Less faithful far than the four-footed pack,
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.
Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure; (1)
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last
To stumble, kick, and now and then stick fast
With his great self and rider in the mud:
But what of that? the animal shows blood.

XIV.

Alas, the country! how shall tongue or pen
Bewail her now uncountry gentlemen?
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,
The first to make a malady of peace.
For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn!
But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,
Kings, conquerors, and markets most of all.
And must ye fall with every ear of grain?
Why would you trouble Bonaparte's reign?
He was your great Triptolemus; his vices

Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions-why? for

rent !

[meant
They roar'd, they dined, they drank, they swore they
To die for England-why then live?-for rent!
The peace has made one general malcontent
Of these high-market patriots; war was rent!
Their love of country, millions all mis-spent,
How reconcile? by reconciling rent!

And will they not repay the treasures lent?
No: down with every thing, and up with rent!
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent,
Being, end, aim, religion—rent, rent, rent!
Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess;
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less;
Now thou hast swill'd thy pottage, thy demands
Are idle: Israel says the bargain stands.
Such, landlords! was your appetite for war,
And, gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar!
What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er

cash?

de amplified to every lord's content

The grand agrarian alchymy, hight rent.
Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars,
And lower wheat to such desponding quarters?
Why did you chain him on yon isle so lone?
The man was worth much more upon his throne.
True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt;
But what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt;
But bread was high, the farmer paid his way,
And acres told upon the appointed day.
ut where is now the goodly audit ale?
he purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?
be farm which never yet was left on hand?
he marsh reclaim'd to most improving land?
e impatient hope of the expiring lease?
the doubling rental? What an evil's peace!
vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,
vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;
be landed interest (you may understand
he phrase much better leaving out the land) —
he land self-interest groans from shore to shore,
or fear that plenty should attain the poor.
p, up again, ye rents! exalt your notes,
r else the ministry will lose their votes,
nd patriotism, so delicately nice,

er loaves will lower to the market price;
or ah! "the loaves and fishes," once so high,
re gone their oven closed, their ocean dry,
nd nought remains of all the millions spent,
xcepting to grow moderate and content.
hey who are not so had their turn-and turn
bout still flows from Fortune's equal urn;
ow let their virtue be its own reward,

ad share the blessings which themselves prepared.
ee these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,
armers of war, dictators of the farm;

Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands, Their fields manured by gore of other lands; afe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent heir brethren out to battle-why? for rent! ear after year they voted cent. per cent.,

On the suicide of Lord Londonderry, in August, 1822, r. Canning, who had prepared to sail for India as Goraor-General, was made Secretary of State for Foreign ffairs,-not much, it was alleged, to the personal satismction of George the Fourth, or of the high Tories in the

And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital?
Lo, Mother Church, while all religion writhes,
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring, Tithes;
The prelates go to-where the saints have gone,
And proud pluralities subside to one;
Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark,
Toss'd by the deluge in their common ark.
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends,
Another Babel soars-but Britain ends.
And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants,
And prop the hill of these agrarian ants.
"Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;"
Admire their patience through each sacrifice,
Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride,
The price of taxes and of homicide;
Admire their justice, which would fain deny
The debt of nations:-pray who made it high?

XV.

Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks,
The new Symplegades-the crushing Stocks,
Where Midas might again his wish behold
In real paper or imagined gold.

That magic palace of Alcina shows
More wealth than Britain ever had to lose,
Were all her atoms of unleaven❜d ore,
And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore.
There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake,
And the world trembles to bid brokers break.
How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines,
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines;
No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey,
Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money:
But let us not to own the truth refuse,
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?
Those parted with their teeth to good King John,
And now, ye kings! they kindly draw your own;
All states, all things, all sovereigns they control,
And waft a loan "from Indus to the pole."
The banker-broker-haron (2)-brethren, speed
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.

cabinet. He lived to verify some of the predictions of the poet-to abandon the foreign policy of his predecessor-to break up the Tory party by a coalition with the Whigsand to prepare the way for Reform in Parliament.-L. E.

