CXXIV.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth;
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,
Sweet is revenge-especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

CXXV.

Sweet is the legacy, and passing sweet

The unexpected death of some old lady Or gentleman of seventy years complete, Who've made "us youth" wait too—too long already For an estate, or cash, or country-seat, Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, That all the Israelites are fit to mob its Next owner for their double damn'd post-obits.

CXXVI.

'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels
By blood or ink: 'tis sweet to put an end
To strife: 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels ;

Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

CXXVII.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love-it stands alone,
Like Adam's recollection of his fall;

The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd-all's known, And life yields nothing further to recall

thy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,

in fable, as the unforgiven

Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven.

CXXVIII.

Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use
Of his own nature, and the various arts,
And likes particularly to produce

Some new experiment to show his parts;

This is the age of oddities let loose,

Where different talents find their different marts; You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost your Labour, there's a sure market for imposture.

CXXIX.

What opposite discoveries we have seen!

(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets :) One makes new noses-one a guillotine

One breaks your bones-one sets them in their sockets; But vaccination certainly has been

A kind of antithesis to Congreve's rockets,

CXXX.

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes;
And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,
But has not answer'd like the apparatus

Of the Humane Society's beginning,

By which men are unsuffocated gratis:

What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!

CXXXII.

This is the patent age of new inventions,
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions:

Sir Humphrey Davy's lantern, by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

CXXXIII.

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
'Tis pity though, in this sublime world, that

Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure;
Few mortals know what end they would be at,

But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, and when The goal is gain'd, we die, you know-and then

CXXXIV.

What then?-I do not know-no more do you-
And so good night.-Return we to our story;
'Twas in November, when fine days are few,
And the far mountains wax a little hoary,
And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;
And the sea dashes round their promontory,
And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
And sober suns must set at five o'clock.

CXXXV.

'Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;
No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud
By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;
There's something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky's without a cloud:
I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,
A lobster, salad, and champagne, and chat.

CXXXVI.

"Twas midnight-Donna Julia was in bed, Sleeping, most probably-when at her door Arose a clatter might awake the dead,

If they had never been awoke before, And that they have been so we all have read, And are to be so, at the least once moreThe door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist First knocks were heard, then "Madam-Madam-hist!

CXXXVII.

"For God's sake ;-Madam-Madam-here's my master "With more than half the city at his back"Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!

""Tis not my fault-I kept good watch-Alack! "Do, pray undo the bolt a little faster

"They're on the stair just now, and in a crack "Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly

66

Surely the window's not so very high!"

CXXXVIII.

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,

With torches, friends, and servants in great number; The major part of them had long been wived,

And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber

Of any wicked woman, who contrived

By stealth her husband's temples to encumber; Examples of this kind are so contagious,

Were not one punished, all would be outrageous

CXXXIX.

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso's head:
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
Without a word of previous admonition,
To hold a levee round his lady's bed,
And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd.

CXL.

Poor Donna Julia, starting, as from sleep,
(Mind--that I do not say-she had not slept)
Began at once to scream, and
and weep;
Her maid Antonia, who was an adept,
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,

yawn,

As if she had just now from out them crept:
I can't tell why she should take all this trouble
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.

CXLI.

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,

Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,

Had thought one man might be deterr'd by two,
And therefore side by side were gently laid,
Until the hours of absence should run through,
And truant husband should return and say,

66

My dear, I was the first who came away."

CXLII.

Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,'

"In Heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d'ye mean? "Has madness seized you ?-would that I had died "Ere such a monster's victim I had been! "What may this midnight violence betide, "A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?

"Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill! Search, then, the room !"-Alfonso said,

"

CXLIII.

'I will."

He search'd, they search'd, and rummaged every where, Closet and clothes'-press, chest and window-seat, And found much linen, lace, and several pair

Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,

With other articles of ladies fair,

To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:
s they prick'd and curtains with their swords,
nded several shutters and some boards.