But as "there's safety" grafted in the number
"Of counsellors," for men, thus for the sex
A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber;
Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex-
Variety itself will more encumber.

'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks; And thus with women: howsoe'er it shocks some's Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of coxcombs. XXXI.

But Adeline had not the least occasion

For such a shield, which leaves but little merit
To virtue proper, or good education.

Her chief resource was in her own high spirit,
Which judged mankind at their due estimation;
And for coquetry, she disdain'd to wear it:
Secure of admiration, its impression
Was faint, as of an every-day possession.
XXXII.

To all she was polite without parade;

To some she show'd attention of that kind
Which flatters, but is flattery convey'd

In such a sort as cannot leave behind
A trace unworthy either wife or maid; —
A gentle, genial courtesy of mind,
To those who were, or pass'd for meritorious,
Just to console sad glory for being glorious;
XXXIII.

Which is in all respects, save now and then,
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze
Upon the shades of those distinguish'd men,

Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise,
The praise of persecution. Gaze again

On the most favour'd; and amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd,
What can ye recognise?—a gilded cloud.

XXXIV.

There also was of course in Adeline

That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line

Of any thing which nature would express; Just as a mandarin finds nothing fine,

At least his manner suffers not to guess, That any thing he views can greatly please. Perhaps we have borrow'd this from the ChineseXXXV.

Perhaps from Horace: his " Nil admirari" 1

Was what he call'd the "Art of Happiness;
An art on which the artists greatly vary,
And have not yet attain'd to much success.

[See antè, p. 661.]

2 ["The creed of Zoroaster, which naturally occurs to unassisted reason as a mode of accounting for the mingled existence of good and evil in the visible world, that belief which, in one modification or another, supposes the coexistence of a benevolent and malevolent principle, which contend together without either being able decisively to prevail over his antagonist, leads the fear and awe deeply impressed on the human mind to the worship as well of the

However, 'tis expedient to be wary:

Indifference certes don't produce distress; And rash enthusiasm in good society Were nothing but a moral inebriety.

XXXVI.

But Adeline was not indifferent: for

(Now for a common-place !) beneath the snow, As a volcano holds the lava more

Within-et cætera. Shall I go on ?—No! I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor,

So let the often-used volcano go.

Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others,
It hath been stirr'd up till its smoke quite smothers!
XXXVII.

I'll have ano.her figure in a trice:

What say you to a bottle of champagne ? Frozen into a very vinous ice,

Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain,
Yet in the very centre, past all price,

About a liquid glassful will remain ;
And this is stronger than the strongest grape
Could e'er express in its expanded shape:

XXXVIII.

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence; And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre A hidden nectar under a cold presence.

And such are many-though I only meant her From whom I now deduce these moral lessons,

On which the Muse has always sought to enter. And your cold people are beyond all price, When once you have broken their confounded ice.

XXXIX.

But after all they are a North-West Passage
Unto the glowing India of the soul;
And as the good ships sent upon that message
Have not exactly ascertain'd the Pole
(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),
Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal;
For if the Pole's not open, but all frost
(A chance still), 'tis a voyage or vessel lost.
XL.

And young beginners may as well commence
With quiet cruising o'er the ocean woman ;
While those who are not beginners should have sense
Enough to make for port, ere time shall summon
With his grey signal-flag; and the past tense,

The dreary "Fuimus" of all things human,
Must be declined, while life's thin thread's spun out
Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.

XLL

But heaven must be diverted; its diversion
Is sometimes truculent-but never mind:
The world upon the whole is worth the assertion
(If but for comfort) that all things are kind :
And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian, 2
Of the two principles, but leaves behind
As many doubts as any other doctrine
Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.

author of evil, so tremendous in all the effects of which credulity accounts him the primary cause, as to that of his great opponent, who is loved and adored as the father of all that is good and bountiful. Nay, such is the timid servility of human nature, that the worshippers will neglect the altar of the Author of good, rather than that of Arimanes; trusting with indifference to the well-known mercy of the one, while they shrink from the idea of irritating the vengeful jealousy of the awful father of evil." SIR WALTER SCOTT: Demonology, p. 88.]

XLII.

The English winter-ending in July,

To recommence in August-now was done. 'Tis the postilion's paradise: wheels fly;

On roads, east, south, north, west, there is a run. But for post-horses who finds sympathy?

Man's pity's for himself, or for his son, Always premising that said son at college

Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.
XLIII.

