pension.

That without notice few full moons shall pass it;

Even good men like to make the public

stare;

But to my subject.

His animadversions on the author of the "Vision of Judgment." or, as it has been aptly parodied, "The Vision of Want of Judgment," do not terminate here. It forms one of his most fertile subjects-another topic, as we ought naturally to expect from his own unhappy experience, is the sober institution of wedlock, which finds little favour in his eyes. Some nice-nerved readers have, we believe, been scandalized 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 writer will either disturb the harmony of connubial life, or prevent one Benedick 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 sour, sober beverage-by time Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savour. There's doubtless something in domestic doings,

Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis;

Romances paint 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? The only two that in my recollection

Have sung of heaven and hell, or mar

But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.

Some persons say that Dante meant theology

By Beatrice, and not a mistress-I,

The "vates irritabilis" takes care

Deem this a commentator's phantasy,

Unless,

Unless, indeed, it was from his own knowledge he

Decided thus, and show'd good reason why;

I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics Meant to personify the mathematics."

The spirit of these passages will give our readers a pretty correct idea of the cynical sorties in which the poet delights to indulge. And, in truth, we see no reason for visiting him with a very heavy penalty of indignation, if he ventures to speak of human beings and human affairs in this strain of bitter sarcasm. Compare these cantos with the works of Swift. There is nothing in them which presents our nature in so degraded and disgusting a point of view as the latter laboured to place it in. His works are a tissue of wit, misanthropy, and something coarser, yet he was a dignitary of the church, and of unimpeached character. And why not allow his jest to Lord Byron? Must the metropolitan law society be put into a flame, because he speaks of that sublime of rascals, the attorney?" or because in describing a Greek pirate, he 'calls him "a sea-attorney?" and again, unwilling to abandon so capital a hit, a sea-solicitor?" Or must Miss Edgeworth or Lady Morgan resent it as a personal affront, when his Lordship comically talks of "the intensity of blue ?"

66

66

The personal narrative of the hero of these pages may be condensed into a few lines. We may as well briefly recapitulate the story of the former cantos. Don Juan, the rising hope of a noble Spanish family, was carefully educated by his widowed mother; but being seduced at a very early age into an amour with a lady of rank, was sent on the grand tour, and for that purpose embarked at a sea port. The vessel suffers shipwreck, and the horrors endured by the unhappy crew are detailed with a fidelity and minuteness which is fully accounted for by a curious article in our last number, respecting which we shall merely observe that it forms the only substantial proof of plagiarism yet advanced against Lord By

ron.

Juan alone escapes, and is cast insensible upon a Greek island, the "chambers" in fact, of the sea-solicitor. He is restored to life by the cares of that respectable practitioner's daughter, Haidée; and the second canto concludes with a beautiful picture of their young and innocent loves. In the opening of the third canto, the tender

pair, on a false report of the old man's death, appear in full possession of his honors and estates, and of their own fond, ill-fated affections.

"All these were theirs, for they were children still,

And children still they should have ever
been;

They were not made in the real world to fill
A busy character in the dull scene,
But like two beings, born from out a rill,
A nymph and her beloved, all unseen

To
And never know the weight of human hours.
They should have lived together deep in
woods,

pass their lives in fountains and on
flowers,

Unseen as sings the nightingale; they

were

Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes

Called social, where all vice and hatred

Oh! Powers of heaven! What dark eye meets she there?

"Tis-'tis her father's fix'd upon the pair! A minute past, and she had been all in tears,

And tenderness, and infancy: but now She stood as one who championed human fears,

Pale, statue-like and stern, she woo'd the blow:

And tall beyond her sex, and their compeers,

She drew up to her height, as if, to show A fairer mark; and with a fixed eye scann'd Her father's face-but never stopped his

hand.

He

tense

She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;

Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence Availed for either; neither change of place,

Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her

Senses to sleep-the power seemed gone for ever.

