in the field,
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman,
Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he killed.
There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman,
In his grave office so completely skilled,
That when a culprit came for condemnation,
He had his Judge's joke for consolation.[693]

LXXXIX.

Good company's a chess-board--there are kings,
Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the World's a game;
Save that the puppets pull at their own strings,
Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same.
My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings,
Not stings, and flits through ether without aim,
Alighting rarely:--were she but a hornet,
Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it.

XC.

I had forgotten--but must not forget--
An orator, the latest of the session,
Who had delivered well a very set
Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression
Upon debate: the papers echoed yet
With his _début_, which made a strong impression,
And ranked with what is every day displayed--
"The best first speech that ever yet was made."

XCI.

Proud of his "Hear hims!" proud, too, of his vote,
And lost virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote),
He revelled in his Ciceronian glory:
With memory excellent to get by rote,
With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story,
Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery,[mq]
"His country's pride," he came down to the country.

XCII.

There also were two wits by acclamation,
Longbow from Ireland,[694] Strongbow from the Tweed[695]--Both
lawyers and both men of education--
But Strongbow's wit was of more polished breed;
Longbow was rich in an imagination
As beautiful and bounding as a steed,
But sometimes stumbling over a potato,--
While Strongbow's best things might have come from Cato.

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 an 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 _bête_:
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 nought to cull[mr]
Of Folly's fruit; for though your fools abound,
They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull.
Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the _Bores_ and _Bored_.

XCVI.

But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning
The scanty but right-well threshed 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."[696]

XCVII.

But what we can we glean in this vile age[ms]
Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist.
I must not quite omit the talking sage,
Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist,[697]
Who, in his common-place book, had a page
Prepared each morn for evenings. "List, oh list!"
"Alas, poor ghost!"[698]--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_,[mt]
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 touched 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 _ragoûts_ 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 "flowed with milk and honey,"
Held out unto the hungry Israelites:
To this we have 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;
But oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who would lose thee?
When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!

CI.

The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot,
Or hunt: the young, because they liked the sport--
The first thing boys like after play and fruit;
The middle-aged, to make the day more short;
For _ennui_[699] is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language:--we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful yawn which sleep can not abate.

CII.

The elderly walked through the library,
And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures,
Or sauntered through the gardens piteously,
And made upon the hot-house several strictures,
Or rode a nag which trotted not too high,
Or on the morning papers read their lectures,
Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix,
Longing at sixty for the hour of six.

CIII.

But none were _gêné_: the great hour of union
Was rung by dinner's knell; till then all were
Masters of their own time--or in communion,
Or solitary, as they chose to bear
The hours, which how to pass is but to few known.
Each rose up at his own, and had to spare
What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast
When, where, and how he chose for that repast.

CIV.

The ladies--some rouged, some a little pale--
Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode,
Or walked; if foul, they read, or told a tale,
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad;
Discussed the fashion which might next prevail,
And settled bonnets by the newest code,
Or crammed twelve sheets into one little letter,
To make each correspondent a new debtor.

CV.

For some had absent lovers, all had friends;
The earth has nothing like a she epistle,
And hardly Heaven--because it never ends--
I love the mystery of a female missal,
Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends,
But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle,[mu]
When he allured poor Dolon:[700]--you had better
Take care what you reply to such a letter.

CVI.

Then there were billiards; cards, too, but _no_ dice;--
Save in the clubs no man of honour plays;--
Boats when 't was water, skating when 't was ice,
And the hard frost destroyed the scenting days:
And angling, too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says:
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.[701]

CVII.

With evening came the banquet and the wine;
The conversazione--the duet
Attuned by voices more or less divine
(My heart or head aches with the memory yet).
The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine;
But the two youngest loved more to be set
Down to the harp--because to Music's charms
They added graceful necks, white hands and arms.

CVIII.

Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days,
For then the gentlemen were rather tired)
Displayed some sylph-like figures in its maze;
Then there was small-talk ready when required;
Flirtation--but decorous; the mere praise
Of charms that should or should not be admired.
The hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er again,
And then retreated soberly--at ten.

CIX.

The politicians, in a nook apart,
Discussed the World, and settled all the spheres:
The wits watched every loophole for their art,
To introduce a _bon-mot_ head and ears;
Small is the rest of those who would be smart,
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; polished, smooth, and cold,
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 have no accomplished 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 flower--
May the rose call back its true colour soon!
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters,
And lower the price of rouge--at least some winters.[702]

FOOTNOTES:

[653] Fy. 12^th^ 1823.

{482}[654] [The allusion is to the refrain of Canning's verses on Pitt, "The Pilot that weathered the storm." Compare, too, "The daring pilot in extremity" (i.e. the Earl of Shaftesbury), who "sought the storms" (Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, lines 159-161).]

[655] [Johnson loved "dear, dear Bathurst," because he was "a very good hater."--See Boswell's _Johnson_, 1876, p. 78 (Croker's _footnote_).]

{483}[656] [So, too, Charles Kingsley, in _Westward Ho!_ ii. 299, 300, calls _Don Quixote_ "the saddest of books in spite of all its wit."--_Notes and Queries_, Second Series, iii. 124.]

[lx] _By that great Epic_----.--[MS.]

{484}[657] ["Your husband is in his old lunes again." _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iv. sc. 2, lines 16, 17.]

[658] ["Davus sum, non Oedipus." Terence, _Andria,_ act i. sc. 2, line 23.]

{485}[659]

["'T is not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius--we'll deserve it."

Addison's _Cato_, act i. sc. 2, ed. 1777, ii. 77.]

{487}[660] [Compare--"The colt that's backed and burthened being young." _Venus and Adonis_, lxx. line 5.]

[661] [To "break square," or "squares," is to interrupt the regular order, as in the proverbial phrase, "It breaks no squares," i.e. does no harm--does not matter. Compare Sterne, _Tristram Shandy_ (1802), ii. v. 152, "This fault in Trim _broke no squares_ with them" (_N. Engl. Dict._, art. "Break," No. 46). The origin of the phrase is uncertain, but it may, perhaps, refer to military tactics. Shakespeare (_Henry V._, act iv. sc. 2, line 28) speaks of "squares of battle."]

[662]

"With every thing that pretty _bin_,
My lady sweet, arise."
_Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 3, lines, 25, 26.

[So Warburton and Hanmer. The folio reads "that pretty is." See Knight's _Shakespeare_, Pictorial Edition, _Tragedies_, i. 203.]

{488}[663] [The house which Byron occupied, 1815-1816, No. 13, Piccadilly Terrace, was the property of Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire.]

{489}[ly]
_The slightest obstacle which may encumber
The path downhill is something grand_.--[MS. erased.]

[lz] _Not even in fools who howsoever blind_.--[MS. erased.]

{490}[ma]
_That anything is new to a Chinese;
And such is Europe's fashionable ease_.--[MS. erased.]

{491}[mb] _A hidden wine beneath an icy presence_.--[MS. erased.]

[mc] _Though this we hope has been reserved for this age_.--[MS. erased.]

[664] ["For the creed of Zoroaster," see Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_, 1830, pp. 87, 88. (See, too, _Cain_, act ii. sc. 2, line 404, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 254, note 2.)]

{492}[665] "Arcades ambo." [Virgil, _Bucol._, Ecl. vii. 4.]

{493}[666] [So travel the rich.]

{494}[md] _--the noble host intends_.--[MS. erased.]

[667] ["Judicious drank, and greatly-daring dined." Pope, _Dunciad_, iv. 318.]

