XXXIV.

Oh for a forty-parson power to chant

Thy praise, hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim! Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,

Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,
Drew quiet consolation through its hint,
When she no more could read the pious print.
XXXV.

She was no hypocrite, at least, poor soul!
But went to heaven in as sincere a way
As any body on the elected roll,

Which portions out upon the judgment day
Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll,
Such as the conqueror William did repay
His knights with, lotting others' properties
Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees.

The gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times He felt like other plants-call'd sensitive,

XLII.

This is the way physicians mend or end us.
Secundum artem: but although we sneer
In health-when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer:
While that "hiatus maxime deflendus,"

To be fill'd up by spade or mattock, 's near,
Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,
We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.

XLIII.

Juan demurr'd at this first notice to

Quit; and, though death had threaten'd an ejection, His youth and constitution bore him through,

And sent the doctors in a new direction. But still his state was delicate: the hue

Of health but flicker'd with a faint reflection
Along his wasted cheek, and seem'd to gravel
The faculty-who said that he must travel.
XLIV.

The climate was too cold, they said, for him,
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion
Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,

Who did not like at first to lose her minion:
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim,

And drooping like an eagle's with clipp'd pinion,
She then resolved to send him on a mission,
But in a style becoming his condition.

XLV.

There was just then a kind of a discussion, A sort of treaty or negotiation

Maintain'd with all the due prevarication

With which great states such things are apt to push on,
Something about the Baltic's navigation,

Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,
Which Britons deem their "uti possidetis."

XLVI.

So Catherine, who had a handsome way
Of fitting out her favourites, conferr'd
This secret charge on Juan, to display

At once her royal splendour, and reward
His services. He kiss'd hands the next day.
Received instructions how to play his card,
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,
Which show'd what great discernment was the donor's

XLVII.

But she was lucky, and luck's all. Your queens
Are generally prosperous in reigning;
Which puzzles us to know what fortune means.
But to continue: though her years were waning,
Her climacteric teased her like her teens ;

And though her dignity brook'd no complaining,
So much did Juan's setting off distress her,
She could not find at first a fit successor.

XLVIII.

But time, the comforter, will come at last;
And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number
Of candidates requesting to be placed,
Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber
Not that she meant to fix again in haste,

Nor did she find the quantity encumber,
But, always choosing with deliberation,
Kept the place open for their emulation.

XLIX.

While this high post of honour's in abeyance, For one or two days, reader, we request You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance Which wafted him from Petersburgh; the best Barouche, which had the glory to display once

The fair Czarina's autocratic crest, (When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris,) Was given to her favourite, and now bore his.

LXVI.

I have no great cause to love that spot of earth,
Which holds what might have been the noblest nation;
But, though I owe it little but my birth,

I feel a mix'd regret and veneration
For its decaying fame and former worth.

Seven years (the usual term of transportation) Of absence lay one's old resentments level, When a man's country's going to the devil. LXVII.

Alas! could she but fully, truly, know

How her great name is now throughout abhorr'd; How eager all the earth is for the blow

Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword; How all the nations deem her their worst foe, That worse than worst of foes-the once adored False friend, who held out freedom to mankind, And now would chain them to the very mind;—

LXXIV.

The effect on Juan was of course subline:
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw
That casque, which never stoop'd except to Time.
Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe,
Who died in the then great attempt to climb

O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law,
Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed,
And asked why such a structure had been raised:

LXXV.

And being told it was "God's house," she said He was well lodged, but only wonder'd how He suffer'd infidels in his homestead,

The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low His holy temples in the lands which bred

The true believers;-and her infant brow Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.

LXXXII.

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amid the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe, through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head-and there is London town!
LXXXIII.

But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke
Appear'd to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke
The wealth of worlds, (a wealth of tax and paper;)
The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke

Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper,
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere-
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.