(2) The head of the illustrious house of Montmorency has

Nor these alone; Columbia feels no less
Fresh speculations follow each success;
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain
Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain.
Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march;
"Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch.
Two Jews, a chosen people, can command
In every realm their scripture-promised land:-
Two Jews keep down the Romans, and uphold
The accursed Hun, more brutal than of old:
Two Jews-but not Samaritans-direct
The world, with all the spirit of their sect.
What is the happiness of earth to them?
A congress forms their "New Jerusalem,"
Where baronies and orders both invite-
Oh, holy Abraham! dost thou see the sight?
Thy followers mingling with these royal swine,
Who spit not "on their Jewish gaberdine,"
But honour them as portion of the show-
(Where now, O pope! is thy forsaken toe?
Could it not favour Judah with some kicks?
Or has it ceased to "kick against the pricks?")
On Shylock's shore behold them stand afresh,
To cut from nations' hearts their "pound of flesh."
XVI.

Strange sight this Congress! destined to unite
All that's incongruous, all that's opposite.
I speak not of the Sovereigns-they're alike,
A common coin as ever mint could strike:

But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings,
Have more of motley than their heavy kings.
Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine,
While Europe wonders at the vast design;
There Metternich, power's foremost parasite,
Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight;
There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs; (1)
And subtle Greeks (2) intrigue for stupid Tartars;
There Montmorency, the sworn foe to charters, (3)
Turns a diplomatist of great éclat,
To furnish articles for the Débats;
Of war so certain-yet not quite so sure
As his dismissal in the Moniteur.
Alas! how could his cabinet thus err?
Can peace be worth an ultra-minister?
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again,
"Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain.” (4)
XVII.

Enough of this-a sight more mournful woos
The averted eye of the reluctant Muse.
The imperial daughter, the imperial bride,
The imperial victim-sacrifice to pride;

usually been designated "le premier baron chrétien;" his ancestor having, it is supposed, been the first noble convert to Christianity in France. Lord Byron perhaps alludes to the well-known joke of Talleyrand, who, meeting the Duke of Montmorency at the same party with M. Rothschild, soon after the latter had been ennobled by the Emperor of Austria, is said to have begged leave to present M. le premier baron juif to M. le premier baron chretien.-L. E.

(1) Monsieur de Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who-who-who has written something?" (écrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. (2) Count Capo d'Istrias-afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned.-L. B. (3) The duke de Montmorenci- Laval.-L. E. (4) From Pope's verses on Lord Peterborough :

The mother of the hero's hope, the boy,
The young Astyanax of modern Troy; (5)
The still pale shadow of the loftiest queen
That earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen;
She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour,
The theme of pity, and the wreck of power.
Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare
A daughter? What did France's widow there?
Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave,
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave.
But, no, she still must hold a petty reign,
Flank'd by her formidable chamberlain;
The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes
Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.[6
What though she share no more, and shared in vain,
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne,
Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas!
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese,
Where Parma views the traveller resort

To note the trappings of her mimic court.
But she appears! Verona sees her shorn
Of all her beams—while nations gaze and mourn—
Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time
To chill in their inhospitable clime,
(If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;-
But no, their embers soon will burst the mould
She comes!-the Andromache (but not Racine's,
Nor Homer's,)-Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm she leans!
Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo,
Which cut her lord's half-shatter'd sceptre through,
Is offer'd and accepted! Could a slave
Do more? or less?-and he in his new grave!
Her eye, her cheek, betray no inward strife,
And the ex-empress grows as ex a wife!
So much for human ties in royal breasts!
Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jes

XVIII.

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home,
And sketch the group-the picture's yet to come.
My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt,
She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt!
While throng'd the chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman!
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse rear,
While all the Common Council cry "Claymore!"
To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt
Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt, (7)
She burst into a laughter so extreme,
That I awoke-and lo! it was no dream!
Here, reader, will we pause :-if there's no harm i
This first-you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen"

"And he whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines, Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain. Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain."-L E (5) Napoleon François Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt. died at the palace of Schonbrunn, July 22, 1832, having just attained his twenty-first year.-L. E.