The London winter's ended in July—
Sometimes a little later. I don't err
In this: whatever other blunders lie
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver
My Muse a glass of weatherology;

For parliament is our barometer:
Let radicals its other acts attack,
Its sessions form our only almanack.
XLIV.

When its quicksilver's down at zero,-lo!
Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage!
Wheels whirl from Carlton palace to Soho,

And happiest they who horses can engage;
The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row
Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age;
And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces,
Sigh-as the postboys fasten on the traces.

Ere patriots their true country can remember; -
But there's no shooting (save grouse) till September.
XLIX.

I've done with my tirade. The world was gone;
The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made,
Were vanish'd to be what they call alone —
That is, with thirty servants for parade,
As many guests, or more; before whom groan
As many covers, duly, daily laid.
Let none accuse old England's hospitality —
Its quantity is but condensed to quality.
L.

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline

Departed like the rest of their compeers, The peerage, to a mansion very fine;

The Gothic Babel of a thousand years.

None than themselves could boast a longer line,

Where time through heroes and through beauties

And oaks as olden as their pedigree

Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree.

LI.

A paragraph in every paper told

Of their departure: such is modern fame: 'Tis pity that it takes no farther hold

[steers;

As thus: "On Thursday there was a grand dinner;
Present, Lords A. B. C."-Earls, dukes, by name
Announced with no less pomp than victory's winner :
Then underneath, and in the very same

Column; date, "Falmouth. There has lately been here
The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame ;
Whose loss in the late action we regret :
The vacancies are fill'd up—see Gazette."
LV.

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion 3, - of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow

night-cap-hence that self-reproaching melancholy which was eternally crossing and unnerving him, hence the dark heaving of soul with which he must have written, in his Italian villeggiatura, this glorious description of his own lost ancestral seat.-LOCKILART, 1824.]

Few specimens yet left us can compare Withal: it lies perhaps a litte low, Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind, To shelter their devotion from the wind. 2 LVI.

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley,

Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak Stood like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunderstroke;

And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird. 3
LVII.

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, 4

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its soften'd way did take

In currents through the calmer water spread Around the wildfowl nestled in the brake

And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.

["The front of Newstead Abbey has a most noble and majestic appearance; being built in the form of the west end of a cathedral, adorned with rich carvings and lofty pinnacles." Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii.]

2 ["How sweetly in front looked the transparent water, and the light of religious remains (equalled by no architecture scarcely in the kingdom, except that of York cathedral), backed by the most splendid field beauties, diversified by the swells of the earth on which they were rooted!" THOROTON's Nottinghamshire.]

3["The beautiful park of Newstede, which once was richly ornamented with two thousand seven hundred head of deer, and numberless fine-spreading oaks, is now divided and subdivided into farms."- Ibid.]

But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,

When each house was a fortalice — as tell
The annals of full many a line undone,
The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign. 5
LXI.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child, 6
With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd;
She made the earth below seem holy ground.
This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.
LXII.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft
sings

The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

LXIII.

But in the noontide of the moon, and when

The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Is musical a dying accent driven

Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the night wind by the waterfall,
And harmonised by the old choral wall:

LXIV.

Others, that some original shape, or form

Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power (Though less than that of Memnon's statue 7, warm In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour) To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm

Sad, but serene, it sweeps over tree or tower; The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such The fact: I've heard it, once perhaps too much 8

the middle whereof is the Virgin Mary with Babe or."THOROTON.]

7 [The history of this wonderful statue seems to be simply this: Herodotus, when he went into Egypt, was shown the fragments of a colossus, thrown down some years before by Cambyses. This he calls Memnon: but says not a syllable respecting its emitting a vocal sound; a prodigy which appears to have been an after-thought of the priests of Thebes. The upper part of this statue has been covered by the sand for many ages; it is that which yet remains on its pedestal which performs the wonders mentioned by so many travellers. In a word, the whole appears to have been a trick, not ill adapted to such a place as Egypt, where men went, and still go, with a face of foolish wonderment, predisposed to swallow the grossest absurdities. The sound (for some sound there was), I incline to think, with De Pauw, proceeded from an excavation near the plinth, the sides of which might be struck, at a preconcerted moment, with a bar of sonorous metal. Even Savary, who saw nothing but prodigies in Egypt, treats this foolish affair as an artifice of the priests. So much for the harp of Memnon!- GIFFORD. See also Sir David Brew. ster's Natural Magic, p. 234.]

