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1 See "Life of Henry Kirke White."

2 ["Lift up your heads, ye Gates; and ye everlasting Portals,
Be ye lift up! For lo! a glorified Monarch approacheth,
One who in righteousness reign'd, and religiously govern'd his people.
Who are these that await him within? Nassau, the Deliverer,
Him I knew
Thou, too, O matchless Eliza,
Excellent Queen, wert there! and thy brother's beautiful spirit.
There too was he of the sable mail, the hero of Cressy,
Lion-hearted Richard was there, redoubtable warrior.
I saw the spirit of Alfred-

Alfred, than whom no prince with loftier intellect gifted.
Bede I beheld, who, humble and holy,"

Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness.

Bacon also was there, the marvellous Friar;

Thee, too, Father Chaucer! I saw, and delighted to see thee-
And Shakspeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erected an empire.
A train whom nearer duty attracted,

Through the Gate of Bliss came forth to welcome their Sovereign.
Many were they, and glorious all. Conspicuous among them
Wolfe was seen; and the Seaman who fell on the shores of Owhy hee.*
And the mighty Musician of Germany †, ours by adoption,
Who beheld in the king his munificent pupil and patron -
There, too, Wesley, I saw and knew And Burke I beheld there.
Here, where wrongs are forgiven, was the injured Hastings beside him;
There was our late-lost Queen, the nation's example of virtue," &c. &c.
SOUTHRY.]

3 Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that "had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have spared the Maker some absurdities."

4 See Aubrey's account of the apparition which disappeared "with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang;" or see the " Antiquary," vol. i. p. 225.-["As the vision shut his volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment"-"The usual time," says Grose," at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before It is dark; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear even by day-light; but of this there are few instances, and those mostly ghosts who had been laid, and whose terms of confinement were expired. I cannot learn that ghosts † Handel.

* Cook.

Like king Alfonso. 3 When I thus see double,
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."
CII.

He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no
Persuasion on the part of devils, or saints,
Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so
He read the first three lines of the contents;
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show
Had vanish'd, with variety of scents,
Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang,
Like lightning, off from his " melodious twang."
CIII.

Those grand heroics acted as a spell;

The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinions; The devils ran howling, deafen'd, down to hell;

The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own domi(For 't is not yet decided where they dwell, [nionsAnd I leave every man to his opinions); Michael took refuge in his trump-but, lo! His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!

CIV.

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,
And at the fifth line knock'd the poet down; 5
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease,
Into his lake, for there he did not drown;
A different web being by the Destinies
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er
Reform shall happen either here or there.

CV.

He first sank to the bottom-like his works,
But soon rose to the surface-like himself;
For all corrupted things are buoy'd like corks,
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks,

It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or " Vision,"7
As Welborn says" the devil turn'd precisian."

carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts, chalas and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of fore en spectres seen in arbitrary governments; dead or alive, Eaglish spirits are free. During the narration of its business, a ghost must by no means be interrupted by questions of any kind: its narration being completed, it vanishes away, frequently in a flash of light; in which case, some ghosts have been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they ap peared to shut their eyes:-sometimes its departure is attended with most delightful music."]

5 [ When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me;
And when with harp and voice the loud hosannahs of welcome
Fill'd the rejoicing sky, as the happy company enter'd
Through the Everlasting Gates, 1, too, press'd forward to enter-
But the weight of the body withheld me. I stoop'd to the fountain,
Eager to drink thereof, and to put away all that was earthly.
Darkness came over me then at the chilling touch of the water,
And my feet methought sunk, and I fell precipitate. Starting.
Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twight before me,
Dark and distinct; and, instead of the rapturous sound of bosannahy,
Heard the bell from the tower, TOLL! TOLL! through the set of
evening."-SOUTHEY.]