{495}[668] [Byron's description of the place of his inheritance, which was to know him no more, is sketched from memory, but it unites the charm of a picture with the accuracy of a ground-plan. Eight years had gone by since he had looked his last on "venerable arch" and "lucid lake" (see "Epistle to Augusta," stanza viii. lines 7, 8), but he had not forgotten, he could not forget, that enchanted and enchanting scene.

Newstead Abbey or Priory was founded by Henry II., by way of deodand or expiation for the murder of Thomas Becket. Lands which bordered the valley of the Leen, and which had formed part of Sherwood Forest, were assigned for the use and endowment of a chapter of "black canons regular of the order of St. Augustine," and on a site, by the river-side to the south of the forest uplands (stanza lv. lines 5-8) the new stede, or place, or station, arose. It was a "Norman Abbey" (stanza lv. line 1) which the Black Canons dedicated to Our Lady, and, here and there, in the cloisters, traces of Norman architecture remain, but the enlargement and completion of the monastery was carried out in successive stages and "transition periods," in a style or styles which, perhaps, more by hap than by cunning, Byron rightly named "mixed Gothic" (stanza lv. line 4). To work their mills, and perhaps to drain the marshy valley, the monks dammed the Leen and excavated a chain of lakes--the largest to the north-west, Byron's "lucid lake;" a second to the south of the Abbey; and a third, now surrounded with woods, and overlooked by the "wicked lord's" "ragged rock" below the Abbey, half a mile to the south-east. The "cascade," which flows over and through a stone-work sluice, and forms a rocky water-fall, issues from the upper lake, and is in full view of the west front of the Abbey. Almost at right angles to these lakes are three ponds: the Forest Pond to the north of the stone wall, which divides the garden from the forest; the square "Eagle" Pond in the Monks' Garden; and the narrow stew-pond, bordered on either side with overhanging yews, which drains into the second or Garden Lake. Byron does not enlarge on this double chain of lakes and ponds, and, perhaps for the sake of pictorial unity, converts the second (if a second then existed) and third lakes into a river.

The Abbey, which, at the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, was handed over by Henry VIII. to Sir John Byron, "steward and warden of the forest of Shirewood," was converted, here and there, more or less, into a baronial "mansion" (stanza lxvi.). It is, roughly speaking, a square block of buildings, flanking the sides of a grassy quadrangle. Surrounding the quadrangle are two-storied cloisters, and in the centre a "Gothic fountain" (stanza lxv. line 1) of composite workmanship. The upper portion of the stonework is hexagonal, and is ornamented with a double row of gargoyles (all "monsters" and no "saints," recalling, perhaps identical with, the "seven deadly sins" gargoyles, still _in situ_ in the quadrangle of Magdalen College, Oxford); the lower half, which belongs to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, is hollowed into niches of a Roman or classical design. (In Byron's time the fountain stood in a courtyard in front of the Abbey, but before he composed this canto it had been restored by Colonel Wildman to its original place within the quadrangle. Byron was acquainted with the change, and writes accordingly.) When the Byrons took possession of the Abbey the upper stories of the cloisters were converted, on three sides of the quadrangle, into galleries, and on the fourth, the north side, into a library. Abutting on the cloisters are the monastic buildings proper, in part transformed, but with "much of the monastic" preserved. On the west, the front of the Abbey, the ground floor consists of the entrance hall and Monks' Parlour, and, above, the Guests' Refectory or Banqueting-hall, and the Prior's Parlour. On the south, the Xenodochium or Guesten Hall, and, above, the Monks' Refectory, or Grand Drawing-room; on the south and east, on the ground floor, the Prior's Lodgings, the Chapter House ("the exquisite small chapel," stanza lxvi. line 5), the "slype" or passage between church and Chapter House; and in the upper story, the state bedrooms, named after the kings, Edward III., Henry VII., etc., who, by the terms of the grant of land to the Prior and Canons, were entitled to free quarters in the Abbey. During Byron's brief tenure of Newstead, and for long years before, these "huge halls, long galleries, and spacious chambers" (stanza lxxvii. line 1) were half dismantled, and in a more or less ruinous condition. A few pictures remained on the walls of the Great Drawing-room, of the Prior's Parlour, and in the apartments of the south-east wing or annexe, which dates from the seventeenth century (see the account of a visit to Newstead in 1812, in _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. 401-405). There are and were portraits, by Lely (stanza lxviii. line 7), of a Lady Byron, of Fanny Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel, "loveliness personified," of Mrs. Hughes, and of Nell Gwynne; by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of William and Mary; by unnamed artists, of George I. and George II.; and by Ramsay, of George III. There are portraits of a fat Prior, William Sandall, with a jewelled reliquary; of "Sir John the Little with the Great Beard," who ruled in the Prior's stead; and there is the portrait, a votive tablet of penitence and remorse, "of that Lord Arundel Who struck in heat the child he loved so well" (see "A Picture at Newstead," by Matthew Arnold, _Poetical Works_, 1890, p. 177); but of portraits of judges or bishops, or of pictures by old masters, there is neither trace nor record.

