V. The Lady Adeline Amundeville, Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill. There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. VI. The Lady Adeline, right honourable, And honour'd, ran a risk of growing less so ; For few of the soft sex are very stable In their resolves—alas! that I should say so! When once decanted ;-) presume to guess so, VII. The unmingled essence of the grape ; and yet Or glorious as a diamond richly set; where Time should hesitate to print age, VIII. Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap, Some splendid debtor he would take by sap : Advances with exasperated rap, IX. Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor Beauty ! She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey. What though she now and then may slip from duty, The more 's the reason why you ought to stay. Gaunt gourmand! with whole nations for your booty, You should be civil in a modest way: Suppress then some slight feminine diseases, And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases: X. Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous Where she was interested (as was said), To like too readily, or too high bred Would give up artlessly both heart and head XI. That live gazette, had scatter'd to disfigure, Such aberrations than we men of rigour. Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour ; XII. Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce ; Of coxcombry or conquest : no abuse To indicate a Cupidon broke loose, bo resist us if Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man. you can” XIII. They are wrong—that 's not the way to set about it; As, if they told the truth, could well be shown. But, right or wrong, , Don Juan was without it; In fact, his manner was his own alone: Sincere he was—at least you could not doubt it, In listening merely to his voice's tone. The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. XIV. Suspicion : though not timid, his regard To shield himself, than put you on your guard : But modesty 's at times its own reward, XV. Insinuating without insinuation ; Yet ne’er betraying this in conversation; Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud, So as to make them feel he knew his station And theirs ;—without a struggle for priority, He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority, XVI. They pleased to make or take him for ; and their linagination 's quite enough for that : So that the outline 's tolerably fair. If once their phantasies be brought to bear XVII. Adeline, no deep judge of character, Was apt to add a colouring from her own. 'T is thus the good will amiably err, And eke the wise, as has been often shown. But saddest when his science is well known; XVIII. Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon ? Great Socrates ? And thou, diviner still, Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken, And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill ? How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill XIX. Amidst life's infinite variety : But speculating as I cast mine eye And never straining hard to versify, XX. Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme; may round off an hour upon a time. Of this I 'm sure at least, there 's no servility In mine irregularity of chime, XXI. "Omnia vult belle Matho dicere—dic aliquando Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male." The first is rather more than mortal can do; The second may be sadly done or gaily; The third is still more difficult to stand to; The fourth we hear, and say too, daily; The whole together is what I could wish To serve in this conundrum of a dish. and see, a XXII. feeble :- let us ramble on. I meant to make this poem very short, But now I can't tell where it may not run. To critics, or to hail the setting sun XXIII. So that I verily believe if they Were shaken down, and “ dogs had had their day," Though at the first I might by chance deride Their tumble, I should turn the other way, : XXIV. If I had never proved the soft condition; But for my own peculiar superstition ; 'Gainst rhyme I never should have knock'd my brows, Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian, XXV. Such as the times may furnish. 'T is a flight Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite : The difficulty lies in colouring (Keeping the due proportion still in sight) With nature manners which are artificial, And rendering general that which is especial. XXVI. Men made the manners; manners now make menPinn'd like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold, At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten. Your writers, who must either draw again March, my XXVII. We'll do our best to make the best on 't:-March ! Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter; And when you inay not be sublime, be arch, Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter. We surely sha!l find something worth research ; Columbus found a new world in a cutter, Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage, While yet America was in her non-age. XXVIII. When Adeline, in all her growing sense Of Juan's merits and his situation, Felt on the whole an interest intense Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation, Or that he had an air of innocence, Which is for innocence a sad temptation,As women hate half measures, on the whole, She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul. XXIX. Like all who give and eke receive it gratis, Even where the article at highest rate is. And morally, decided, the best state is |