6 A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then floats, as most people know.

7 [Southey's Vision of Judgment appears to us to be an illjudged, and not a well-executed work. It certainly has added nothing to the reputation of its author in any respect. The nobleness of his motive does not atone for the indiscretion of putting it into so reprehensible a form. Milton's example will, perhaps, be pleaded in his vindication; but Milton alone has ever founded a fiction on the basis of revelation, without degrading his subject. He alone has succeeded in carrying his readers into the spiritual world. No other attempt of the kind has ever appeared that can be read without a constant feeling of something like burlesque, and a wish that the Tartarus and Elysium of the idolatrous Greeks should still be the hell and the heaven of poetry. A smile at the puerilities, and

CVI.

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone
Which kept my optics free from all delusion,

And show'd me what I in my turn have shown;

a laugh at the absurdity of the poet, might then be enjoyed by the reader, without an apprehension that he was guilty of profanity in giving it. Milton has been blamed by the most judicious critics, and his warmest admirers, for expressing the counsels of Eternal Wisdom, and the decrees of Almighty Power, by words assigned to the Deity. It offends against poetical propriety and poetical probability. It is impossible to deceive ourselves into a momentary and poetical belief that words proceeded from the Holy Spirit, except on the warrant of inspiration itself. It is here only that Milton fails, and here Milton sometimes shocks. The language and conduct ascribed by Milton to his inferior spirits, accord so well with our conceptions and belief respecting their nature and existence, that in many places we forget that they are, in any respect, the creatures of imagination. The blasphemies of Milton's devils offend not a pious ear, because they are devils who utter them. Nor are we displeased with the poet's presumption in feigning language for heavenly spirits, because it is a language that lifts the soul to heaven; and we more than believe, we know and feel, that, whatever may be the nature of the language of angels, the language of the poet truly interprets their sentiments. The words are human; but the truths they express, and the doctrines they teach, are divine. Nothing of the same kind can be said of any other fable, serious or ludicrous, pious or profane, that has yet been written in any age or language.- Blackwood, 1822.]

[The "Vision of Judgment" appeared, as has been already said, in "The Liberal"-a Journal which, consisting chiefly of pieces by the late Mr. Hazlitt and Mr. Leigh Hunt, was not saved from ruin by a few contributions, some of the highest merit, by Lord Byron. In his work, entitled "Lord Byron and his Contemporaries," Mr. Hunt assaulted the dead poet, with reference to this unhappy Journal; and his charges were thus taken to pieces at the time in the Quarterly Review :

"Mr. Hunt describes himself as pressed by Lord Byron Into the undertaking of that hapless magazine: Lord Byron, on the contrary, represents himself as urged to the service by the Messrs. Hunt themselves." e. g.

، ، Genoa, Oct. 9th, 1822. - I am afraid the Journal is a bad business, and won't do, but in it I am sacrificing myself for others. I can have no advantage in it. I believe the brothers Hunts to be honest men; I am sure that they are poor ones; they have not a Nap. They pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented; still I shall not repent if I can do them the least service. I have done all I can for Leigh Hunt since he came here, but it is almost useless: his wife is ill; his six children not very tractable; and in affairs of this world he himself is a perfect child. The death of Shelley left them totally aground; and I could not see them in such a state without using the common feelings of humanity, and what means were in my power to set them afloat again."

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"It is a mistake to suppose, that he was not mainly influenced by the expectation of profit. He expected very large returns from The Liberal. Readers in these days need not be told, that periodical works which have a large sale are a mine of wealth: Lord Byron had calculated that matter well.' Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, p. 50.

. . The failure of the large profits - the non-appearance of the golden visions he had looked for, of the Edinburgh or Quarterly returns of the solid and splendid proofs of this new country, which he should conquer in the regions of notoriety, to the dazzling of all men's eyes and his own--this it was this was the bitter disappointment which made him determine to give way.'-Ibid. p. 51.

"Now let us hear Lord Byron himself:

*** Genoa, 9bre 18th, 1822.-They will, of course, attribute motives of all kinds; but I shall not abandon a man like Hunt because he is unfortunate. Why, I could have no pecuniary motives, and, least of all, in connection with Hunt.'