But the characteristic feature of Newstead Abbey, so familiar that description seems unnecessary, and, yet, never quite accurately described, is the west front of the Priory Church, which is in line with the west front of the Abbey. "Half apart," the southern portion of this front, which abuts on the windows of the Prior's Parlour, and the room above, where Byron slept, flanks and conceals the west end of the north cloisters and library; but, with this exception, it is a screen, and nothing more. In the centre is the "mighty window" (stanza lxii. line 1), shorn of glass and tracery; above are six lancet windows (which Byron seems to have regarded as niches), and, above again, in a "higher niche" (stanza lxi. line 1), is the crowned Virgin with the Babe in her arms, which escaped, as by a miracle, the "fiery darts"--the shot and cannon-balls of the Cromwellian troopers. On either side of the central window are "two blank windows containing tracery ['geometrical decorated'] ... carved [in relief] on the solid ashlar;" on either side of the window, and at the northern and southern extremities of the front, are buttresses with canopied niches, in each of which a saint or apostle must once have stood. Over the west door there is the mutilated figure of (?) the Saviour, but of twelve saints or twelve niches there is no trace. The "grand arch" is an ivy-clad screen, and nothing more. Behind and beyond, in place of vanished nave, of aisle and transept, is the smooth green turf; and at the east end, on the site of the high altar, stands the urn-crowned masonry of Boatswain's tomb.

Newstead Abbey was sold by Lord Byron to his old schoolfellow, Colonel Thomas Wildman, in November, 1817. The house and property were resold in 1861, by his widow, to William Frederick Webb, Esq., a traveller in many lands, the friend and host of David Livingstone. At his death the estate was inherited by his daughter, Miss Geraldine Webb, who was married to General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside, G.C.M.G., etc., Governor of Queensland, in 1899.

For Newstead Abbey, see _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. Part I. 401-405 (often reprinted without acknowledgment); _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, by Washington Irving, 1835; _Journal of the Archaeological Association_ (papers by T.J. Pettigrew, F.R.S., and Arthur Ashpitel, F.S.A.), 1854, vol. ix. pp. 14-39; and _A Souvenir of Newstead Abbey_ (illustrated by a series of admirable photographs), by Richard Allen, Nottingham, 1874, etc., etc.]

{497}[669] [The woodlands were sacrificed to the needs or fancies of Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked Lord." One splendid oak, known as the "Pilgrim's Oak," which stood and stands near the north lodge of the park, near the "Hut," was bought in by the neighbouring gentry, and made over to the estate. Perhaps by the Druid oak Byron meant to celebrate this "last of the clan," which, in his day, before the woods were replanted, must have stood out in solitary grandeur.]

{498}[670] [Compare "Epistle to Augusta," stanza x. line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 68.]