8["Next to the apartment called King Edward the Third's room, on account of that monarch having slept there, is the sounding gallery,- so called from a very remarkable echo which it possesses." - Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii.]

1 ["From the windows of the gallery over the cloisters, we see the cloister court, with a basin in the centre, used as a stew for fish, &c."- Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii.]

2 ["The cloisters exactly resemble those of Westminster Abbey, only on a smaller scale; but possessing, if possible, a more venerable appearance. These were the cloisters of the ancient abbey, and many of its ancient tenants now lie in silent repose under the flagged pavement. The ancient

There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian,

Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's: 3 Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

LXXII.

Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine ;
There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain

Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic anchorite :
But, lo a Teniers woos, and not in vain,
Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:

His bell-mouth'd goblet makes me feel quite Danish + Or Dutch with thirst— What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.

LXXIII.

O reader! if that thou canst read, — and know,
'T is not enough to spell, or even to read,
To constitute a reader; there must go

Virtues of which both you and I have need.
Firstly, begin with the beginning — (though

That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed; Thirdly, commence not with the end—or, sinning In this sort, end at least with the beginning.

LXXIV.

But, reader, thou hast patient been of late, While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. That poets were so from their earliest date,

By Homer's" catalogue of ships" is clear; But a mere modern must be moderateI spare you then the furniture and plate.

LXXV.

The mellow autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;

The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket: - lynx-like is his aim ;

Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers T is no sport for peasants.

LXXVI.

An English autumn, though it hath no vines,
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along
The paths, o'er which the far festoon entwines
The red grape in the sunny lands of song,
Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines;
The claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her,
The very best of vineyards is the cellar.

LXXVIL

Then, if she hath not that serene decline
Which makes the southern autumn's day appear
As if 't would to a second spring resign

The season, rather than to winter drear,—

chapel, too, is still entire; its ceiling is a very handsome specimen of the Gothic style of springing arches." Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii.]

3 Salvator Rosa

["Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue, Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew." THOMSON's Castle of Indolence.]

4 If I err not," your Dane" is one of lago's catalogue of nations" exquisite in their drinking."

CANTO XIII.

LXXIX.

The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of- we give the sex the pas

The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;
The Ladies Scilly, Busey;- Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O"Tabby,
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw :
Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep,

Who look'd a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:
LXXX.

With other Countesses of Blank - but rank;
At once the "lie" and the "élite" of crowds;
Who pass like water filter'd in a tank,

All purged and pious from their native clouds; Or paper turn'd to money by the Bank:

No matter how or why, the passport shrouds The "passée" and the past; for good society Is no less famed for tolerance than piety,

LXXXL

That is, up to a certain point; which point
Forms the most difficult in punctuation.
Appearances appear to form the joint

On which it hinges in a higher station;
And so that no explosion cry "Aroint

Thee, witch!"4 or each Medea has her Jason; Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci) "Omne tulit punctum, quæ miscuit utile dulci."

LXXXII.

I can't exactly trace their rule of right,

Which hath a little leaning to a lottery. I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite By the mere combination of a coterie; Also a so-so matron boldly fight

Her way back to the world by dint of plottery, And shine the very Siria 5 of the spheres, Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers. LXXXIII.

I have seen more than I'll say:-but we will see How our villeggiatura will get on.

The party might consist of thirty-three

Of highest caste-the Brahmins of the ton. I have named a few, not foremost in degree, But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.

There were four Honourable Misters, whose
Honour was more before their names than after;
There was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse, [here,
Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft
Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse;

But the clubs found it rather serious laughter,
Because-such was his magic power to please -
The dice seem'd charm'd, too, with his repartees.
LXXXVII.

There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician,
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner;
Angle, the soi-disant mathematician;

Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.
There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian,
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner;
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,
Good at all things, but better at a bet.
LXXXVIII.

There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;
And General Fireface, famous in the field,
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman,
Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd.
There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hards-
In his grave office so completely skill'd, [man, 6
That when a culprit came for condemnation,
He had his judge's joke for consolation.

quarters of the English chase, see Quarterly Review, vol. xlvii. p. 216.]

4 ["Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries."Macbeth.]

5 Siria, i. e. bitch-star.

6 [George Hardinge, Esq., M.P., one of the Welsh judges, died in 1816. His works were collected, in 1818, by Mr. Nichols.]