XCIII.

Their sabres glitter'd o'er her little head,

Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright,
Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead :
When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight,
I shall not say exactly what he said,

Because it might not solace "ears polite ;"1
But what he did, was to lay on their backs,
The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques.
XCIV.

One's hip he slash'd, and split the other's shoulder,
And drove them with their brutal yells to seek,
If there might be chirurgeons who could solder
The wounds they richly merited 2, and shriek
Their baffled rage and pain; while waxing colder
As he turn'd o'er each pale and gory cheek,
Don Juan raised his little captive from
The heap a moment more had made her tomb.
XCV.

And she was chill as they, and on her face

A slender streak of blood announced how near Her fate had been to that of all her race;

For the same blow which laid her mother here Had scarr'd her brow, and left its crimson trace,

As the last link with all she had held dear; 3
But clse unhurt, she open'd her large eyes,
And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.
XCVI.

Just at this instant, while their eyes were fix'd
Upon each other, with dilated glance,

In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix'd
With joy to save, and dread of some mischance
Unto his protégée; while hers, transfix'd

With infant terrors, glared as from a trance, A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face, Like to a lighted alabaster vase ;

XCVII.

Up came John Johnson (I will not say "Jack," For that were vulgar, cold, and common-place

On great occasions, such as an attack

On cities, as hath been the present case): Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back, Exclaiming : "Juan Juan ! On, boy! brace Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar, That you and I will win St. George's collar. 4 XCVIII.

"The Seraskier is knock'd upon the head,

But the stone bastion still remains, wherein
The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead,
Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din
Of our artillery and his own: 't is said

Our kill'd, already piled up to the chin,
Lie round the battery; but still it batters,
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.

[" But never mention hell to cars polite."-POPE.] ["Ce spectacle m'attira bientôt, et je n'hésitai pas, comme on peut le croire, à prendre entre mes bras cette infortunée, que les barbares voulaient y poursuivre encore. J'eus bien de la peine à me retenir et à ne pas percer ces miserables du sabre que je tenais suspendu sur leur tête:-jo me contentai cependant de les éloigner, non sans leur prodiguer les coups et les injures qu'ils méritaient... RICHELIEU.]

"

Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure Of present life a good deal more than we.' Quoth Johnson-" Neither will I quite ensure; But at the least you may die gloriously.". Juan replied -"At least I will endure Whate'er is to be borne-but not resign This child, who is parentless, and therefore mine." CL. Johnson said "Juan, we've no time to lose ; The child's a pretty child-a very pretty — I never saw such eyes-but hark! now choose Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity; Hark! how the roar encreases!- no excuse

Will serve when there is plunder in a city ; I should be loath to march without you, but, By God! we'll be too late for the first cut." CIL

But Juan was immoveable; until

Johnson, who really loved him in his way, Pick'd out amongst his followers with some skill Such as he thought the least given up to prey; And swearing if the infant came to ill

That they should all be shot on the next day; But if she were deliver'd safe and sound, They should at least have fifty rubles round, CIII.

And all allowances besides of plunder

- then
In fair proportion with their comrades ;
Juan consented to march on through thunder,
Which thinn'd at every step their ranks of men :
And yet the rest rush'd eagerly no wonder,

For they were heated by the hope of gain,
A thing which happens every where each day.
No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.

But flank'd by five brave sons (such is polygamy,
That she spawns warriors by the score, where none
Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy),
He never would believe the city won
While courage clung but to a single twig.

- Am I Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son ? Neither but a good, plain, old, temperate man, Who fought with his five children in the van. >

3 [... J'eus le plaisir d'apperçevoir que ma petite prisonnière n'avait d'autre mal qu'une coupure légère que lui avait faite au visage le mème fer qui avait percé sa mère.”. RICHELIEU.]

4 A Russian military order.

5 ["Le sultan périt dans l'action en brave homme, digne d'un meilleur destin; ce fut lui qui rallia les Turcs lorsque l'ennemi pénétra dans le place: ce sultan, d'une valeur éprouvée, surpassait en générosité les plus civilisés de sa

CVI.

To take him was the point.-The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppress'd with odds,
Are touch'd with a desire to shield and save ; —
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
Are they now furious as the sweeping wave,
Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods
The rugged tree unto the summer wind,
Compassion breathes along the savage mind.
CVII.

But he would not be taken, and replied
To all the propositions of surrender
By mowing Christians down on every side,
As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender. 1
His five brave boys no less the foe defied;

Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender,
As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,
Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.

CVIII.

