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! They differ as wine differs from its label, When once decanted;-I presume to guess so, But will not swear: yet both upon occasion, Till old, may undergo adulteration. VII. But Adeline was of the purest vintage, The unmingled essence of the grape; and yet Bright as a new Napoleon from its mintage, Or glorious as a diamond richly set; A page where Time should hesitate to print age, And for which Nature might forego her debtSole creditor whose process doth involve in't The luck of finding every body solvent. O Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome, On ready money (1) [Ransom, Kinnaird, and Co. were Lord Byron's bankers.] IX. Whate'er thou takest, spare a while poor Beauty! X. Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous Where she was interested (as was said), XI. Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumour, Such aberrations than we men of rigour : Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour ; Because he had, like Alcibiades, The art of living in all climes with ease.(1) (1) [See Mitford's Greece, vol. iii.] XII. His manner was perhaps the more seductive, XIII. They are wrong—that's not the way to set about it. The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice XIV. By nature soft, his whole address held off But modesty 's at times its own reward, Like virtue; and the absence of pretension Will go much farther than there's need to mention. XV. Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful but not loud; Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation; 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. That is, with men: with women he was what So that the outline's tolerably fair, They fill the canvass up-and " verbum sat.' XVII. Adeline, no deep judge of character, Was apt to add a colouring from her own: 'Tis thus the good will amiably err, And eke the wise, as has been often shown. But saddest when his science is well known : (1) [Raphael's masterpiece is called the Transfiguration.] XVIII. Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon? Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still, (1) Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken, And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill? Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken, How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill Volumes with similar sad illustrations, But leave them to the conscience of the nations. XIX. I perch upon an humbler promontory, Amidst life's infinite variety: With no great care for what is nicknamed glory, On what may suit or may not suit my story, I rattle on exactly as I'd talk With any body in a ride or walk. XX. I don't know that there may be much ability Which may round off an hour upon a time. (1) As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean, by" Diviner still," CHRIST. If ever God was man or man Godhe was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use- or abuse-made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified, that black men might be scourged? If so, he had better been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation. |