[671] [The little wood which Byron planted at the south-east corner of the upper or "Stable" Lake, known as "Poet's Corner," still slopes to the water's brink. Nor have the wild-fowl diminished. The lower of the three lakes is specially reserved as a breeding-place.]

[me] _Its shriller echo_----.--[MS.]

[mf]
_Which sympathized with Time's and Tempest's march,
In gazing on that high and haughty Arch_.--[MS.]

{499}[672] [See lines "On Leaving Newstead Abbey," stanza 5, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 3, note 1.]

[mg] _But in the stillness of the moon_----.--[MS.]

{500}[673] [_Vide ante_, _The Deformed Transformed_, Part I. line 532, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 497.]

[674] This is not a frolic invention: it is useless to specify the spot, or in what county, but I have heard it both alone and in company with those who will never hear it more. It can, of course, be accounted for by some natural or accidental cause, but it was a strange sound, and unlike any other I have ever heard (and I have heard many above and below the surface of the earth produced in ruins, etc., etc., or caverns).--[MS.]

["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at rare intervals, but it is difficult to believe that the "huge arch" can act as an Æolian harp. Perhaps the smaller lancet windows may vocalize the wind.]

{501}[mh] _Prouder of such a toy than of their breed_.--[MS. erased.]

{502}[675] Salvator Rosa. The wicked necessity of rhyming obliges me to adapt the name to the verse.--[MS.]

[Compare--

"Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue,
Or _savage_ Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."
Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, Canto I. stanza xxxviii. lines 8, 9.]

[676] If I err not, "your Dane" is one of Iago's catalogue of nations "exquisite in their drinking."

["Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander--drink hoa! are nothing to your English." "Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?" (So Collier and Knight. The Quarto reads "expert").--_Othello_, act ii. sc. 3, lines 71-74.]

[mi]
_His bell-mouthed goblet--and his laughing group
Provoke my thirst--what ho! a flask of Rhenish_.--[MS. erased.]

{503}[mj] _Hath yet at night the very best of wines._--[MS.]

[677] ["Sea-coal" (i.e. Newcastle coal), as distinguished from "charcoal" and "earth-coal." But the qualification must have been unusual and old-fashioned in 1822. "Earth-coal" is found in large quantities on the Newstead estate, and the Abbey, far below its foundations, is tunnelled by a coal-drift.]

[678] [See Gray's _omitted_ stanza--

"'Here scatter'd oft, _the earliest_ of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The red-breast loves to build and warble here,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'

As fine ... as any in his Elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart to omit it."--"Extracts from a Diary," February 27, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 210. The stanza originally preceded the Epitaph.]

{504}[679] In Assyria. [See _Daniel_ iii. 1.]

[mk]
---- _she hath the tame
Preserved within doors--why not make them Game?_--[MS.]

[680] [It is difficult, if not impossible, to furnish a clue to the names of all the guests at Norman Abbey. Some who are included in this ghostly "house-party" seem to be, and, perhaps, were meant to be, _nomina umbrarum_; and others are, undoubtedly, contemporary celebrities, under a more or less transparent disguise. A few of these shadows have been substantiated (_vide infra, et post_), but the greater part decline to be materialized or verified.]

[ml]---- _the Countess Squabby._--[MS.]

[681] [Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of Cork and Orrery: "Dowager Cork," "Old Corky," of Joseph Jekyll's _Correspondence_, 1894, pp. 83, 275.]

[682] [Mrs. Rabbi may be Mrs. Coutts, the Mrs. Million of _Vivian Grey_ (1826, i. 183), who arrived at "Château Desir in a crimson silk pelisse, hat and feathers, with diamond ear-rings, and a rope of gold round her neck."]

{505}[683] [Lie, lye, or ley, is a solution of potassium salts obtained by bleaching wood-ashes. Byron seems to have confused "lie" with "lee," i.e. dregs, sediment.]

[684] [_"Aroint thee, witch!_ the rump-fed ronyon cries." _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 3, line 6.]

