LXXXVII. Here the twelfth canto of our introduction Ends. When the body of the book 's begun, You'll find it of a different construction From what some people say 't will be when done: The plan at present 's simply in concoction. I can't oblige you, reader, to read on ; LXXXVIII. And if my thunderbolt not always rattles, LXXXIX. That is your present theme for popularity: To show the people the best way to break. Reserve it) will be very sure to take. Meantime read all the national debt-sinkers, And tell me what you think of your great thinkers. END OF CANTO XII. NOTES TO CANTO XII. Note 1, page 107, stanza XIX. Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie. See Mitford's Greece. « Græcia Verax. His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange after all, his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues-learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest. Note 2, page 113, stanza xxxvII. A hazy widower turn'd of forty's sure etc. This line may puzzle the commentators more than the present generation. Note 3, page 125, stanza LXXIII. Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows etc. The Russians, as is well known, run out from their hot baths to plunge into the Neva; a pleasant practical antithesis, which it seems does them no harm. Note 4, page 128, stanza LXXXII. -those northern lights Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull browses: etc. For a description and print of this inhabitant of the Polar region and native country of the aurora boreales, see Parry's Voyage in search of a North-west Passage. Note 5, page 129, stanza LXXXVI. As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos. A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust, ere long, to look over a nation of freemen. DON JUAN. CANTO XIII. I. I NOW mean to be serious;-it is time, Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious, A jest at vice by virtue's called a crime, And critically held as deleterious: Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime, II. The Lady Adeline Amundeville (T is an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees by those who wander still Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will, And beauteous, even where beauties most abound, In Britain-which of course true patriots find The goodliest soil of body and of mind. III. I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue; I leave them to their taste, no doubt the best. The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, IV. And after that serene and somewhat dull Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place. V. I know that some would fain era, postpone this |