Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour,
Down to a very homely household savour.

VI.

There's something of antipathy, as 'twere,
Between their present and their future state;
A kind of flattery that's hardly fair

Is used until the truth arrives too late-
Yet what can people do, except despair?

The same things change their names at such
a rate;

For instance-passion in a lover's glorious,
But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.

VII.

Men grow ashamed of being so very fond;
They sometimes also get a little tired

(But that, of course, is rare), and then despond:
The same things cannot always be admired,
Yet 'tis 'so nominated in the bond,'

Yet they were happy-happy in the illicit

Indulgence of their innocent desires;
But more imprudent grown with every visit,
Haidée forgot the island was her sire's ;

That both are tied till one shall have expired. Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorn-When we have what we like, 'tis hard to miss it, ing

Our days, and put one's servants into mourning.

VIII.

There's doubtless something in domestic doings,
Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis;
Romances paints at full length people's wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages:
For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,

There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?

IX.

All tragedies are finish'd by a death;

All comedies are ended by a marriage : The future states of both are left to faith,

For authors fear description might disparage The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath, And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage; [ready, So leaving each their priest and prayer-book They say no more of Death or of the Lady.

X.

The only two that in my recollection

Thus she came often, not a moment losing,
At least in the beginning, ere one tires :
Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.

XIV.

Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange,
Although he fleeced the flags of every nation;
For into a prime minister but change

His title, and 'tis nothing but taxation ;
But he, more modest, took a humbler range
Of life, and in an honester vocation
Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey,
And merely practised as a sea-attorney.

XV.

The good old gentleman had been detain'd
By winds and waves, and some important
captures;

And, in the hope of more, at sea remain'd,
Although a squall or two had damp'd his
raptures,

By swamping one of the prizes; he had chain'd
His prisoners, dividing them like chapters,
In number'd lots: they all had cuffs and collars;
And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.
[are

Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, Dante and Milton,† and of both the affection Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar Of fault or temper ruin'd the connection

(Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve [mar); Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.

XI.

Some persons say that Dante meant theology
By Beatrice, and not a mistress-I,

⚫ Dante calls his wife, in the Inferno, 'La fiera moglie.' ↑ Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first month. If she had not, what would John Milton have done?

XVI.

Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan,

Among his friends the Mainots: some he sold
To his Tunis correspondents, save one man

Toss'd overboard, unsaleable (being old);
The rest-save here and there some richer one,
Reserved for future ransom-in the hold,
Were link'd alike; as for the common people, he
Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.

XVII.

The merchandise was served in the same way,
Pieced out for different marts in the Levant,
Except some certain portions of the prey,
Light classic articles of female want,

You're wrong-He was the mildest manner'd I said that Lambro was a man of patience,

man

That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat;
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could divine his real thought;
No courtier could, and scarcely woman can
Gird more deceit within a petticoat;
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.

XLII.

Advancing to the nearest dinner-tray,
Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest,
With a peculiar smile, which, by the way,
Boded no good, whatever it express'd,
He ask'd the meaning of this holiday.
The vinous Greek, to whom he had address'd
His question, much too merry to divine
The questioner, fill'd up a glass of wine,

XLIII.

And, without turning his facetious head,

And certainly he show'd the best of breeding Which scarce even France, the paragon c nations,

E'er saw her most polite of sons exceeding.
He bore these sneers against his near relations,
His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding,
The insults, too, of every servile glutton,
Who all the time was eating up his mutton.
XLVII.

Now in a person used to much command-
To bid men come, and go, and come again-
To see his orders done, too, out of hand-

Whether the word was death, or but the
chain-

It may seem strange to find his manners bland
Yet such things are, which I can not exp
Though doubtless he who can command inse
Is good to govern-almost as a Guelf.

XLVIII.

Not that he was not sometimes rash or so,
But never in his real and serious mood.
Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow,
He lay coil'd like the boa in the wood:
With him it never was a word and blow,

Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air, Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said, 'Talking's dry work, I have no time to spare.' A second hiccup'd, 'Our old master's dead; You'd better ask our mistress who's his heir.' 'Our mistress!' quoth a third, 'Our mistress !-But in his silence there was much to rue, pooh !

You mean our master-not the old, but new.'

XLIV.

These rascals, being new comers, knew not

whom

They thus address'd-and Lambro's visage
And o'er his eye a momentary gloom [fell-
Pass'd; but he strove quite courteously to quell
The expression, and, endeavouring to resume
His smile, requested one of them to tell
The name and quality of his new patron,

His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood;

And his one blow left little work for free.

XLIX.

He ask'd no further questions, and proceeded
On to the house, but by a private way,
So that the few who met him hardly heeded.
So little they expected him that day;
If love paternal in his bosom pleaded

For Haidée's sake, is more than I can say.
But certainly to one deem'd dead, returning,
This revel seem'd a curious mode of mourning
L.

Who seem'd to have turn'd Haidée into a If all the dead could now return to life,

And turn him, like the Clycops, mad with blind-Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boil'd