Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect in his citations from history, I have thought it necessary in what regards so great a name (however trifling), to support the assertion by such facts as more immediately occur to me. They are but trifles, and yet for such trifles a schoolboy would be whipped (if still in the fourth form); and Voltaire for half-a-dozen similar errors has been treated as a superficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned Warton: -"Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension." (1) For another distinguished testimony to Voltaire's merits in literary (1) Dissertation I. (2) "Till Voltaire appeared, there was no nation more ignorant of its neighbours' literature than the French. He first exposed, and then corrected, this neglect in his country men. There is no writer to whom the authors of other nations, especially of England, are so indebted for the extension of their fame in France, and, through France, în Europe. There is no critic who has employed more time, wit, ingenuity, and diligence, in promoting the literary intercourse between country and country, and in celebrating in one language the triumphs of another. Yet, by a strange fatality, he is constantly represented as the enemy of all literature but his own; and Spaniards, Englishmen, and Italians vie with each other in inveighing against his occasional exaggeration of faulty passages; the authors of which, till he pointed out their beauties, were hardly known beyond the country in which their language was spoken. Those who feel such indignation at bis misrepresentations and oversights, would find it difficult to produce a critic in any modern language, who, in speaking of foreign literature, is research, see also Lord Holland's excellent Account of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 215, edition of 1817.(2) Voltaire has even been termed "a shallow fellow," by some of the same school who called Dryden's Ode "a drunken song;"—a school (as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete), the whole of whose filthy trash of Epics, Excursions, etc. etc. etc. is not worth the two words in Zaire, "Vous pleurez," (3) or a single speech of Tancred:—a school, the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their teadrinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient lated pretences to virtue can produce no actions (were treachery in politics-in the record of their accumuall their good deeds drawn up in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the family of Calas, by that great and unequalled genius—the universal Vol taire. cies of the greatest genius that England or perhaps I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuraany other country ever produced," (4) merely to show our national injustice in condemning, generally, the greatest genius of France for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of England has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater intellect than Newton? CAMPBELL. (5) after having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, te Being in the humour of criticism, I shall proceed, touch upon one or two as trifling in the edition of the British Poets, by the justly-celebrated Campbell. Bat I do this in good-will, and trust it will be so taken. If any thing could add to my opinion of the talents : and true feeling of that gentleman, it would be his, classical, honest, and triumphant defence of Pope, against the vulgar cant of the day, and its existing Grub-street. The inadvertencies to which I allude are: Firstly, in speaking of Anstey, whom he accuses of having taken "his leading characters from Smollett." Anstey's Bath Guide was published in 1766. Smol lett's Humphry Clinker (the only work of Smollett's from which Tabitha, etc. etc. could have been taken) was written during Smollett's last residence at Leghorn in 1770.-"Argal," if there has been any borrowing, Anstey must be the creditor, and not the debtor. 1 refer Mr. Campbell to his own data in his lives of Smollett and Anstey. Secondly, Mr. Campbell says in the life of Cowper better informed or more candid than Voltaire; and they certainly never would be able to discover one, who to those qualities unites so much sagacity and liveliness. His enemies would fain persuade us that such exuberance of wit implies a want of information; but they only succeed in showing that a want of wit by no means implies an exuberance of information." Lord Holland.-L. E. (3) "Il est trop vrai que l'honneur me l'ordonne, (4) Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes, p. 158. Malone's edition. (5) "Read Campbell's Poets. Corrected Tom's slips of the A good work though-style affected-but his defence of Pope is glorious. To be sure, it is his own cause ton,-but no matter, it is very good, and does him great credit.” B. Diary, Jan. 10, 1821.-L. E. pen. (note to page 358, vol. vii.), that he knows not to whom Cowper alludes in these lines: "Nor he who, for the bane of thousands born, Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn." The Calvinist meant Voltaire, and the church of Ferney, with its inscription "Deo erexit Voltaire." Thirdly, in the life of Burns, Mr. Campbell quotes Shakspeare thus: "To gild refined gold, to paint the rose, Or add fresh perfume to the violet." This version by no means improves the original, which is as follows: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet," etc.-King-John. A great poet quoting another should be correct: he should also be accurate, when he accuses a Parnassian brother of that dangerous charge "borrowing:" a poet had better borrow any thing (excepting money) than the thoughts of another-they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been the lender, to be denounced as the debtor, as is the case of Anstey versus Smollett. As there is "honour amongst thieves," let there be some amongst poets, and give each his due. None can afford to give it more than Mr. Campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which cannot be shaken, is the only poet of the times except Rogers) who can be reproached (and in him is indeed a reproach) with having written too little. Ravenna, Jan. 5, 1821. (1) Cantos VI. VII. and VIII., were written at Pisa, in 1822, and published by Mr. John Hunt, in July 1823. The poet's resumption of Don Juan is explained in the following extract from his correspondence : Pisa, July 8, 1822.