Even Plutarch's Lives have but pick'd out a few, And 'gainst those few your annalists have thunder'd; And Mitford (1) in the nineteenth century

Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie. (2)

XX.

Good people all, of every degree,

Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be As serious as if I had for inditers

Malthus and Wilberforce:-the last set free

The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which he writes.

(1) See Mitford's Greece. "Græcia Veraz." 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.

(2) [It has been, injuriously for him, too extensively held among modern writers, that Plutarch was to be considered as an historian wnose authority might be quoted for matters of fact with the same confidence as that of Thucydides or Xenophon, or Cæsar or Tacitus. Sometimes, indeed, he undertakes historical discussion, or, relating different reports, leaves judgment on them to his reader. When truth thus appears his object, his matter is valuable for the historian. But generally to do justice to his great work, his Lives, apparently it should be considered that, next at least to panegyric of his nation, example, political and moral, was his purpose, more than historical information. Little scrupulous as he has shown himself about transactions the most public, concerning which he often con. tradicts, without reserve or apology, not only the highest authorities, bu even himself, it can hardly be supposed that he would scrutinise with great solicitude the testimonies to private anecdotes, if even he does not some. times indulge his invention. - MITFORD.]

XXI.

I'm serious so are all men upon paper;

And why should I not form my speculation,
And hold up to the sun my little taper? (')

Mankind just now seem wrapt in meditation
On constitutions and steam-boats of vapour;
While sages write against all procreation,
Unless a man can calculate his means
Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.

XXII.

That's noble! That's romantic! For my part,
I think that" Philo-genitiveness" is-
(Now here's a word quite after my own heart,
Though there's a shorter a good deal than this,
If that politeness set it not apart;

But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss)I say, methinks that "Philo-genitiveness" (2) Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.

XXIII.

And now to business.-O my gentle Juan!
Thou art in London-in that pleasant place
Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing,
Which can await warm youth in its wild race.
'Tis true, that thy career is not a new one;
Thou art no novice in the headlong chase
Of early life; but this is a new land,
Which foreigners can never understand.

(1)

["Thus commentators each dark passage shun,

And hold their farthing candles to the sun."-YOUNG.]

(2) [Philo-progenitiveness. Spurzheim and Gall discover the organ of this name in a bump behind the ears, and say it is remarkably developed in the bull.]

XXIV.

What with a small diversity of climate,
Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate,
I could send forth my mandate like a primate
Upon the rest of Europe's social state;
But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at,

Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate. All countries have their " Lions," but in thee There is but one superb menagerie.

XXV.

But I am sick of politics. Begin,
"Paulo Majora." Juan, undecided
Amongst the paths of being " taken in,"

Above the ice had like a skater glided:

When tired of play, he flirted without sin

With some of those fair creatures who have prided Themselves on innocent tantalisation,

And hate all vice except its reputation.

XXVI.

But these are few, and in the end they make
Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows
That even the purest people may mistake
Their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows;
And then men stare, as if a new ass spake

To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows
Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it)
With the kind world's amen- "Who would have
thought it?"

XXVII.

The little Leila, with her orient eyes,

And taciturn Asiatic disposition,

(Which saw all western things with small surprise
To the surprise of people of condition,
Who think that novelties are butterflies
To be pursued as food for inanition,)
Her charming figure and romantic history
Became a kind of fashionable mystery.

XXVIII.

The women much divided

as is usual

Amongst the sex in little things or great. [all-
Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you
I have always liked you better than I state:
Since I've grown moral, still I must accuse you all
Of being apt to talk at a great rate;

And now there was a general sensation
Amongst you, about Leila's education.

XXIX.

In one point only were you settled-and
You had reason; 'twas that a young child of

As beautiful as her own native land,

And far away, the last bud of her race,

grace,

Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command
Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space,

Would be much better taught beneath the
Of peeresses whose follies had run dry.

eye

XXX.

So first there was a generous emulation,
And then there was a general competition
To undertake the orphan's education.

As Juan was a person of condition,
It had been an affront on this occasion
To talk of a subscription or petition;
But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages,
Whose tale belongs to " Hallam's Middle Ages,"

XXXI.

And one or two sad, separate wives, without
A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough-
Begged to bring up the little girl, and “out,”—
For that's the phrase that settles all things now,
Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout,

And all her points as thorough-bred to show:
And I assure you, that like virgin honey
Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money).

XXXII.

How all the needy honourable misters,

Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy, The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters, (Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy At making matches, where " 'tis gold that glisters,” Than their he relatives,) like flies o'er candy Buzz round" the Fortune" with their busy battery, To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!