crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law a felon or a madman-and in either case no great subject for panegyric. In his life he was-what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics ? With regard to the objections which have been made, on another score, to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire: -"La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." * * * "Plus les mœurs sont depravées, plus les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer-which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, &c. are the charges 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 suf fered 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 double-dealing and falsespeaking time of selfish spoilers, and-but enough for the present.

Pisa, July, 1822.

CANTO THE SIXTH.

I.

"THERE is a tide in the affairs of men

Which,-taken at the flood,"-you know the rest,

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

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

Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair;

Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen

With its strange whirls and eddies can compare:

Men with their heads reflect on this and that

But women with their hearts on heaven knows what.

HI.

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,
Young, beautiful, and daring-who would risk

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A throne, the world, the universe, to be
Belov'd in her own way, and rather whisk

The stars from out the sky, than not be free

As are the billows when the breeze is briskThough such a she's a devil (if that there be one), Yet she would make full many a Manichean.

IV.

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset

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By commonest ambition, that when passion

Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.

O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,

If Anthony be well remember'd yet,

'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion; But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes,

Outbalances all Cæsar's victories.

V.

He died at fifty, for a queen of forty;

I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,
For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds, are but a sport-I
Remember when, though I had no great plenty
Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I

Gave what I had-a heart: as the world went, I
Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never
Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.

VI.

"Twas the boy's "mite," and, like the "widow's," may
Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now;
But whether such things do, or do not, weigh,
All who have lov'd, or love, will still allow
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say;
And Love's a God, or was before the brow
Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears
Of-but Chronology best knows the years.

VII.

We left our hero and third heroine in

A kind of state more awkward than uncommon,
For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin,
For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:
Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,

And don't agree at all with the wise Roman,
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.

VIII.

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,

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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" it appears,

If 'tis summ'd up in feminine precision,

That, adding to the account his Highness' years,

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.

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X.

It is observ'd 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,

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When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude; And as four wives must have quadruple claims,

The Tigris hath its jealousies, like Thames.

XII.

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)

The favourite; but what's favour amongst four?

Not only as a sin, but as a bore;

Polygamy may well be held in dread,

Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed,
Will scarcely find philosophy for more;

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And all (except Mahometans) forbear

To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."

XIII.

His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,—
So styl'd according to the usual forms
Of every monarch, till they are consign'd
To those sad hungry jacobins, the worms,
Who on the very loftiest kings have din'd,-
His Highness gaz'd upon Gulbeyaz' charms,
Expecting all the welcome of a lover,

(A" Highland welcome" all the wide world over).

XIV.

Now, here we should distinguish; for howe'er
Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that,
May look like what is neither here nor there,
They are put on as easily as a hat,
Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear,

Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate,
Which form an ornament, but no more part
Of heads, than their caresses, of the heart.

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XV.

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind
Of gentle feminine delight, and shown
More in the eyelids than the eyes, resign'd

Rather to hide what pleases most unknown,
Are the best tokens (to a modest mind)

Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne,
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, 'tis 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 à 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.

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That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,
For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,

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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.

The "tu"'s too much,-but let it stand,-the verse
Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme,

And not the pink of old hexameters;

But, after all, there's neither tune nor time

In the last line, which cannot well be worse,
And was thrust in to close the octave's chime:
I own no prosody can ever rate it

As a rule, but truth may, if

you translate it.

XIX.

If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part,

I know not-it succeeded, and success

Is much in most things, not less in the heart,
Than other articles of female dress.
Self-love in man, too, beats all female art;
They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less:
And no one virtue yet, except starvation,
Could stop that worst of vices-propagation.

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