There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs; (1)
And subtle Greeks (2) intrigue for stupid Tartars;
There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters, (3)
Turns a diplomatist of great eclat,

To furnish articles for the " Débats;
Of war so certain-yet not quite so sure
As his dismissal in the " Moniteur."
Alas! how could his cabinet thus err?
Can peace be worth an ultra-minister?
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again,
"Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain."(4)

XVII.

Enough of this —a sight more mournful woos
The averted eye of the reluctant muse.
The imperial daughter, the imperial bride,
The imperial victim-sacrifice to pride;
The mother of the hero's hope, the boy,
The young Astyanax of modern Troy ;(5)

(1) Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: " Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who-who-who has written something?" (écrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy.

(2) [Count Capo d'Istrias- afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned.]

(3) [The Duke de Montmorenci-Laval.]

(4) [From Pope's verses on Lord Peterborough:

"And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines,
Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines,
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain,

Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain."]

(5) [Napoleon François Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, died at the palace of Schönbrunn, July 22. 1832, having just attained his twenty first year.]

The still pale shadow of the loftiest queen
That earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen;
She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour,
The theme of pity, and the wreck of power.
Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare
A daughter? What did France's widow there?
Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave,
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave.
But, no,—she still must hold a petty reign,
Flank'd by her formidable chamberlain ;
The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes
Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.(')
What though she share no more, and shared in vain,
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne,

Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas!
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese,
Where Parma views the traveller resort
To note the trappings of her mimic court.
But she appears! Verona sees her shorn

Of all her beams—while nations gaze and mourn -
Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time
To chill in their inhospitable clime;

(If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;—
But no,—their embers soon will burst the mould ;)
She comes!—the Andromache (but not Racine's,
Nor Homer's,)-Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm she leans!
Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo,
Which cut her lord's half-shatter'd sceptre through,
Is offer'd and accepted! Could a slave

Do more? or less?—and he in his new grave!

(1) [Count Neipperg, chamberlain and second husband to Maria-Louisa, had but one eye. The count died in 1831. See antè, Vol. X. p. 11.]

Her

eye,

her cheek, betray no inward strife, And the ex-empress grows as ex a wife!

So much for human ties in royal breasts!

Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?

XVIII.

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home,

And sketch the group-the picture 's yet to come.
My muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt,
She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt!
While throng'd the chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman!
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar,
While all the Common Council cry " Claymore!"
To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt
Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt, (1)
She burst into a laughter so extreme,
That I awoke-and lo! it was no dream!

66

Here, reader, will we pause:if there's no harm in This first you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen."

(1) [George the Fourth is said to have been somewhat annoyed, on entering the levee-room at Holyrood (Aug. 1822.) in full Stuart tartan, to see only one figure similarly attired (and of similar bulk) that of Sir William Curtis. The city knight had every thing complete -even the knife stuck in the garter. He asked the King, if he did not think him well dressed. "Yes!" replied his Majesty, "only you have no spoon in your hose." The devourer of turtle had a fine engraving executed of himself in his Celtic attire.-E.]

THE ISLAND; (')

OR,

CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES. (2)

(1) ["The Island" was written at Genoa, early in the year 1823, and published in the June following.]

race.

(2) [We are taught by The Book of sacred history, that the disobedience of our first parents entailed on our globe of earth a sinful and a suffering In our time there has sprung up from the most abandoned of this sinful family-from pirates, mutineers, and murderers—a little society, which, under the precepts of that sacred volume, is characterised by religion, morality, and innocence. The discovery of this happy people, as unexpected as it was accidental, and all that regards their condition and history, partake so much of the romantic, as to render the story not ill adapted for an epic poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has partially treated the subject; but, by blending two incongruous stories, and leaving both of them imperfect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has been less felicitous than usual; for, beautiful as many passages in his "Island" are, in a region where every tree, and flower, and fountain, breathe poetry, yet, as a whole, the poem is deficient in dramatic effect. - BARROW.]