Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!'
(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)
The travelling Don's retinue is thus enumerated:
His suite consisted of three servants, and
A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,
Who several languages did understand,

But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow,
And, rocking in his hammock, longed for land,
His head-ache being increased by every billow,
And the waves oozing through the port-hole made
His birth a little damp, and him afraid.

The ship in which Juan is embarked encounters a heavy storm as she is passing the Gulf of Lyons; and the manner in which this is told is an eminent example of Lord Byron's power of description. He has collected, from the published narrations of such mariners as have escaped shipwreck, all the details which characterize so appalling an event; and his own nautical experience enabled him to throw these together in a most striking and original form. For this some of the carping little-witted persons, who call themselves critics, thought fit to attack Lord Byron; and one of them, who has gained a certain uuenviable sort of fame by his labours, took the trouble of pointing out, from Some collection of the histories of shipwrecks, what use Lord Byron had made of the relations of the sufferers. This the ingenious person called plagiarism; and, because his own frivolous brain was never capable of conceiving an original idea, he fancied that the first poet of the age was to be tried by the insignificant standard 'of his own wit. The only consequence of his attempt was, that it enabled the pseudo critic to write himself down an ass,' and let the public into the secret of his shallowness.

To return, however, to Don Juan and his shipwreck, and to give our readers an opportunity of judging of the most effective and lively description of the sort that was perhaps ever before produced :-the ship springs a leak, which the united efforts of the men are hardly able so to counteract as to keep the vessel above water:

As day advanced the weather seemed to abate,
And then the leak they reckoned to reduce,
And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet

Kept two hand and one chain pump still in use.

The wind blew fresh again : as it grew late

A squall came on, and, while some guns broke loose,
A gust-which all descriptive power transcends-
Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.

Immediately the masts were cut away,

Both main and mizen; first the mizen went,
The mainmast followed; but the ship still lay
Like a mere log, and baffled our intent.
Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they

Eased her at last, (although we never meant
To part with all till every hope was blighted,)

And then with violence the old ship righted.

The sailors, as is common upon such occasions, intended to break open the spirit-room, and thus hasten, by wilful drunkenness, the death which their destiny had prepared for them. This, however, is prevented by the resolute courage of Juan:

There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion; thus it was,

Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms,
The high wind made the treble, and as a bass

The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured the qualms
Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws;

Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion,
Clamoured in chorus to the roaring ocean.

Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for
Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years,
Got to the spirit-room, and stood before

It with a pair of pistols: and their fears,
As if Death were more dreadful by his door
Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears,
Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk,
Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.

The night is passed in dreadful sufferings and more dreadful suspense the day arrives, and the efforts of the crew are renewed. The leak is partially stopped, but it is found that so much damage has been done to the vessel, that it is impossible she can live:

Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears

In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he
Could do no more: he was a man in years,

And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea;
And, if he wept at length, they were not fears

That made his eyelids as a woman's be;
But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children--

Two things for dying people quite bewildering.

The despair of the crew when this news is announced to them is fearfully told. Some of those, however, who still retain their reason, set about launching the ship's boats, in which they throw such provisions as could be got at; and thirty persons embark in the cutter, and nine in the long-boat. The day closes upon their miserable condition; and the approach of darkness, which seems in such a case to bring with it despair, is vividly figured in the following stanza:

"Twas twilight, for the sunless day went down

Over the waste of waters; like a veil,
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one who hates us, so the night was shown,
And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale,

And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone
Gazed dim and desolate; twelve days had Fear
Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

But the sinking of the ship, and of such of the crew as could not or would not leave her, is one of the poet's most masterly efforts :

Then rose from sea to sky the wild Farewell,'

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave;

Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the Sea yawned around her like a hell,

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rushed,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed,
Save the wild wind, and the remorseless dash