[mm] _Or (to come to the point, like my friend Pulci)_.--[MS. erased.]

[685] [Hor., _Epist. Ad Pisones_, line 343.]

[mn]---- _by fear or flattery_.--[MS. erased.]

[686] Siria, i.e. bitch-star.

[mo] _I have seen--no matter what--we now shall see_.--[MS. erased.]

{506}[687] [Parolles [see _All's Well that Ends Well_, _passim_] is Brougham (_vide ante_, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I. pp. 67-69). It is possible that this stanza was written after the Canto as a whole was finished. But, if not, an incident which took place in the House of Commons, April 17, 1823, during a debate on Catholic Emancipation, may be quoted in corroboration of Brougham's unreadiness with regard to the point of honour. In the course of his speech he accused Canning of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office," and Canning, without waiting for Brougham to finish, gave him the lie: "I rise to say that that is false" (_Parl. Deb._, N.S. vol. 8, p. 1091).

There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware that the "old order" had passed or was passing. Compare Hazlitt, in _The Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous, but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of harm's way and escape from the danger;" and Mr. Parthenopex Puff (W. Stewart Rose), in _Vivian Grey_ (1826, i. 186, 187), "Oh! he's a prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? he says, that Foaming Fudge [Brougham] can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel--and that he found time for everything but the _last_."]

[mp] _There was, too, Henry B_----.--[MS. erased.]

[688] [In his Journal for December 5, 1813, Byron writes: "The Duke of ---- called.... His Grace is a good, noble, ducal person" (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 361). Possibly the earlier "Duke of Dash" was William Spencer, sixth Duke of Devonshire, an old schoolfellow of Byron's, who was eager to renew the acquaintance (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 98, note 2); and, if so, he may be reckoned as one of the guests of "Norman Abbey."]

{507}[689] [Gronow (_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 234-240) identifies the _Chevalier de la Ruse_ with Casimir Comte de Montrond (1768-1843), back-stairs diplomatist, wit, gambler, and man of fashion. He was the lifelong companion, if not friend, of Talleyrand, who pleaded for him: "Qui est-ce qui ne l'aimerait pas, il est si vicieux!" At one time in the pay of Napoleon, he fell under his displeasure, and, to avoid arrest, spent two years of exile (1812-14) in England. "He was not," says Gronow, "a great talker, nor did he swagger ... or laugh at his own _bons-mots_. He was demure, sleek, sly, and dangerous.... In the London clubs he went by the name of Old French." He was a constant guest of the Duke of York's at Oatlands, "and won much at his whist-table" (_English Whist_, by W.P. Courtney, 1894, p. 181). For his second residence in England, and for a sketch by D'Orsay, see _A Portion of the Journal, etc._, by Thomas Raikes, 1857, frontispiece to vol. iv., _et_ vols. i.-iv. _passim_. See, for biographical notice, _L'Ami de M. de Talleyrand_, par Henri Welschinger, _La Revue de Paris_, 1895, Fev., tom. i. pp. 640-654.]

[690] [Perhaps Sir James Mackintosh--a frequent guest at Holland House.]

{508}[691] [Possibly Colonel (afterwards Sir James) Macdonell [d. 1857], "a man of colossal stature," who occupied and defended the Château of Hougoumont on the night before the battle of Waterloo. (See Gronow, _Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 76, 77.)]

[692] [Sir George Prevost (1767-1816), the Governor-General of British North America, and nominally Commander-in-chief of the Army in the second American War, contributed, by his excess of caution, supineness, and delay, to the humiliation of the British forces. The particular allusion is to his alleged inaction at a critical moment in the engagement of September 11, 1814, between Commodore Macdonough and Captain Downie in Plattsburg Bay. "A letter was sent to Capt. Downie, strongly urging him to come on, as the army had long been waiting for his co-operation.... The brave Downie replied that he required no urging to do his duty.... He was as good as his word. The guns were scaled when he got under way, upon hearing which Sir George issued an _order_ for the troops to _cook_, instead of _that of instant co-operation_."--To Editor of the _Montreal Herald_, May 23, 1815, _Letters of Veritas_, 1815, pp. 116, 117. See, too, _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1822, vol. xxvii. p. 446.]