And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who

Expended all their Eastern phraseology
In begging him, for God's sake, just to show
So much less fight as might form an apology
For them in saving such a desperate foe -

He hew'd away, like doctors of theology
When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses
Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.
CIX.

Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both
Juan and Johnson; whereupon they fell,
The first with sighs, the second with an oath,
Upon his angry sultanship, pell-mell,
And all around were grown exceeding wroth
At such a pertinacious infidel,

And pour'd upon him and his sons like rain,
Which they resisted like a sandy plain

CX.

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perish'd—
His second son was levell'd by a shot;

His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherish'd
Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot;
The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourish'd,
Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not,
Because deform'd, yet died all game and bottom,
To save a sire who blush'd that he begot him.
CXI.

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar,
As great a scorner of the Nazarene

As ever Mahomet pick'd out for a martyr,

Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green,
Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter
On earth, in Paradise; and when once seen,
Those houris, like all other pretty creatures,
Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features.
CXII.

And what they pleased to do with the young khan
In heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess ;
But doubtless they prefer a fine young man
To tough old heroes, and can do no less;

nation; cinq de ses fils combattaient à ses côtés, il les encourageait par son exemple."-Hist. de la N. R. tom. iii. p. 215.]

1 ["At Bender, after the fatal battle of Pultawa, Charles gave a proof of that unreasonable obstinacy, which occasioned all his misfortunes in Turkey. When advised to write to the grand vizier, according to the custom of the Turks, he said it was beneath his dignity. The same obstinacy placed him ne

And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan
A field of battle's ghastly wilderness,
For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body,
You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody.
CXIII.

Your houris also have a natural pleasure

In lopping off your lately married men,
Before the bridal hours have danced their measure,
And the sad, second moon grows dim again,
Or dull repentance hath had dreary leisure

To wish him back a bachelor now and then.
And thus your houri (it may be) disputes
Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits.
CXIV.

Thus the young khan, with houris in his sight,
Thought not upon the charms of four young brides,
But bravely rush'd on his first heavenly night.
In short, howe'er our better faith derides,
These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight,
As though there were one heaven and none be-
sides,-

Whereas, if all be true we hear of heaven
And hell, there must at least be six or seven.
CXV.

So fully flash'd the phantom on his eyes,

That when the very lance was in his heart,
He shouted "Allah!" and saw Paradise
With all its veil of mystery drawn apart,
And bright eternity without disguise

On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart :-
With prophets, houris, angels, saints, descried
In one voluptuous blaze,- and then he died:

CXVI.

But with a heavenly rapture on his face,

The good old khan, who long had ceased to see Houris, or aught except his florid race

Who grew like cedars round him gloriouslyWhen he beheld his latest hero grace

The earth, which he became like a fell'd tree, Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast A glance on that slain son, his first and last.

CXVII.

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,
Stopp'd as if once more willing to concede
Quarter, in case he bade them not "aroynt !
As he before had done. He did not heed
Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint,
And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed,
As he look'd down upon his children gone,
And felt-though done with life—he was alone. 2
CXVIII.

But 't was a transient tremor: — with a spring
Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung,
As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing

Against the light wherein she dies: he clung
Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring,

Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young; And throwing back a dim look on his sons, In one wide wound pour'd forth his soul at once.

cessarily at variance with all the ministers of the Porte." VOLTAIRE.]

2["Ces cinq fils furent tous tués sous ces yeux: il ne cessa point de se battre, répondit par des coups de sabre aux propositions de se rendre, et ne fut atteint du coup mortel qu'après avoir abattu de sa main beaucoup de Kozaks des plus acharnés à sa prise; le reste de sa troupe fut massacré. -Hist. de la N.R. p. 215.]

CANTO VIII.

CXIX.

CXXIV.

[" Quoique les Russes fussent répandus dans la ville, le bastion de pierre résistait encore; il était défendu par un vieillard, pacha à trois queues, et commandant les forces réunies à Ismael. On lui proposa une capitulation; il demanda si le reste de la ville était conquis; sur cette réponse, il autorisa quelques-uns de ces officiers à capituler avec M. de Ribas.". Hist. de la N. R. p. 215.]

2 ["Pendant ce colloque, il resta étendu sur des tapis placés sur les ruines de la forteresse, fumant sa pipe avec la mème tranquillité et la mème indifference que s'il eût été étranger à tout ce qui se passait."— Ibid. p. 215.]

