account for th

ie, ambition, to fill up his heart;

Tew there are whom these cannot estrange
Don Juaen have all these resources, we but one,

"To love again, and be again undone.",

After the receipt of Donna Julia's letter, we hear no more of Don Juan in this Canto; having caused a divorce at the age of sixteen, he may be allowed a little breathing time before he sets out in his travels.

His Lordship next takes a cursory review of his brother poets; but this author's poetry, like the prose of Voltaire, is indebted for much of its pungency, not to the attic salt alone, but to a spice or two of blasphemy scattered up and down, and here and there, with no sparing hand.

CCIV.

If ever I should condescend to prose,

I'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before: in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch :
I'll call the work Longinus o'er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.'

CCV.

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;

Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,

The second drunk, the third both quaint and mouthey

With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,

And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:

Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor

Commit flirtation with the Muse of Moore.

CCVI.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,

His Pegasus, nor any thing that's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like the Blues,
(There's one, at least, is very fond of this)
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose
This is true criticism, and you may kiss---
Exactly as you please, or not, the rod,

But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G---d !"

These gentlemen are here treated

enough by

his Lordship, but as they have the powe

selves, and as no one ever yet suspected that

fend them

genus irri

tabile" of the want of a will to do so, I shall leave them to draw their pens, and shed their ink, at their own discretion. Compared with his Lordship they may not be "cantare pares,” but none will doubt that they are "respondere parati."

CCXVIII.

"What is the end of fame? 'tis but to fill

A certain portion of uncertain paper:

Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

Whose summit, like all hills, are lost in vapour;

For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their midnight taper,'

To have, when the original is dust,

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust."

The reflections contained in this stanza are as pure as they are beautiful; fame is indeed a bubble; but can his Lordship sincerely think so, when he has paid so tremendous a price to obtain it! What are the sacrifices of time, or of health, or of money, or even of life? They weigh but as the dust in the balance, when compared with those awful and eternal interests which he has surrendered up as a burnt sacrifice, at the shrine of that idol which he here pronounces to be so unworthy of his adoration. Alas! the idolator is as blind as the idol, and the time may come when wish that he were as perishable too!

he may

The second canto opens with a recommendation to the respective pedagogues of all nations, vigorously to act the part of Horace's Orbilius, and to flog their pupils well. We rather suspect that his Lordship now feels in himself the effect of this defect; for, we may say with Polonius, that, "this affect defective comes by cause ;" and our author is not without some few signs and symptoms of that irritable and wayward being 'yclep'd a spoilt child. He next proceeds

1

to account for that which seems to have puzzled the tutors of Don Juan:

"A youth of sixteen, causing a divorce,

"Puzzled his tutors very much of course."

Having settled this point, he indulges us with a choice morceau of his Pyrrhonian, or, if you please, Byronian philosophy; for be it known, that his Lordship can philosophise at times, and even moralize too; for in the last stanza of the last canto of Harold, he leaves a remarkable legacy to his readers, "The moral of the tale:" he leaves it to all who can find it; but this valuable legacy, like the Irishman's property in Tipperary, seems to be so well secured, that his Lordship has not yet been able to get at it himself.

IV.

"Well-well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.”

Don Juan is now dispatched by his mother from the scene of his late intrigue, and shipped off from Cadiz for a course of four years' travel. His establishment consists of a favourite spaniel; a valet, to take care that no one shall cheat his master, but himself; a tutor, to furnish his head with new ideas, and his table with old wine; and a letter of advice from his mother, which was presented, but not perused; with two or three letters of credit, which were perused, but not presented. His destination is from Cadiz to Leghorn, but they encounter a terrible hurricane, which sinks the ship in the gulf of Lyons, after which some few of the sailors take to the boats, with Juan, his valet, and his tutor. Their sufferings, protracted by Cannibalism,

terminate at last, by their only remaining boat being dashed to pieces on the breakers, and Juan remains the sole survivor of the whole crew; thrown upon the beach by the surf, half naked, starved, and in a state of insensibility, “Vivit, at est vitæ nescius ipse suæ.”

The place on which he is cast, happens to be one of the wilder and smaller Cyclades, tenanted by an old Greek, who had amassed immense treasures by piracy, and who had an only daughter called Haidee, "the greatest heiress of the Grecian Isles."

CVIII.

"There breathless with his digging nails he clung

Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,
From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,

Should suck him back to her insatiate grave:

And there he lay, full length, where he was flung,
Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave,

With just enough of life to feel its pain,
And deem that it was saved perhaps in vain.

CX.

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast

And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand
Swam round and round, and all his senses passed:
He fell upon his side, and his stretched hand
Droop'd dripping on the oar, (their jury-mast)
And, like a wither'd lily, on the land
His slender frame and pallid aspect lay,

As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay.".

In this situation he is discovered by Haidee and her maid; here the usual style of these things is reversed, as the lady saves the life of her lover; after which our hero enters upon intrigue the second, which terminates in his Lordship's usual manner.

It is manifest that this story combines within itself every capability for the display of genius, and allows the fullest scope to his Lordship's most versatile and extraordinary powers. Here therefore is selfishness, for his sarcasms;

love, for his licentiousness; superstition, for his ribaldry; and danger, despair, and death, for his sublimities.

Quicquid habent Veneres Venerum, Charitesve Leporûm ; "Quicquid Musa Joci, quicquid Apollo Salis,"

"Words that breathe, and thoughts that burn;" all that is attractive, or terrible, or revolting, is here scattered before us, with the most prodigal vivacity of youth, and the profoundest experience of age. Much is misapplied, still more is misplaced; but omnipotent genius presides over this chaos of wonders, and secure in her own resources, despises alike the censure and the praise of those who are permitted to see, rather than to comprehend, the marvellous creations of her will. This story of the shipwreck, in fact, is the principal feature in the whole poem, and occupies about one fourth of its bulk. It is also clear that his Lordship fully feels all the capabilities of his story, and screws all his powers to the sticking place. The consequence is, that he has produced some stanzas that no one but himself could, and some that no one but himself would, have written. Amidst a mass of much that we shall not dare to quote, and much more, that we will not presume to defend, it is, nevertheless, the duty of every candid inquirer, while he enforces every well founded accusation, or objection, to clear the object of his examination, from all that are not so. Now it has been said, that many of the scenes in this story of the shipwreck, are out of natur that they are too horrible, too disgusting, and too deg ing for reality. That it is a caricature, rather than a ture. But there are few who will deny that the gr cardinal de Retz was a very close and profound observer o. human nature, and that he was not more remarkable for sagacity, than for truth. It is curious that he very narrowly escaped shipwreck, with a crew composed of the same materials, and under a situation and circumstances very