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And hew out a huge monument of pathos,
As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos."

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"I now mean to be serious;-it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious,"

Canto XIII. P. 27.

Having premised with these decent deprecations, he commences the small modicum of story contained in the present cantos, and doled out with a cautious economy, perfectly consistent with the intentions indicated in the following lines: .. LV.

"I thought, at setting off, about two dozen
Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading,
If that my Pegasus should not be foundered,
I think to canter gently through a hundred."

Canto XII. p. 17.

One sentence comprises the whole. Don Juan is invited from town to spend the hunting and shooting season at the country-seat of a new diplomatic acquaintance, Lord Henry Amundeville, whose lady, in a well-meant attempt to rescue Juan from the snares of the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, a demirep visitor, falls in love with him herself; and here the narration ends for the present, with the following promise of a second edition of Julia:

"XCVII.

"Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine:
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense ;
The surest way for ladies and for books

To bait their tender or their tenter hooks.

"XCVIII.

"Whether they rode, or walked, or studied Spanish
To read Don Quixote in the original,

A pleasure before which all others vanish;

Whether their talk was of the kind called 'small,'

Or serious, are the topics I must banish

To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose; and display
Considerable talent in my way."

Canto XIV. p. 81.

As to the general execution of the Cantos, we cannot compliment Lord Byron on having regained the easy bantering tone of profligacy which characterizes Beppo. The

The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird.'

"LVII.

"Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,

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 wild fowl 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.
"LVIII.

"Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade,

Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay'd,

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw."

Canto III. p. 41.

As to any thing else, it is really and truly of a very inferior quality. A few jeux de mots, not quite equal to those which sparkle unpremeditated from the rich brain of James Smith, are obtained at the expense of metre and sense. There is one very good comparison, which we shall also quote, unconscious of having now omitted any thing which is NOT

COMMON PLACE.

"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 had been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers!

"XXXVII.

"I'll have another 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 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."
Canto XIII. p. 36.

"The rest is all but leather and prunella:" and whether the Juanic muse be sincere in her sulky professions of reformation, as some sweet simple creatures may imagine, or whether after having past a probation sufficient to be pronounced visitable, she meditates, in her own words, "some devilish escapade" to the confusion of their delicacy, seems now a matter of very little consequence. To recommend to the perusal of the world the specimen of her powers which lies before us, is the most signal retribution for her past offences, and the most effectual safe-guard against her future attempts.

1

ART. XII. A Treatise on Acupuncturation; being a Description of a Surgical Operation originally peculiar to the Japonese and Chinese, and by them denominated ZinKing, now introduced into European Practice, with Directions for its Performance, and Cases illustrating its Success. By James Morss Churchill, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. 8vo. 86 pp. 4s. Simpkin and Marshall. 1823.

ART. XIII. The Utility and Importance of Fumigating Baths illustrated: or, a Series of Facts and Remarks, shewing the Origin, Progress, and final Establishment, (by Order of the French Government,) of the Practice of Fumigations for the Cure of various Diseases of the Joints, Paralytic Affections, Gout, Rheumatism, Bilious and Nervous Disorders, all Complaints of long Standing, and Diseases of the Skin. By Jonathan Green, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and late Surgeon in his Majesty's Navy. 8vo. 115 pp. Burgess and Hill. 1823.

ART. XIV. Shampooing; or, Benefits resulting from the Use of the Indian Medicated Vapour Bath, as introduced into this Country, by S. D. Mahomed, (a Native of India). Containing a brief but comprehensive View of the Effects produced by the Use of the Warm Bath, in comparison with Steam or Vapour Bathing, Also, a detailed Account of the various Cases to which this healing Remedy may be

following enumeration of the company assembled at Norman Abbey will give an idea of the coarse and bitter feeling which breaks out through the whole eighty-three pages, in spite of his efforts to suppress it.

" LXXIX.

"The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of-we give the sex the pass-
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;
The ladies Scilly, Bussey ;-Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby,
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw;

Also the honorable 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 filtered in a tank,

All purged and pious from their native clouds
Or paper turned 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.
" LXXXI.

"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!' 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 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.
By way of sprinkling, scatter'd amongst these
There also were some Irish absentees.

"LXXXIV.

There was a Parolles too, the legal bully,
Who limits all his battles to the bar
And senate: when invited elsewhere, truly,

He shows more appetite for words than war.
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly
Come out and glimmer'd as a six weeks star.
There was Lord Pyrrho too, the great freethinker:
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.
"LXXXV.

6

There was the Duke of Dash, who was a-duke,
Aye, every inch a' duke; there were twelve peers
Like Charlemagne's-and all such peers in look
And intellect, that neither eyes nor years
For commoners had ever them mistook.

There were the six Miss Rawbolds—pretty dears!
All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet.

"LXXXVI.

"There were four Honourable Misters, whose
Honour was more before their names than after;
There was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse,

Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft here,
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 lov'd 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." Cant.XIII. P. 46. With the beauties of nature, however, Lord Byron is still in good humour; and it is but justice to him to point out amid a dry fatiguing desert of cynical twaddle, extending in uniform sameness through twenty-four hundred and odd lines, the following green oasis of beautiful descriptionNorman Abbey the seat of Lord H. A.

"LVI.

"It stood embosomed 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 thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters-as day awoke,

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