** Genoa, 10bre 25th, 1822. Now do you see what you and your friends do by your injudicious rudeness? actually cement a sort of connection which you strove to prevent, and which, had the Hunts prospered, would not, in all probability, have continued. As it is, I will not quit them in their adversity, though it should cost me character, fame, money, and the usual et cetera. My original motives I already explained; (in the letter which you thought proper to

All I saw farther, in the last confusion, Was, that King George slipp'd into heaven for one;

And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,

I left him practising the hundredth psalm.

show ;) they are the true ones, and I abide by them, as I tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt, when he questioned me on the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never will forgive me at the bottom; but I cannot help that. I never meant to make a parade of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer the plain truth; and I confess, I did not see any thing in the letter to hurt him, unless I said he was "a bore," which I don't remember. Had this Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for them, I should then have left them after a safe pilotage off a lee shore to make a prosperous voyage by themselves. As it is, I can't, and would not if I could, leave them among the breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by."

The Reviewer proceeds to comment on Mr. Hunt's general abuse of Lord Byron's manners, habits, and conversation: "The witness is, in our opinion, disqualified to give evidence upon any such subjects: his book proves him to be equally ignorant of what manners are, and incompetent to judge what manners ought to be; his elaborate portraiture of his own habits is from beginning to end a very caricature of absurdity; and the man who wrote this book, studiously cast, as the whole language of it is, in a free-and-easy, conversational tone, has no more right to decide about the conversation of such a man as Lord Byron, than has a pert apprentice to pronounce er cathedra - from his one-shilling gallery, to wit - on the dialogue of a polite comedy. We can easily believe, that Lord Byron never talked his best when this was his Companion. We can also believe, that Lord Byron's serious conversation, even in its lowest tone, was often unintelligible to Mr. Leigh Hunt. We are morally certain, that in such company Lord Byron talked, very often indeed, for the mere purpose of amusing himself at the expense of his ignorant, fantastic, lack-a-daisical guest; that he considered the Magnus Apollo of Paradise Row as a precious butt, and acted accordingly. We therefore consider Mr. Hunt's evidence as absolutely inadmissible, on strong preliminary grounds. But what are we to say to it, when we find it, as we do, totally and diametrically at variance both with the substance and complexion of Lord Byron's epistolary correspondence; and with the oral testimonies of men whose talents, originally superior beyond all possibility of measurement to Mr. Hunt's, have been matured and perfected by study, both of books and men, such as Mr. Hunt never even dreamed of; who had the advantage of meeting Lord Byron on terms of perfect equality to all intents and purposes; and who, qualified, as they probably were, above any of their contemporaries, to appreciate Lord Byron, whether as a poet, or as a man of high rank and pre-eminent fame, mingling in the world in society such as he ought never to have sunk below, all with one voice pronounce an opinion exactly and in every particular, as well as looking to things broadly and to the general effect, the reverse of that which this unworthy and ungrateful dependant has thought himself justified in promulgating, on the plea of a penury which no Lord Byron survives to relieve? It is too bad, that he who has, in his own personal conduct, as well as in his writings, so much to answer for-who abused great opportunities and great talents so lamentably. who sinned so deeply, both against the society to which he belonged and the literature in which his name will ever hold a splendid place - it is really too bad, that Lord Byron, in addition to the grave condemnation of men able to appreciate both his merits and his demerits, and well disposed to think more in sorrow than in anger of the worst errors that existed along with so much that was excellent and noble-it is by much too bad, that this great man's glorious though melancholy memory

Must also bear the vile attacks

Of ragged curs and vulgar hacks' whom he fed ;-that his bones must be scraped up from their bed of repose to be at once grinned and howled over by creatures who, even in the least hyena-like of their moods, can touch nothing that mankind would wish to respect without polluting it.'