(6) Count Neipperg, chamberlain and second husband Maria-Louisa, had but one eye. The count died in isi -L. E

(7) George the Fourth is said to have been somewhat a noyed, on entering the levee-room at Holyrood (Aug. 182||| in full Stuart tartan, to see only one figure similarly attires (and of similar bulk)-that of Sir William Curtis. The city! knight had every thing complete--even the knife stack the garter. He asked the King, if he did not think h well dressed. "Yes!" replied his Majesty, only you have!! no spoon in your hose." The devourer of turtle had a fue engraving executed of himself in his Celtic attire.-L.E.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE foundation of the following story will be found partly in Lieutenant Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny and Seizure of the Bounty, in the South Seas, in 1789; and partly in Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands.(3)

GENOA, 1823.

THE ISLAND.

CANTO I.

I.

THE morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flash'd from off her prow
la furrows form'd by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;

The stars from broader beams began to creep,
and lift their shining eyelids from the deep;
The sail resumed its lately shadow'd white,
and the wind flutter'd with a freshening flight;
he purpling ocean owns the coming sun,
at ere he break-a deed is to be done.

II.

be gallant chief within his cabin slept, ecure in those by whom the watch was kept: fis dreams were of Old England's welcome shore, If toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er;

(1) The Island was written at Genoa early in the year $23, and published in the June following.-L. E.

2) We are taught by The Book of sacred history, that e disobedience of our first parents entailed on our globe f earth a sinful and a suffering race. In our time there as sprung up from the most abandoned of this sinful family from pirates, mutineers, and murderers-a little society, hich, under the precepts of that sacred volume, is chaacterised by religion, morality, and innocence. The diswvery of this happy people, as unexpected as it was acciental, and all that regards their condition and history, artake so much of the romantic, as to render the story not adapted for an epic poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has arially treated the subject; but, by blending two inconrous stories, and leaving both of them imperfect, and by ixing up fact with fiction, has been less felicitous than saal; for, beautiful as many passages in his Island are, i a region where every tree, and flower, and fountain, reathe poetry, yet, as a whole, the poem is deficient in Iramatic effect." Barrow.-L. E.

(3) The hitherto scattered materials of the Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of the Bounty, with many important and most interesting additions, from he records of the Admiralty, and the family papers of Cap

His name was added to the glorious roll

Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.
The worst was over, and the rest seem'd sure, (4)
And why should not his slumber be secure?
Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet;
Young hearts, which languish'd for some sunny isle,
Where summer years and summer women smile;
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed,
And, half uncivilised, preferr'd the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave-
The gushing fruits that nature gave untill'd;
The wood without a path but where they will'd;
The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty pour'd
Her horn; the equal land without a lord;
The wish-which ages have not yet subdued
In man-to have no master save his mood; (5)
The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold,
The glowing sun and produce all its gold;
The freedom which can call each grot a home;
The general garden, where all steps may roam,
Where Nature owns a nation as her child,
Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;

Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know,
Their unexploring navy, the canoe;

Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;
Their strangest sight, a European face:-

Such was the country which these strangers yearn'd
To see again; a sight they dearly earn'd.

III.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate!
Awake! awake!- -Alas! it is too late!
Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer

Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast;
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;

tain Heywood, R. N., have lately been collected and arranged by Mr. Barrow, in a little volume, to which the reader of this poem is referred, and from which every young officer of the navy may derive valuable instruction.-L. E.

(4) "A few hours before, my situation had been peculiarly flattering: I had a ship in the most perfect order, stored with every necessary, both for health and service; the object of the voyage was attained, and two thirds of it now completed. The remaining part had every prospect of success."-Bligh.

(5) "The women of Otaheite are handsome, mild, and cheerful in manners and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have sufficient delicacy to make them be admired and beloved. The chiefs were so much attached to our people, that they rather encouraged their stay among them than otherwise, and even made them promises of large possessions. Under these and many other concomitant circumstances, it ought hardly to be the subject of surprise that a set of sailors, most of them void of connections, should be led away, where they had the power of fixing themselves, in the midst of plenty, in one of the finest islands in the world, where there was no necessity to labour, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond any conception that can be formed of it."-Bligh.