-"It is not impossible that I may have three or four cantos of Don Juan ready by autumn, or a little later, as I obtained a permission from my dictatress to continue it,-provided always it was to be more guarded and decorous and sentimental in the continuation than in the commencement. How far these conditions have been fulfilled may be seen, perhaps, by and by; but the embargo was only taken off upon these stipulations."-L. E. (2) Essai sur l'histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau. 3 vol. Paris, 1820. (3) "Au commencement de 1803, le Duc de Richelieu fut nommé gouverneur d'Odessa. Quand le Duc vint en prendre l'administration, aucune rue n'y était formée, aucun établis sement n'y était achevé. On y comptait à peine cinq mille habitants: onze ans plus tard, lorsqu'il s'en éloigna, on y en comptait trente-cinq mille. Les rues étaient tirées au cordeau, plantées d'un double rang d'arbres; et l'on y voyait tous les établissements qu'exigent le culte, l'instruction, la commodité, et même les plaisirs des habitants. Un seul édifice public avait été négligé; le gouverneur, dans cet oubli de lui-même, et cette simplicité de mœurs qui distinguait son caractère, n'avait rien voulu changer à la modeste habitation qu'il avait trouvée en arrivant. Le commerce, débarrassé d'entraves, avait pris l'essor le plus rapide à Odessa, tandis que la sécurité et la liberté de conscience y avaient promptement attiré la population." Biog. Univ.-L. E. (4) "Odessa is a very interesting place; and being the seat of government, and the only quarantine allowed except Caffa and Taganrog, is, though of very recent erection, already wealthy and flourishing. Too much praise cannot be given to the Duke of Richelieu, to whose administration, not to any natural advantages, this town owes its prosperity." Heber.-L. E. (5) Robert, second Marquis of Londonderry, died, by his own hand, at his seat at North Cray, in Kent, in August, 1822. During the session of parliament which had just closed, his lordship appears to have sunk under the weight of his labours, and insanity was the consequence. The fol 679 PREFACE TO CANTOS VI. VII. VIII. (1) THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (i. e. the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie. (2) Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, (3) then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and benefactor of Odessa, (4) where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry, but written some time before his decease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death (5) or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That he was an amiable man in private life, may or may not be true: but with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannised over a country. It is the first time indeed, since the Normans, that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop. (6) lowing tributes to his eminent qualities we take from the leading Tory and Whig newspapers of the day: "Of high honour, fearless, undaunted, and firm in his resolves, he combined, in a remarkable manner, with the fortiter in re the suaviter in modo. To his political adversaries (and he had no other) he was at once open, frank, unassuming, and consequently conciliatory. He was happy in his union with a most amiable consort; he was the pride of a venerated father; and towards a beloved brother it might truly be said he was notus animo fraterno. "With regard to his public character, all admit his talents to have been of a high order, and his industry in the discharge of his official duties to have been unremitting. Party animosity may question the wisdom of measures in which he was a principal actor, to save its own consistency, but it does not dare to breathe a doubt of his integrity and honour. His reputation as a minister is, however, above the reach of both friends and enemies. He was one of the leaders of that ministry which preserved the country from being subjugated by a power which subjugated all the rest of Europe-which fought the country against combined Europe, and triumphed-and which wrenched the sceptre of dominion from the desolating principles that the French revolution spread through the world, and restored it to religion and honesty. If to have preserved the faith and liberties of England from destruction-to have raised her to the most magnificent point of greatness-to have liberated a quarter of the globe from a despotism which bowed down both body and soul-and to have placed the world again under the control of national law and just principles, be transcendent fame-such fame belongs to this ministry; and, of all its members, to none more than to the Marquis of Londonderry. During great part of the year, he toiled fre quently for twelve or fourteen hours per day at the most exhausting of all kinds of labour, for a salary which, unaided by private fortune, would not have supported him. He laboured for thirty years in the service of the country. In this service he ruined a robust constitution, broke a lofty spirit, destroyed a first-rate understanding, and met an untimely death, without adding a shilling to his patrimonial fortune. What the country gained from him may never be calculated-what he gained from the country was lunacy, and a martyr's grave."-New Times. "Lord Londonderry was a man of unassuming manners, of simple tastes, and (so far as regarded private life) of kind and generous disposition. Towards the poor he was beneficent: in his family mild, considerate, and forbearing. He was firm to the connections and associates of his earlier days, not only those of choice, but of accident, when not unworthy; and to promote them, and to advance their interests, his efforts were sincere and indefatigable. In power he forgot no service rendered to him while he was in a private station, nor broke any promise, expressed or implied, nor abandoned any friend who claimed and merited his assistance." Times.