Mr. Moore's Verses on Mr. Hunt's work must not be omitted here:

"Next week will be published (as Lives' are the rage)
The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange,
Of a small puppy-dog that lived once in the cage
Of the late noble lion at Exeter 'Change.

"Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call sad,'
'T is a puppy that much to good breeding pretends:

The Age of Bronze:

OR, CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.'

I.

66

Impar Congressus Achilli."

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All is exploded-be it good or bad.
Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deem'd him such. 2
We, we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face.
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,
As the deep billows of the Egean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they-the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet. 3
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old
Of" dust to dust; " but half its tale untold:
Time tempers not its terrors-still the worm
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,
Varied above, but still alike below;

The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow,
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea
O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;

And few dogs have such opportunities had
Of knowing how lions behave - among friends.
"How that animal eats, how he moves, how he drinks,
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small;
And 't is plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks
That the lion was no such great things after all.

"Though he roar'd pretty well-this the puppy allows-
It was all, he says, borrow'd all second-hand roar ;
And he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows
To the loftiest war-note the lion could pour.

""Tis, indeed, as good fun as a Cynic could ask,
To see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits
Takes gravely the lord of the forest to task,
And judges of lions by puppy-dog habits.

"Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case)
With sops every day from the lion's own pan,
He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass,
And does all a dog, so diminutive, can.
"However, the book 's a good book, being rich in
Examples and warnings to lions high-bred,
How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen,
Who 'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead."]

[This poem was written by Lord Byron at Genoa, in the early part of the year 1823; and published in London, by Mr. John Hunt. Its authenticity was much disputed at the time.]

Though Alexander's urn a show be grown,
On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown-
How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear !
He wept for worlds to conquer- half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,
And desolation; while his native Greece
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.

He "wept for worlds to conquer !" he who ne'er
Conceived the globe, he panted not to spare!
With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,
Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne. +

III.

But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings, ♪
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawl'd of late,
Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, the champion and the child
Of all that's great or little, wise or wild? (thrones?
Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were
Whose table earth-whose dice were human bones?
Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,
And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile.
Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines;
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.

Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings?

2 [Mr. Fox used to say-"I never want a word, but Pitt never wants the word."]

3 [The grave of Mr. Fox, in Westminster Abbey, is within eighteen inches of that of Mr. Pitt,

"Where- taming thought to human pride!—
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.

Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,

'T will trickle to his rival's bier:

O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.

The solemn echo seems to cry

Here let their discord with them die;
Speak not for those a separate doom.
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living mea,
Where wilt thou find their like again ?**
SIR WALTER SCOTT.

4 [A sarcophagus, of breccia, supposed to have conant the dust of Alexander, which came into the possession of the English army, in consequence of the capitulation of Alen. dria, in February, 1802, was presented by George III. to thr British Museum.]

5 [Sesostris is said, by Diodorus, to have had his charud drawn by eight vanquished sovereigns:

"High on his car Sesostris struck my view.
Whom scepter'd slaves in golden harness drew ;
His hands a bow and pointed jav "lin hoit

His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gokt."—Pore!

6 [St. Helena.]

Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's1 statement, and an earl's 2 harangues !
A bust delay'd3, a book refused, can shake
The sleep of him who kept the world awake.
Is this indeed the tamer of the great,
Now slave of all could tease or irritate.
The paltry gaoler and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh? 5
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;
How low, how little was this middle state,
Between a prison and a palace, where
How few could feel for what he had to bear!
Vain his complaint,-my lord presents his bill,
His food and wine were doled out duly still:
Vain was his sickness, never was a clime
So free from homicide- to doubt 's a crime;
And the stiff surgeon, who maintain'd his cause,
Hath lost his place, and gain'd the world's applause. 6
But smile-though all the pangs of brain and heart
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art;

Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face
Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace,
None stand by his low bed-though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind;
Smile-for the fetter'd eagle breaks his chain,
And higher worlds than this are his again.7

IV.

