125 
Lord Byron's new Cantos of Don Juan. 
1821.] 
Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who 
' then, 
Seasoned his pedlar poems with demo¬ 
cracy ; 
Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen 
Let to the Morning Post, its aristocracy •, 
W hen he and Southey, following the same 
path, 
Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath.)” 
<( Such names at present cut a convict figure, 
The very Botany Bay in-moral geogra¬ 
phy > 
Their loyal treason renegado vigour 
Are good manure for their more bare 
biography. 
Wordsworth’s last quarto, by the way, is 
bigger 
Than any since the birth-day of typography ; 
A clumsy, frowzy poem, called the “ Ex¬ 
cursion,” 
Writ in a manner which is my aversion.” 
The unlucky laureate is also darkly 
shadowed forth in the character of a 
Greek poet, who filled that high office 
in the new-establishment of Juan and 
Haidee. 
<! And now they were diverted by their 
suite, 
.Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, 
and a poet, 
W hich made their new establishment com - 
plete, 
The last was of great fame and liked to 
shew it. 
His verses rarely wanted their due feet— 
And for his theme—he seldom sung 
below it, 
Being paid to satirise or flatter, 
As the psalm says, ‘ inditingagood matter.” 
He praised the present, and abused the past, 
Reversing the good custom of old days, 
An eastern anti-jacobin at last 
He turn’d, preferring pudding to no 
praise. 
For some few years his lot had been o’er- 
cast 
By his seeming independent in his lays ; 
But now he sung the Sultan and. the Pacha 
M ith truth like Southey, and with verse 
like Cra$haw r . 
He was a man who had seen many changes 
And always changed as true as any 
needle, 
His polar star being one which rather 
ranges, 
And not the fixed—he knew the way to 
wheedle: 
So vile he ’scaped the doom which oft 
avenges ; 
And being fluent, (save indeed when 
fee’d ill,) 
He lied with such a fervour of intention— 
There w r as no doubt he earn’d his laureate 
pension. 
But he had genius—when a turncoat has it; 
The “ rates irrilabiiis” takes care 
That without notice few full moons shall 
pass it; 
Even good men like to make the public 
stare 
But to my subject. 
Kis animadversions on (lie author of 
the 44 Vision of Judgment.” or, as it 
lias been aptly parodied, 44 The Vision 
of Want of Judgment,” do not termi¬ 
nate here. It forms otie of his most 
fertile subjects—another topic, as we 
ought naturally to expect from his own 
unhappy experience, is the sober insti¬ 
tution of wedlock, which finds little 
favour in his eyes. Some nice-nerved 
readers have, we believe, been scan¬ 
dalized at the levity of his strictures ; 
but it is only fair to observe that the 
marriage yoke has time out of mind 
been a legitimate butt; and we have 
no manner of apprehension that the 
sarcasms and buffoonery of the noble 
waiter will either disturb the harmony 
of connubial life, or prevent one Bene¬ 
dick from becoming a married man. 
’Tis melancholy and a fearful sign 
Of human frailty, folly, also crime. 
That love and marriage rarely can combine, 
Although they both are born in the same 
clime; 
Marriage from love, like vinegar from 
wine— 
A sad soar, sober beverage—by time 
Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour 
Dow n to a very homely household savour. 
There’s doubtless something in domestic 
doings, 
Which forms, in fact, true love’s anti¬ 
thesis ; 
Romances paint at full length people’s 
wooings, 
But only give a bust of marriages ; 
For no one cares for matrimonial cooing?, 
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 ? 
The only two that in my recollection 
Have sung of heaven and hell, or mar¬ 
riage, are 
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 mar,) 
But Dante’s Beatrice and Milton’s Eve 
Were not drawn from their spouses, jmtt 
conceive. 
Some persons say that Dante meant theo¬ 
ry 
By Beatrice, and not a mistress—J, 
Although my opinion may require apology, 
Deem this a commentator’s phantasy. 
Unless-, 