Twelve days and nights she withered thus; at last,

Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show

A parting pang, the spirit from her past: And they who watched her nearest could not know

The very instant, till the change that cast Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,

Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the black

Oh! to possess such lustre-and then lack."

We think that few will withhold their sympathy from this affecting catastrophe, or refuse to drop a tear over the fate of the lovely and unfortunate Haidée, and to bid her

Sleep well

By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell."

Over this charming creature the poet has thrown a beauty and a fascination which was never, we think, surpassed. But it will be advanced that her amours are objectionable by some fastidious critic,

Whose face presageth snow, Who minces virtue, and doth shake the head To hear of pleasure's name.

If the amours of Juan and Haidée are not pure and innocent, and detailed with sufficient delicacy and propriety, the tender passion may as well be struck

at once out of the list of the poet's themes. We must shut our eyes and harden our hearts against the master passion of our existence: and becoming mere creatures of hypocrisy and form, charge even Milton himself with folly.

The arrival of the pirate gives a strange turn to the fortunes of the Don. Ignorant of the fate of his Haidée, bleeding and bound, he is conveyed to Constantinople, and exposed for sale as a slave; he there forms an acquaintance with a fellow captive, who seems of some note.

He had an English look, that is, was square

In make, of a complexion white and

ruddy,

Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair,

And it might be from thought, or toil, or study,

An open brow, a little mark'd with care:

One arm had on a bandage rather bloody; And there he stood with such sang froid that greater

Could scarce be shewn even by a mere spectator.

"My boy!" said he, "amidst this motley

crew

Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and

what not,

All ragamuffins, differing but in hue,
With whom it is our luck to cast our lot,
The only gentlemen seem I and you;

So let us be acquainted as we ought: If I could yield you any consolation, 'Twould give me pleasure-Fray what is your nation?”

These unfortunate gentlemen attract the notice of a black old neutral personage," whose property they presently become by purchase in market overt. By him they are led through secluded gardens into a magnificent palace, when the stranger is arrayed in the Asiatic style with all things requisite to form "a Turkish dandy," while Juan is desired to assume a splendid female dress; his reluctance is amusingly described— Baba eyed Juan, and said," be so good

As dress yourself"-and pointed out a suit

In which a princess with great pleasure

would

Thus he profanely term'd the finest lace Which e'er set off a marriage-morning face.

When fully equipped, he takes leave of his companion, and is conducted, through a suite of sumptuous apartments, into an imperial hall, where he finds a lady reclining under a canopy, to whom Baba introduces him and straightway retires.

Her form had all the softness of her sex," Her features all the sweetness of the devil,

When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and pav'd (God knows how) the road to evil;

The sun himself was scarce more free from specks

Than she from ought at which the eye could cavil;

Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting,

As if she rather order'd than was granting. Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet;

Her very nod was not an inclination; There was a self-will even in her small feet, As though they were quite conscious of her station,

They trod as upon necks; and to complete

Her state (it is the custom of her nation,) A poignard deck'd her girdle, as the sign She was a Sultan's bride, (thank Heaven, not mine.),

The handsome Spaniard, it appears, had made a conquest of this princely beauty, and she is far from disguising her partiality, against which Juan nobly opposes the pride of captivity, and the sorrow of his late unhappy passion.

This was an awkward test, as Juan found, But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath,

and pride:

With gentle force her white arms he un

wound,

And seated her all drooping by his side— Then rising haughtily, he glane'd around,

And looking coldly in her face, he cried, "The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor I Serve a Sultana's sensual phantasy. Thou ask'st if I can love? Be this the proof How much I have lov'd-that I love not thee!

In this vile garb, the distaff's web and woof Were fitter for me: Love is for the free! I am not dazzled by this splendid roofWhate'er thy power, and great it seems to be,

Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne,

And hands obey- our hearts are still our own."

