The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 91

On! on! through meadows, managed like a garden, A paradise of hops and high production; For, after years of travel by a bard in Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction, A green field is a sight which makes him pardon The absence of that more sublime construction, Which mixes up vines--olives--precipices-- Glaciers--volcanoes--oranges and ices.

LXXVII.

And when I think upon a pot of beer---- But I won't weep!--and so drive on, postilions!

As the smart boys spurred fast in their career, Juan admired these highways of free millions-- A country in all senses the most dear To foreigner or native, save some silly ones, Who "kick against the p.r.i.c.ks" just at this juncture, And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.[ki]

LXXVIII.

What a delightful thing's a turnpike road!

So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving The Earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.

Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the G.o.d Had told his son to satisfy his craving With the York mail;--but onward as we roll, _Surgit amari aliquid_--the toll![555]

LXXIX.

Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!

Take lives--take wives--take aught except men's purses: As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment, Such is the shortest way to general curses.[556]

They hate a murderer much less than a claimant On that sweet ore which everybody nurses.-- Kill a man's family, and he may brook it, But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket:

Lx.x.x.

So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken To your instructor. Juan now was borne, Just as the day began to wane and darken, O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn Toward the great city.--Ye who have a spark in Your veins of c.o.c.kney spirit, smile or mourn According as you take things well or ill;-- Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!

Lx.x.xI.

The Sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from A half-unquenched volcano, o'er a s.p.a.ce Which well beseemed the "Devil's drawing-room,"

As some have qualified that wondrous place: But Juan felt, though not approaching _Home_, As one who, though he were not of the race, Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother, Who butchered half the earth, and bullied t' other.[557]

Lx.x.xII.

A mighty ma.s.s 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 amidst 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!

Lx.x.xIII.

But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke Appeared 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 bowed, and put the Sun out like a taper, Were nothing but the natural atmosphere, Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.

Lx.x.xIV.

He paused--and so will I; as doth a crew Before they give their broadside. By and by, My gentle countrymen, we will renew Our old acquaintance; and at least I'll try To tell you truths _you_ will not take as true, Because they are so;--a male Mrs. Fry,[558]

With a soft besom will I sweep your halls, And brush a web or two from off the walls.

Lx.x.xV.

Oh Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why Preach to _poor_ rogues? And wherefore not begin With Carlton, or with other houses? Try Your hand at hardened and imperial Sin.

To mend the People's an absurdity, A jargon, a mere philanthropic din, Unless you make their betters better:--Fie!

I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

Lx.x.xVI.

Teach _them_ the decencies of good threescore; Cure _them_ of tours, hussar and highland dresses; Tell _them_ that youth once gone returns no more, That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses; Tell them Sir William Curtis[559] is a bore, Too dull even for the dullest of excesses-- The witless Falstaff of a h.o.a.ry Hal, A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.

Lx.x.xVII.

Tell them, though it may be, perhaps, too late-- On Life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated-- To set up vain pretence of being _great_, 'T is not so to be _good_; and, be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state: And tell them--But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but, by and by, I'll prattle Like Roland's horn[560] in Roncesvalles' battle.[kj][561]

FOOTNOTES:

{400}[jt] _In a most natural whirling of rotation_.--[MS. erased.]

[ju] _Since Adam--gloriously against an apple_.--[MS. erased.]

[525] ["Neither Pemberton nor Whiston, who received from Newton himself the history of his first Ideas of Gravity, records the story of the falling apple. It was mentioned, however, to Voltaire by Catherine Barton (afterwards Mrs. Conduit), Newton's niece. We saw the apple tree in 1814.... The tree was so much decayed that it was taken down in 1820"

(_Memoirs, etc., of Sir Isaac Newton_, by Sir David Brewster, 1855, i.

27, note 1). Voltaire tells the story thus (_elements de la Philosophie de Newton_, Partie III. chap, iii.): "Un jour, en l'annee 1666 [1665], Newton, retire a la campagne, et voyant tomber des fruits d'un arbre, a ce que m'a conte sa niece (Madame Conduit), se laissa aller a une meditation profonde sur la cause qui entraine ainsi tous les corps dans une ligne qui, si elle etait prolongee, pa.s.serait a peu pres par le centre de la terre."--_Oeuvres Completes_, 1837, v. 727.]

[jv] _To the then unploughed stars_----.--[MS. erased.]

{401}[526] [Compare _Churchill's Grave,_ line 23, _Poetical Works,_ 1901, iv. 47, note 1.]

[527] [Sh.e.l.ley ent.i.tles him "The Pilgrim of Eternity," in his _Adonais_ (stanza x.x.x. line 3), which was written and published at Pisa in 1821.]

{402}[528] [Byron left Pisa (Palazzo Lanfranchi on the Arno) for the Villa Saluzzo at Genoa, in the autumn of 1822.]

[jw]: -403-_Malicious people_--.--[MS. erased.]

[529] ["We think the abuse of Mr. Southey ... by far too savage and intemperate. It is of ill example, we think, in the literary world, and does no honour either to the _taste_ or the _temper_ of the n.o.ble author." --_Edinburgh Review_, February, 1822, vol. x.x.xvi. p. 445.

"I have read the recent article of Jeffrey ... I suppose the long and the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature is."--Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 80.]

[jx]--_that essence of all Lie_.--[MS. erased.]

{404}[530] "Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron Bradwardine in _Waverley_ is authority for the word. [The word is certainly in Butler's _Hudibras_, Part II. Canto 2--

"Although your Church be opposite To mine as Black Fryars are to White, In _Rule_ and _Order_, yet I grant You are a _Reformado Saint_."]

[531] [Stanza XV. is not in the MS. The "legal broom," _sc._ Brougham, was an afterthought.]

[532] Query, _suit_?--Printer's Devil.

[533] [It has been argued that when "great Caesar fell" he wore his "robe" to m.u.f.fle up his face, and that, in like manner, Jeffrey sank the critic in the lawyer. A "deal likelier" interpretation is that Jeffrey wore "his gown" right royally, as Caesar wore his "triumphal robe." (See Plutarch's _Julius Caesar_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 515.)]

{405}[534] ["I don't like to bore you about the Scotch novels (as they call them, though two of them are English, and the rest half so); but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes in your company, that you are _not_ the man. To me these novels have so much of 'Auld Lang Syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old), that I never move without them."--Letter to Sir W. Scott, January 12, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 4, 5.]

[535] [Compare _The Island_, Canto II. lines 280-297.]

[536] The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one arch, and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age:--

"Brig of Balgounie, _black_'s your _wa'_, Wi' a wife's _ae son_, and a mear's _ae foal_, Doun ye shall fa'!"