How, if that soaring spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,
How must he smile, on looking down, to see
The little that he was and sought to be!
What though his name a wider empire found
Than his ambition, though with scarce a bound;
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse,
He tasted empire's blessings and its curse;
Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape
From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's ape;
How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,
The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the wave!
What though his gaoler, duteous to the last,
Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep him fast,
Refusing one poor line along the lid,

To date the birth and death of all it hid;

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5 [Captain Basil Hall's interesting account of his interview with the ex-emperor occurs in his "Voyage to Loo-choo."]

[The circumstances under which Mr. O'Meara's dismissal from his Majesty's service took place will suffice to show how little "the stiff surgeon" merited the applause of Lord Byron. In a letter to the Admiralty Board by Mr. O'M., dated Oct. 28. 1818, there occurred the following paragraph: "In the third interview which Sir Hudson Lowe had with Napoleon Buonaparte, in May, 1816, he proposed to the latter to send me away, and to replace me by Mr. Baxter, who had been several years surgeon in the Corsican Rangers. Failing in this attempt, he adopted the resolution of manifesting great confidence in me, by loading me with civilities, inviting me constantly to dine with him, conversing for hours together with me alone, both in his own house and grounds, and at Longwood, either in my own room, or under the trees and elsewhere. On some of these occasions he made to me observations upon the benefit which would result to Europe from the death of Napoleon Buonaparte; of which event he spoke in a manner which, considering his situation and mine, was peculiarly distressing to me." The Secretary to the Admiralty was instructed to answer in these terms: "It is impossible to doubt the meaning which this passage was intended to convey; and my Lords can as little doubt that the insinuation is a calumnious falsehood: but if it were true, and if so horrible a suggestion were made to you, directly or indirectly, it was your bounden duty not to have lost a moment in communicating it to the Admiral on the spot, or to the

That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, A talisman to all save him who bore:

The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast
Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast;
When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise,
Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies,
The rocky isle that holds or held his dust
Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust,
And mighty nature o'er his obsequies
Do more than niggard envy still denies.
But what are these to him? Can Glory's lust
Touch the freed spirit or the fetter'd dust?
Small care hath he of what his tomb consists;
Nought if he sleeps-nor more if he exists:
Alike the better-seeing shade will smile
On the rude cavern of the rocky isle,
As if his ashes found their latest home
In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome.
He wants not this; but France shall feel the want
Of this last consolation, though so scant;
Her honour, fame, and faith demand his bones,
To rear above a pyramid of thrones;
Or carried onward in the battle's van,
To form, like Guesclin's 8 dust, her talisman.
But be it as it is the time may come

His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum. 9

V.

Oh heaven! of which he was in power a feature ;
Oh earth of which he was a noble creature ;
Thou isle to be remember'd long and well,
That saw'st the unfledged eaglet chip his shell!
Ye Alps, which view'd him in his dawning flights
Hover, the victor of a hundred fights!

Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Cæsar's deeds outdone!
Alas! why pass'd he too the Rubicon-
The Rubicon of man's awaken'd rights,
To herd with vulgar kings and parasites?
Egypt from whose all dateless tombs arose
Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose,
And shook within their pyramids to hear
A new Cambyses thundering in their ear;
While the dark shades of forty ages stood
Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood; 10

Secretary of State, or to their Lordships. An overture so monstrous in itself, and so deeply involving, not merely the personal character of the governor, but the honour of the nation, and the important interest committed to his charge, should not have been reserved in your own breast for two years, to be produced at last, not (as it would appear) from a sense of public duty, but in furtherance of your own personal hostility against the governor. Either the charge is in the last degree false and calumnious, or you can have no possible excuse for having hitherto suppressed it. In either case, and without adverting to the general tenour of your conduct, as stated in your letter, my Lords consider you to be an improper person to continue in his Majesty's service; and they have directed your name to be erased from the list of naval surgeons accordingly." O'Meara died in 1836.]

7 [Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.]

