XXXIV. Oh for a forty-parson power to chant Thy praise, hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim! Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt, Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim, She was no hypocrite, at least, poor soul! Which portions out upon the judgment day The gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times He felt like other plants-call'd sensitive, XLII. This is the way physicians mend or end us. To be fill'd up by spade or mattock, 's near, XLIII. Juan demurr'd at this first notice to Quit; and, though death had threaten'd an ejection, His youth and constitution bore him through, And sent the doctors in a new direction. But still his state was delicate: the hue Of health but flicker'd with a faint reflection The climate was too cold, they said, for him, Who did not like at first to lose her minion: And drooping like an eagle's with clipp'd pinion, XLV. There was just then a kind of a discussion, A sort of treaty or negotiation Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes, Between the British cabinet and Russian, Maintain'd with all the due prevarication With which great states such things are apt to push on, Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis, XLVI. So Catherine, who had a handsome way At once her royal splendour, and reward XLVII. But she was lucky, and luck's all. Your queens And though her dignity brook'd no complaining, XLVIII. But time, the comforter, will come at last; Nor did she find the quantity encumber, XLIX. While this high post of honour's in abeyance, For one or two days, reader, we request You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance Which wafted him from Petersburgh; the best Barouche, which had the glory to display once The fair Czarina's autocratic crest, (When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris,) Was given to her favourite, and now bore his. L LXVI. I have no great cause to love that spot of earth, I feel a mix'd regret and veneration Seven years (the usual term of transportation) Of absence lay one's old resentments level, When a man's country's going to the devil. LXVII. Alas! could she but fully, truly, know How her great name is now throughout abhorr'd; How eager all the earth is for the blow Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword; How all the nations deem her their worst foe, That worse than worst of foes-the once adored False friend, who held out freedom to mankind, And now would chain them to the very mind;— LXXIV. The effect on Juan was of course subline: O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law, LXXV. And being told it was "God's house," she said He was well lodged, but only wonder'd how He suffer'd infidels in his homestead, The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low His holy temples in the lands which bred The true believers;-and her infant brow Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine. LXXXII. A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper, |