3 [No man could describe the horrors which ensued. The ferocious victors, instead of being struck with admiration or respect by the noble defence of the brave garrison, were so enraged at the great slaughter of their fellows which had taken place, that no bounds could be prescribed to the excess of their fury. All order and command seem to have been entirely at an end during the horrors of that terrible night: the officers could neither restrain the slaughter, nor prevent the general plunder, made by the lawless and ferocious soldiers. Thousands of the Turks, incapable of enduring the sight of the horrid scenes of destruction in which all that was dear to them was involved, rushed desperately upon the bayonets of the enemy, in order to shorten their misery;

Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through Its bloody bond, and saved, perhaps, some pretty Child, or an aged, helpless man or twoWhat's this in one annihilated city,

Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew ? Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris! Just ponder what a pious pastime war is.

while those who could reach the Danube threw themselves headlong into it for the same purpose. The streets and passages were so choked by the heaps of dead and dying bodies which lay in them, as considerably to impede the progress of the victors in their eager search for plunder.DR. LAURENCE, in Ann. Reg. for 1791.]

["On égorgea indistinctement, on saccagea la place; et la rage du vainqueur se répandit comme un torrent furieux qui a renversé les digues qui le rétenaient: personne obtint de grace, et trente huit mille huit cent soisante Turcs périrent dans cette journée de sang."-Hist. de la Nouv. Russie, tom. iii. p. 214.

"Among those who fell were a number of the bravest, most experienced, and renowned commanders in the Turkish armies. Six or seven Tartar princes, of the illustrious line A few hundreds of Gherai, likewise perished with the rest.

of prisoners were preserved, to serve as melancholy recorders and witnesses of the destruction which they had beheld. In consequence of an accurate inquiry set on foot by an Ottoman commander of rank, it appears that the whole number of Turks, who perished in the slaughter of Ismail, amounted to thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixteen."- Dr. LAURENCE.]

Y y 4

2 [Mr. Tweddell, who met with Suwarrow in the Ukraine, says" He is a most extraordinary character. He dines every morning about nine. He sleeps almost naked; he affects a perfect indifference to heat and cold; and quits his chamber, which approaches to suffocation, in order to review his troops, in a thin linen jacket, while the thermometer of Reaumur is at ten degrees below freezing. His manners correspond with his humours. I dined with him this morning. He cried to me across the table,- Tweddell !' (he generally addressed me by my surname, without addition) the French have taken Portsmouth- I have just received a

CXXXV.

He wrote this Polar melody, and set it,
Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans,
Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it-
For I will teach, if possible, the stones

To rise against earth's tyrants. Never let it
Be said that we still truckle unto thrones;-
But ye-our children's children! think how we
Show'd what things were before the world was free!
CXXXVI.

That hour is not for us, but 't is for you:

And as, in the great joy of your millennium, You hardly will believe such things were true

As now occur, I thought that I would pen you 'em; But may their very memory perish too!

Yet if perchance remember'd, still disdain you' More than you scorn the savages of yore, Who painted their bare limbs, but not with gore.

CXXXVII.

And when you hear historians talk of thrones,
And those that sate upon them, let it be
As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones,
And wonder what old world such things could see,
Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones,

The pleasant riddles of futurity-
Guessing at what shall happily be hid,
As the real purpose of a pyramid.

CXXXVIII.

Reader! I have kept my word,-at least so far As the first Canto promised. You have now

Had sketches of love, tempest, travel, war

All very accurate, you must allow,
And epic, if plain truth should prove no bar;

For I have drawn much less with a long bow
Than my forerunners. Carelessly I sing,
But Phoebus lends me now and then a string,

CXXXIX.

With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle. What farther hath befallen or may befall

The hero of this grand poetic riddle,

I by and by may tell you, if at all:
But now I choose to break off in the middle,

Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall,
While Juan is sent off with the despatch,
For which all Petersburgh is on the watch. 3
CXL.

This special honour was conferr'd, because

He had behaved with courage and humanity Which last men like, when they have time to pause From their ferocities produced by vanity.

His little captive gain'd him some applause

For saving her amidst the wild insanity Of carnage, and I think he was more glad in her Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.

courier from England. The King is in the Tower; and Sheridan, Protector.' A great deal of his whimsical manner is affected: he finds that it suits his troops, and the people he has to deal with. I asked him, if, after the massacre at Ismail, he was perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the day. He said he went home and wept in his tent."- Re mains, p. 135.]

3 [The ostentatious and fantastic display of the bloody trophies taken at Ismail, which were some time after exiibited at Petersburgh, was unworthy the greatness, the magnanimity, and the high character of the Empress Catherine The tragedy should have closed at the conclusion of the last act on the spot. It was attributed more to a destre of gratifying the excessive vanity of Prince Potemkin, which was not easily satiated, than that of the empress herself."-DR. LAURENCE.]

