And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine), A royal husband in all save the ring- And when you add to this, her womanhood In its meridian, her blue eyes or gray- Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure, With other extras, which we need not mention,— LXXIII. And that's enough, for love is vanity, A maddening spirit which would strive to blend Itself with beauty's frail inanity, On which the passion's self seems to depend: LXXIV. Besides Platonic love, besides the love Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving Of faithful pairs-(I needs must rhyme with dove, That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving 'Gainst reason-Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove With rhyme, but always leant less to improving The sound than sense) — besides all these pretences To love, there are those things which words name senses; 1["Several persons who lived at the court affirm that Catherine had very blue eyes, and not gray, as M. Rulhières has stated."-TOOKE.] 2 [See antè, p. 661.] 3["Lust, through certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all woman kind."-POPE.] A Russian estate is always valued by the number of the slaves upon it. 5["Peter the Third died in July, 1762, just one week after his deposition. The real manner in which he came by his death is one of those events over which, it is probable, there will be for ever a veil impenetrable to human eyes, and known LXXV. Those movements, those improvements in our bodies Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess, The noblest kind of love is love Platonical, only to that Being to whom the heart is open, and from whom no secrets are concealed. The partisans that might have retained their attachment to him after his fall; the murmurs of the populace, who quietly permit revolutions to be effected, and afterwards lament those who have fallen their victims; the difficulties arising from keeping in custody a prisoner of such consequence; all these motives in conjunction tend to give credit to the opinion, that some hand of uncontrollable authority shortened his days. But the conduct of Catherine before that event, and especially for four and thirty years that she afterwards reigned, is of itself alone a suthcient refutation of so atrocious a calumny as would fix the guilt of it on her."-TOOKE.] The Baron 2" Reformers," or rather "Reformed." Bradwardine in Waverley is authority for the word. 3 Query, suit ?- Printer's Devil. 4 [This tribute to a former antagonist displays so much frankness, generosity, and manly feeling, that it must eradicate all latent remains of animosity from the bosom of any but the most rancorous and vindictive. In addition to these merits, the felicitous introduction of the poet's recollections of his boyish days renders this passage equal in poetical CAMPBELL.] beauty to any that has proceeded from his pen. And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes, Whether in Caledon or Italy, Should not veer round with every breath, nor scize To pain, the moment when you cease to please. XIV. The lawyer and the critic but behold The baser sides of literature and life, The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife, XV. A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty, 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. 4 5 ["I don't like to bore you about the Scotch novels (as they call them, though two of them are English, and the rest half so); but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes in your company, that you are not the man: to me these novels have so much of Auld lang syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old), that never move without them."-Lord Byron to Sir W. Scott, Jan. 12. 1822.] 6 The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one arch, and its black deep salmou stream below, is in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age: Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa', Z z XIX. 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."1 XX. Don Juan, who was real, or ideal, To one small grass-grown patch (which must await Who never had a foot of land till now,— He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter, In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry — Which (though I hate to say a thing that's bitter) Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry, Through all the "purple and fine linen," fitter For both are much the same, since what men think For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot— 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 't is very puzzling on the brink And know no more of what is here, than there; Don Juan grew a very polish'd Russian How we won't mention, why we need not say: Smooth'd for a monarch's seat of honour: gay The favour of the empress was agreeable; XXIII. About this time, as might have been anticipated, Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples Of frail humanity-must make us selfish, XXIV. This we pass over. We will also pass The usual progress of intrigues between A young lieutenant's with a not old queen, XXV. And neutralise her outward show of scarlet. XXVII. And this same state we won't describe: we would Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier XXVIII. I won't describe,—that is, if I can help Holds by the rock; or as a lover's kiss but, as I said, I won't philosophise, and will be read. XXIX. Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted, XXX. He wrote to Spain: -and all his near relations, Of getting on himself, and finding stations And eating ices, were o'erheard to say, XXXI. His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too, That in the lieu of drawing on his banker, And Death, the sovereign's sovereign, though the great Replied, "that she was glad to see him through With his Agrarian laws, the high estate Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker; As the sole sign of man's being in his senses Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels, Is, learning to reduce his past expenses. 1 ["Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood," &c. Lay of the Last Minstrel.] 2 Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the people, demanded in their name the execution of the Agrarian law; by which all persons possessing above a certain number of acres were to be deprived of the surplus for the benefit of the poor citizens. 3" Mi retrovai per un selva oscura."-Inferno, Canto 1. Oh for a forty-parson power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim, She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul, But went to heaven in as sincere a way Which portions out upon the judgment day I can't complain, whose ancestors are there, Were their reward for following Billy's banners; ? And though I can't help thinking 't was scarce fair To strip the Saxons of their hydes 3, like tanners; Yet as they founded churches with the produce, You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use. XXXVII. The gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times He felt like other plants call'd sensitive, Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes, Save such as Southey can afford to give. Perhaps he long'd in bitter frosts for climes In which the Neva's ice would cease to live Perhaps but, sans perhaps, we need not seek As well as further drain the wither'd form: A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse power" of a steam-engine. That mad wag, the Reverend Sydney Smith, sitting by a brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that his dull neighbour had a “twelve-parson power" of conversation. 2 [See Collins's Peerage, vol. vii. p. 71.] Hyde."-I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate word, and, as such, subject to the tax of a quibble. 4 [For an account of Dr. Baillie's visit to Lord Byron, sce antè, p. 593.] 5 [Both Dr. Baillie and John Abernethy, the great surgeon, were remarkable for plainness of speech.] |