-L. E. (6) See Sheridan's comedy of The Rivals.-L. E. Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide he merely cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on their learning!) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of dolour yelled forth" by the newspapers— and the harangue of the Coroner (1) in a eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased-(an Antony worthy of such a Cæsar)-and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law (2)—a felon or a madman-and in either case no great subject for panegyric. (3) In his life he was -what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani (4) of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!!! With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations, from Voltaire :-"La pudeur s'est enfuie des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." les mœurs sont dépravées, plus les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu." "Plus This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemerwhich, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc. are the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen-should be welcome to all who recollect on whom it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been and (1) Lord Byron seems to have taken his notions of the proceedings of this inquest from Cobbett's Register. What the Coroner really did say was as follows:-"As a public man, it is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can hold. In private life, I believe the world will admit that a more amiable man could not be found. Whether the important duties of the great office which he held pressed upon his mind, and conduced to the melancholy event which you are assembled to investigate, is a circumstance which, in all probability, never can be discovered. If it should unfortunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder. My opinion is in consonance with every moral sentiment, and the information which the wisest of men have given to the world. The Bible declares that a man clings to nothing so strongly as his own life. I therefore view it as an axiom, and an abstract principle, that a man must necessarily be out of his mind at the moment of destroying himself."-L. E. (2) I say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, let them here make the most of it. may be many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right or wrong--but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox (5) prelates o Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or over-pensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!" I have no wish to trample on the dishnoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speakingtime of selfish spoilers, and—but enough for the present. Pisa, July, 1822. CANTO VI. I. "THERE is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood,"-you know the rest,(6 Of which the surest sign is in the end: II. There is a tide in the affairs of women Which, taken at the flood, leads-God knows where: Those navigators must be able seamen Whose charts lay down its current to a hair; Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen (7) With its strange whirls and eddies can compare: Men with their heads reflect on this and thatBut women with their hearts on Heaven knows what' (3) Upon this passage one of the magazines of the time observes: "Lord Byron does not appear to have remembered that it is quite possible for an English nobleman to be bot (in fact) a felon, and (what in common parlance is called a madman."-L. E. (4) From this number must be excepted Canning. Can ning is a genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wi a poet, a statesman; and no man of talent can long pursu the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If ever man saved his country, Canning can, but will he? I, for one, bope so. (5) When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the dif ference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton. the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is my dozy, a heterodoxy is another man's doxy." A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect tha which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism." (6) See Shakspeare, Julius Cæsar, act. iv. sc. iii.—L· E (7) A noted visionary, born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusttia, in 1575, and founder of the sect called Behmenites. Be had numerous followers in Germany, and has not been without admirers in England; one of these, the fameus William Law, author of the Serious Call, edited an edition of his works.-L. E. III. And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, Young, beautiful, and daring-who would risk A throne, the world, the universe, to be Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk The stars from out the sky, than not be free As are the billows when the breeze is briskThough such a she's a devil (if that there be one), Yet she would make full many a Manichean. IV. Tirones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion, V. He died at fifty for a queen of forty; I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty, For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds, are but a sport-I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I Gave what I had a heart: as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever. VI. Iwas the boy's "mite," and, like the "widow's," may Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now; (1) ut whether such things do or do not weigh, All who have loved, or love, will still allow fe has nought like it. God is love, they say, And Love's a god, or was before the brow earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears but Chronology best knows the years. VII. Te left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: tans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, eroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, 'ho lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.