Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune, [shorten, Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving Whose avarice all disbursements did importune, senses; L 1 LXXXII. But when the levee rose, and all was bustle Round the young man with their congratulations. Also the softer silks were heard to rustle Of gentle dames, among whose recreations Juan, who found himself, he knew not how, LXXXIV. An order from her majesty consign'd Our young lieutenant to the genial care Of those in office: all the world look'd kind, (As it will look sometimes with the first stare, Which youth would not act ill to keep in mind ;) As also did Miss Protasoff then there, Named, from her mystic office, "l'Eprouveuse," A term inexplicable to the Muse. LXXXV. With her, then, as in humble duty bound, And all my fancies whirling like a mill; CANTO X. I. WHEN Newton saw an apple fall, he found A mode of proving that the earth turn round II. Man fell with apples, and with apples rose, Through the then unpaved stars, the turnpike road, A thing to counterbalance human woes; For, ever since, immortal man hath glow'd With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon Steam engines will conduct him to the moon. III. And wherefore this exordium ?-Why, just now, To those who, by the dint of glass and vapor, Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye, I wish to do as much by poesy. IV. In the wind's eye I have sail'd, and sail; but for Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float Where ships have founder'd, as doth many a boat. V. We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom Of favoritism, but not yet in the blush; It is enough that fortune found him flush X. Besides, he had some qualities which fix XI. And why? because she's changeable and chaste. May choose to tax me with; which is not fair, XII. Old enemies who have become new friends Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her. Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foesConverted foes should scorn to join with those. XIII. This were the worst desertion: renegadoes, Even shuffling Southey-that incarnate lieWould scarcely join again the "reformadoes," Whom he forsook to fill the laureate's sty: And honest men, from Iceland to Barbadoes, Whether in Caledon or Italy, Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize, To pain, the moment when you cease to please. XIV. The lawyer and the critic but behold The baser sides of literature and life, And nought remains unseen, but much untold, By those who scour those double vales of strife. While common men grow ignorantly old, The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife, Dissecting the whole inside of a question, And with it all the process of digestion. XV. A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, And that's the reason he himself's so dirty; The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he Retains the sable stains of the dark creeperAt least some twenty-nine do out of thirty, In all their habits: not so you, own ; As Cæsar wore his robe you wear your gown. XVI. And all our little feuds, at least all mine, Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe, (As far as rhyme and criticism combine To make such puppets of us things below,) Are over: Here's a health to "Auld Lang Syne!" I do not know you, and may never know Your face-but you have acted on the whole Most nobly, and I own it from my soul. XVII. And when I use the phrase of "Auld Lang Syne!" As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland one and all, Scotch plaid, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's Brig's black wall,3 I care not-'tis a glimpse of "Auld Lang Syne." And though, as you remember, in a fit Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly. I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly, Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early: I "scotch'd, not kill'd," the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of "mountain and of flood." XX. Don Juan, who was real or ideal, For both are much the same, since what men think Exists when the once thinkers are less real, Than what they thought, for mind can never sink. And 'gainst the body makes a strong appeal; And yet 'tis very puzzling on the brink Of what is call'd eternity, to stare, And know no more of what is here than there : XXI. Don Juan grew a very polish'd Russian How we won't mention, why we need not say Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion Of any slight temptation in their way; But his just now were spread as is a cushion Smooth'd for a monarch's seat of honor: gay The favor of the empress was agreeable; XXIII. About this time, as might have been anticipated, XXIV. This we pass over. We will also pass A young lieutenant's with a not old queen, XXV. And Death, the sovereigns' sovereign, though the [great XXXI. His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too, [caor He had brought his spending to a handsome an "She also recommended him to God, And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother, Warn'd him against Greek worship, which looks odd Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels, In Catholic eyes; but told him too to smother To one small grass-grown patch (which must await Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils Who never had a foot of land till now,Death's a reformer, all men must allow. XXVI. He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry [glitter, Which (though I hate to say a thing that's bitter) XXVII Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad: XXXIII. "She could not too much give her approbation XXXIV. Oh, for a forty-parson powers to chant Thy praise, hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn And this same state we won't describe: we could |