[693] [George Hardinge (1744-1816), who was returned M.P. for Old Sarum in 1784, was appointed, in 1787, Senior Justice of the Counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. According to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1816 (vol. lxxxvi. p. 563), "In conversation he had few equals.... He delighted in pleasantries, and always afforded to his auditors abundance of mirth and entertainment as well as information." Byron seems to have supposed that these "pleasantries" found their way into his addresses to condemned prisoners, but if the charges printed in his _Miscellaneous Works_, edited by John Nichols in 1818, are reported in full, he was entirely mistaken. They are tedious, but the "waggery" is conspicuous by its absence.]

{509}[mq] _With all his laurels growing upon one tree_.--[MS. erased.]

[694] [John Philpot Curran (1750-1817). "Did you know Curran?" asked Byron of Lady Blessington (_Conversations_, 1834, p. 176); "he was the most wonderful person I ever saw. In him was combined an imagination the most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would have justified the observation applied to----that his heart was in his head." (See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 24, _Letters_, 1901, v. 421.)]

[695] [For Thomas Lord Erskine (1750-1823), see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 390, note 5. See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 93, _Letters_, 1901, v. 455, 456. In his _Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 297, 298, Hazlitt contrasts "the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit of a Curran ... the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy of a Burke," with the "dashing and graceful manner" which concealed the poverty and "deadness" of the matter of Erskine's speeches.]

{510}[mr]
---- _all classes mostly pull
At the same oar_----.--[MS. erased.]

{511}[696] ["Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was blasphemous to talk of Scripture out of church." This dogma was broached to her husband--the best Christian in any book.--See _The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews_, Bk. IV. chap. xi. ed. 1876, p. 324.]

[ms] _---- in the ripe age._--[MS.]

[697] [Probably Richard Sharp (1759-1835), known as "Conversation Sharp." Byron frequently met him in society in 1813-14, and in "Extracts from a Diary," January 9, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 161, describes him as "the Conversationist." He visited Byron at the Villa Diodati in the autumn of 1816 (_Life_, p. 323).]

[698] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 5, line 22.]

[mt] _Nor bate (read bait)_----.--[MS.]

{512}[699] [See letters to the Earl of Blessington, April 5, 1823, _Letters_, 1891, vi. 187.]

{513}[mu]
_But full of wisdom_----.--[MS.]
_A sort of rose entwining with a thistle_.--[MS. erased.]

[700] [_Iliad_, x. 341, sq.]

[701] It would have taught him humanity at least. This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling,--the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single _bite_ is worth to him more than all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and useful. But angling!--no angler can be a good man.

"One of the best men I ever knew,--as humane, delicate-minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world,--was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagancies of I. Walton."

The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.--"Audi alteram partem."--I leave it to counter-balance my own observation.

{515}[702] B. Fy. 19^th^ 1823.--[MS.]

CANTO THE FOURTEENTH.

I.

IF from great Nature's or our own abyss[703]
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[704]
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.

II.

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?

III.

For me, I know nought; 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 called, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of Life is passed in sleep.

IV.

A sleep without dreams, after a rough 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.

'T is round him--near him--here--there--everywhere--
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 don'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,[705] be it truth or error,
To the _unknown_; a secret prepossession,
To plunge with all your fears--but where? You know not,
And that's the reason why you do--or do not.

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 common places.

VIII.

You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,
"Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"[706]
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[707]--or behind;
For I have seen a portion of that same,
And quite enough for me to keep in mind;--
Of passions, too, I have 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 knocked 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 can't 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.