Then forward stepp'd the bold and froward boy
His chief had cherish'd only to destroy,
And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath,
Exclaim'd, Depart at once! delay is death!"
Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all:
In that last moment could a word recall
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done,
And what he hid from many show'd to one:
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where
Was now his grateful sense of former care?
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire,
And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher?
His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell,
*'Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!" (1)
No more he said; but urging to the bark
His chief, commits him to his fragile ark ;
These the sole accents from his tongue that fell,
at volumes lurk'd below his fierce farewell.

IX.

The arctic sun rose broad above the wave;

The breeze now sank, now whisper'd from his cave; As on the Eolian harp, his fitful wings

Now swell'd, now flutter'd o'er his ocean strings. With slow despairing oar the abandon'd skiff Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce-seen cliff, Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main: That boat and ship shall never meet again! Bat 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief, Their constant peril, and their scant relief; Their days of danger, and their nights of pain; heir manly courage, even when deem'd in vain; he sapping famine, rendering scarce a son nown to his mother in the skeleton; he ills that lessen'd still their little store, ad starved even Hunger till he wrung no more; te varying frowns and favours of the deep, bat now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep ith crazy oar and shatter'd strength along le tide that yields reluctant to the strong; be incessant fever of that arid thirst Thich welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst bove their naked bones, and feels delight the cold drenching of the stormy night, ad from the outspread canvass gladly wrings drop to moisten life's all-gasping springs; he savage foe escaped, to seek again ore hospitable shelter from the main; he ghastly spectres which were doom'd at last o tell as true a tale of dangers past, s ever the dark annals of the deep isclosed for man to dread or woman weep.

; and as he fed me with shaddock, my lips being quite irched, we explained each other's sentiments by looks. at this was observed, and he was removed. He then got to the boat, but was compelled to return."-Bligh.

Christian then said, Come, Captain Bligh, your of cers and men are now in the boat, and you must go with irm: if you attempt to make the least resistance, you will metantly be put to death;' and, without further ceremony, was forced over the side by a tribe of armed ruffians, here they untied my hands. Being in the boat, we were eered astern by a rope. A few pieces of pork were thrown * us, also the four cutlasses. After having been kept some me to make sport for these unfeeling wretches, and having undergone much ridicule, we were at length cast adrift in he open ocean. Eighteen persons were with me in the oat. When we were sent away, Huzza for Otaheite!' was frequently heard among the mutineers. Christian, the Chief of them, was of a respectable family in the north of

X.

We leave them to their fate, but not unknown
Nor unredress'd. Revenge may have her own:
Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws.
Pursue we on his track the mutineer,
Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear.
Wide o'er the wave-away! away! away!
Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay;
Once more the happy shores without a law
Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw;
Nature, and Nature's goddess-
---woman-----w00
To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse;
Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gather'd as a fruit; (2)
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:-
The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams,
Inhabits or inhabited the shore,

Till Europe taught them better than before:
Bestow'd her customs, and amended theirs,
But left her vices also to their heirs.
Away with this! behold them as they were,
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.
"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by.
The breeze springs up; the lately-flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease.
Thus Argo (3) plough'd the Euxine's virgin foam;
But those she wafted still look'd back to home-
These spurn their country with their rebel bark,
And fly her as the raven fled the ark;
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,
And tame their fiery spirits down to love.

England. While they were forcing me out of the ship, I asked him whether this was a proper return for the many instances he had experienced of my friendship? He ap peared disturbed at the question, and answered, with much emotion, That-Captain Bligh-that is the thing-I am in hell-I am in hell!'"-Bligh.

(2) The now celebrated bread-fruit, to transplant which Captain Bligh's expedition was undertaken.

(3) The vessel in which Jason embarked in quest of the golden fleece.-L. E.

(4) The first three sections are taken from an actual song of the Tonga Islanders, of which a prose translation is given in Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands. Toobonai is not, however, one of them; but was one of those where Christian and the mutineers took refuge. I have altered and added, but have retained as much as possible of the original.