The sultana's anguish, on meeting with this repulse, is overpowering. Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head; Her second, to cut only-his acquaint

"I see you've bought another girl; 'tis pity

That a mere Christian should be half so pretty."

And with the danger of a discovery, in this delicate situation, impending over the hero, the fifth canto concludes Thus far the Chronicle; and now we pause, Though not for want of matter; but 'tis time

According to the ancient epic laws,

To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.

Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, The sixth shall have a touch of the sub

lime;

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps,

perhaps

You'll parden to my muse a few short naps. We have only to remark, in conclusion, that of the sarcastic wit and poetical talents of this composition, there can be no question; and we must bear in mind that it is framed upon a model, which in all languages has been allowed considerable latitude of subject and expression. Whether the noble author has acted wisely in reviving this style of writing is another matter; but those who are acquainted with the labours of his predecessors in this vineyard, will be inclined to think that he has not exercised his privileges in a very out`rageous manner.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR,

H

AVING through near thirty years past felt admiration, and taken a strong interest in the success and extension of that important system of improved communication which is effected by the turnpike roads, the railways, the canal and the river navigations of our islands, and having on several occasions laboured* to extend the knowledge of these, to shew their vital importance to the nation, and explain the best principles on which each line has been and may be, constructed and managed, I cannot refrain, after reading your last number, from applauding the labours of Samuel Galton, Esq. of Birmingham, in collecting, collating and arranging the levels, or heights of numerous pounds of the water, in near forty different canals and river navigations; as also for suggesting twelve queries, as to data, that are still wanting, towards a connected view of the heights of all the navigable waters of the kingdom, and of its rail-ways, with reference to the ocean which surrounds

us.

Instead of making barometric observations only on four days in a year, as Mr. Galton has recommended in p. 26, I beg to call that gentleman's attention, and that of your scientific readers

* See the article CANAL in Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia, part 11, published in February, 1806, and various articles in parts 16 to 37, Aug. 1807 to Sep. 1811-Farey's Agricultural and Mineral Report on Derbyshire, vol. 3, p. 206 to 457, published by the Board of Agriculture, in July, 1817. -The Agricultural and the Philosophical Magazines, this Magazine, &c.

MONTHLY MAG. No. 358.

throughout the country, to an understanding which was come to in November last, between several scientific persons, for the purpose of making simultaneous observations with their barometers, on the second Monday in each calendar month, exactly at the hours of 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, in the forenoon (if the longitude were allowed for, and Greenwich time used in each instance, it would be better,) noting on each occasion, the height of the mercury (two thousandths of an inch,) the degree of Fahrenheit's thermometer attached, and of the same detached, the degree of some good hydrometer, if such is at hand, the direction of the wind, and remarks concerning its force or velocity, the sort of clouds visible, &c.

In consequence of this understanding, many sets of these observations have been sent to Mr. Tilloch, and printed in his Philosophical Magazine; and a far greater number of sets of such observations are understood to have been made, and to remain in the possession of the observers, intending thereon to found calculations, by comparisons with the published observations, of the heights of their respective places of observation.

I sincerely hope that the number of these monthly observers of the barometer will increase; and particularly of those who reside, or may have the opportunity of making their observations near to some one of the levels of canals, which Mr. Galton has mentioned in pages 27 to 30; and that they will be at the pains to carefully ascertain by a spirit level whenever necessary, the exact height of the surface of mercury in the basin of their barometer, above the water's surface in the canal; and I also hope and request, that a greater number than heretofore of these observations may be regularly transmitted for publication, particularly from gentlemen who may be either permanently or temporarily resident (were it only on one of the second Mondays) on the open coast of the ocean; being particular in all of such cases, to ascertain the height of their basin of Mercury, above high water mark, and above low-water mark, mentioning whether these are wellsettled average marks, or merely the tide's heights on the day of observation.

In cases where barometric observations are made near and referred to, any intermediate pound or level of any of the canals between those levels which

R

Mr.