The

[Guesclin, constable of France, died in the midst of his triumphs, before Châteauneuf de Randon, in 1380. English garrison, which had conditioned to surrender at a certain time, marched out the day after his death; and the commander respectfully laid the keys of the fortress on the bier, so that it might appear to have surrendered to his ashes.]

9 [John Ziska a distinguished leader of the Hussites. It is recorded of him, that, in dying, he ordered his skin to be made the covering of a drum. The Bohemians hold his memory in superstitious veneration.]

10 [At the battle of the pyramids, in July, 1798, Buonaparte said," Soldiers! from the summit of yonder pyramids forty ages behold you."]

Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle
Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell,
With clashing hosts, who strew'd the barren sand
To re-manure the uncultivated land!
Spain which, a moment mindless of the Cid,
Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid!
Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital
Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall!
Ye race of Frederic! - Frederics but in name
And falsehood-heirs to all except his fame;
Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell
First, and but rose to follow! Ye who dwell
Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet
The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt!
Poland! o'er which the avenging angel past,
But left thee as he found thee, still a waste,
Forgetting all thy still enduring claim,
Thy lotted people and extinguish'd name,
Thy sigh for freedom, thy long flowing tear,
That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear-
Kosciusko! On-on-on-the thirst of war
Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their czar.
The half barbaric Moscow's minarets
Gleam in the sun, but 't is a sun that sets!
Moscow thou limit of his long career,

For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear
To see in vain-he saw thee-how? with spire
And palace fuel to one common fire.

To this the soldier lent his kindling match,
To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch,
To this the merchant flung his hoarded store,
The prince his hall-and Moscow was no more!
Sublimest of volcanos! Etna's flame

Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's tame;
Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight
For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height:
Thou stand'st alone unrivall'd, till the fire
To come, in which all empires shall expire!

Thou other element! as strong and stern, To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn! Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single pang! In vain shall Seine look up along his banks For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks ! In vain shall France recall beneath her vines Her youth their blood flows faster than her wines; Or stagnant in their human ice remains In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken Her offspring chill'd; its beams are now forsaken. Of all the trophies gather'd from the war, What shall return?-the conqueror's broken car !

[Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632.]

2 [The Isle of Elba.]

3 I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Eschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the Chorus of Sea-nymphs. [Thus translated by Potter :

"Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds,

Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves,
That o'er th' interminable ocean wreath
Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing earth,
And thee, bright sun, I call, whose flaming orb
Views the wide world beneath, see what, a god,
I suffer from the gods; with what fierce pains,
Behold, what tortures for revolving ages

The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again
The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain.
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory, 1
Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die :
Dresden surveys three despots fly once more
Before their sovereign-sovereign as before;
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,
And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd yield;
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide;
And backward to the den of his despair
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France ! who found Thy long fair fields, plough'd up as hostile ground, Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still

His only victor, from Montmartre's hill
Look'd down o'er trampled Paris! and thou Isle,
Which see'st Etruria from thy ramparts smile,
Thou momentary shelter of his pride,

Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping bride!
Oh, France! retaken by a single march,
Whose path was through one long triumphal arch!
Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!
Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,
Won half by blunder, half by treachery:
Oh, dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh-
Hear hear Prometheus 3 from his rock appeal
To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear
A name eternal as the rolling year;
He teaches them the lesson taught so long,
So oft, so vainly-learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betray'd:
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;
His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall.
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on history's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;*
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air: 5
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar ! 6
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave-

I here must struggle; such unseemly chains
This new-raised ruler of the gods devised.
Ah me! That groan bursts from my anguish'd heart,
My present woes and future to bemoan.

For favours shown

To mortal man I bear this weight of woe!"]

4 [The well-known motto on a French medal of Franklin

was

Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."] [To be the first man (not the Dictator), not the Syla but the Washington, or Aristides, the leader in talent and truth, is to be next to the Divinity."— Byron Diary.]

6 [Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Colombia and Peru, died at San Pedro, December, 1830, of an illness brought on by excessive fatigue and exertion.]

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