[Canto VI., VII., and VIII., if we except some parts of the assault of Ismail, contain a considerably less proportion of the higher class of poetry, than was to be found in those which preceded them. But in the keen and pervading satire, the bitter and biting irony, which constitute the peculiar forte of Lord Byron, we perceive no falling off in these present cantos. Nor are they deficient in that vein of playful humour, and that felicitous transition from grave to gay, from lively to severe," so conspicuous in their predecessors. The execution, on the whole, we think quite equal to that displayed in the earlier parts of the poem. - - CAMPBELL.]

3 [Cantos IX., X., and XI. were written at Pisa, and published in London, by Mr. John Hunt, in August, 1823. We extract the following specimen of contemporary criti

cism:

"That there is a great deal of what is objectionable in these three cantos, who can deny? What can be more so than to attack the King, with low, vile, personal buffooneriesbottomed in utter falsehood, and expressed in crawling malice? What can be more exquisitely worthy of contempt than the savage imbecility of these eternal tirades against the Duke of Wellington? What more pitiable than the state of mind that can find any gratification in calling such a man as Southey by nicknames that one would be ashamed of applying to a coal-heaver? What can be so abject as this eternal trampling upon the dust of Castlereagh? Lord Byron ought to know that all men, of all parties, unite in regarding all these things, but especially the first and the last, as insults to themselves, and as most miserable degradations of him. "But still Don Juan is, without exception, the first of Lord Byron's works. It is by far the most original in point of conception. It is decidedly original in point of tone. contains the finest specimens of serious poetry he has ever written and it contains the finest specimens of ludicrous poetry that our age has witnessed. Frere may have written the stanza earlier; he may have written it more carefully, more musically, if you will; but what is he to Byron? Where is the sweep, the pith, the soaring pinion, the lavish luxury of genius revelling in strength. No: no: Don Juan, say the

It

III.

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more :
You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch,

A prop not quite so certain as before:
The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor
(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).
IV.

You are "the best of cut-throats: "7-do not start;
The phrase is Shakspeare's, and not misapplied :-
War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,

Unless her cause by right be sanctified.

If you have acted once a generous part,

The world, not the world's masters, will decide, And I shall be delighted to learn who,

Save you and yours, have gain'd by Waterloo ?

V.

I am no flatterer-you've supp'd full of flattery:
They say you like it too-'tis no great wonder.
He whose whole life has been assault and battery,
At last may get a little tired of thunder;
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder,
Call'd" Saviour of the Nations"-not yet saved,
And "Europe's Liberator "-still enslaved. 8

VI.

I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,
And send the sentinel before your gate

A slice or two from your luxurious meals: 9
He fought, but has not fed so well of late.

Some hunger, too, they say the people feels: There is no doubt that you deserve your ration, But pray give back a little to the nation.

canting world what it will, is destined to hold a permanent rank in the literature of our country. It will always be referred to as furnishing the most powerful picture of that vein of thought (no matter how false and bad) which distinguishes a great portion of the thinking people of our time."-BLACKWOOD.]

4 [" Faut qu' lord Villainton ait tout pris,
N'y a plus d'argent dans c'gueux de Paris.".

5 Query, Ney?- Printer's Devil.

DE BERANGER.]

6 [The late Lord Kinnaird was received in Paris, in 1814, with great civility by the Duke of Wellington and the royal family of France, but he had himself presented to Buonaparte during the hundred days, and intrigued on with those of that faction, in spite of the Duke's remonstrances, until the rerestored government ordered him out of the French territory in 1816. In 1817, he became acquainted at Brussels with one Marinet, an adventurer mixed up in a conspiracy to assassinate the Duke in the streets of Paris. This fellow at first promised to discover the man who actually shot at his Grace, but, on reaching Paris, shuffled and would say nothing; and Lord Kinnaird's avowed cause of complaint against the Duke was, that he did not protect this creature from the French police, who, not doubting that he had been one of the conspirators against his Grace's life, arrested him accordingly. tried along with the actual assassin, and both were acquitted by the Parisian jury.]

He was

7 ["Thou art the best o' the cut-throats."- Macbeth, act iii. sc. iii.]

Vide Speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo. 9"I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with four others. We were sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for Lord Wellington's hounds. I was very hungry, and thought it a good job at the time, as we got our own till while we broke the biscuit, a thing I had not got for some days. When thus engaged, the Prodigal Son was never once out of my mind; and I sighed, as I fed the dogs, over my humble situation and my ruined hopes."— Journal of a Soldier of the 71st Regiment during the War in Spain.