(2) VIII. know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; it I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. 1) "I was sent to Harrow at twelve," says Byron, "and at my vacations at Newstead. It was there that I first Mary Chaworth. She was several years older than self: but at my age boys like something older than them. Yes, as they do younger, later in life." Medwin.-P. E. (2) "Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Horten4; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. is conduct was ridiculed by the Romans, who observed, st Martia entered the house of Hortensius very poor, but arned to the bed of Cato loaded with treasures." Pluch.-L. B. (3) "Forsooth, a great arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, Her reason being weak, her passions strong, IX. I am not, like Cassio, " an arithmetician," For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, X. It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, As the tribunals show through many a session, XI. Now if this holds good in a Christian land, And take what kings call "an imposing attitude;" And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratiAnd as four wives must have quadruple claims, [tude: The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. XII. Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed, Will scarcely find philosophy for more; And all (except Mahometans) forbear To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware." (4) XIII. His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,— To those sad hungry jacobins the worms,(5) His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover, (A "Highland welcome" (6) all the wide world over). Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric," etc. Othello.-L. E. (4) "At Ware, the inn known by the sign of the Saracen's Head still contains the famous bed, measuring twelve feet square, to which an allusion is made by Shakspeare in Twelfth Night." Clutterbuck's Hertford, vol. iii. p. 285. -L. E. (5) "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes but to one table: that's the end." Hamlet.-L. E. (6) See Waverlcy.-L. E. XIV. Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, May look like what is-neither here nor there, They are put on as easily as a hat, Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate, Which form an ornament, but no more part Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. XV. A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, XVI. For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer At a sad discount: while your over chilly Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly. XVII. That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, XVIII. The "tu" 's too much,-but let it stand, the verse Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old hexameters; But, after all, there's neither tune nor time In the last line, which cannot well be worse, And was thrust in to close the octave's chime: I own no prosody can ever rate it As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. XIX. If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not-it succeeded, and success Is much in most things, not less in the heart Than other articles of female dress. Self-love in man, too, beats all female art; They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less: And no one virtue yet, except starvation, Could stop that worst of vices-propagation. XX. We leave this royal couple to repose: A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, (1) "The blessed Francis, being strongly solicited one day by the emotions of the flesh, pulled off his clothes and scourged himself soundly: being after this inflamed with a wonderful fervour of mind, he plunged his naked body into a great heap of snow. The devil, being overcome, re Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes: Our least of sorrows are such as we weep; A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill, A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted A bad old woman making a worse will, Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain; these are paltry things, and yet I've rarely seen the man they did not fret. XXII. I'm a philosopher; confound them all! And then my stoicism leaves nought behind And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth Is more than I know-the deuce take them both. XXIII. So now all things are d-n'd, one feels at ease, "Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, And decorates the book of Common Prayer As doth a rainbow the just clearing air. XXIV. Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or At least one of them!-Oh, the heavy night, When wicked wives, who love some bachelor, Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light Of the grey morning, and look vainly for Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quiteTo toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake! XXV. These are beneath the canopy of heaven, Also beneath the canopy of beds Four-posted and silk-curtain'd, which are given For rich men and their brides to lay their heads Upon, in sheets white as what bards call "drive Snow." Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds. Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean. (2) XXVI. Don Juan in his feminine disguise, With all the damsels in their long array, Had bow'd themselves before the imperial eyes, And at the usual signal ta'en their way tired immediately, and the holy man returned victor into his cell." See Butler's Lives of the Saints.-L. E (2) The bards of Queen Caroline, in the Times newspa were continually, during the period of her trial, ringing changes on the "driven snow" of her purity.-L.E |