These quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst-In love and war), how odd are the connections Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight! Just now yours were cut out in different sections: First, Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite; Next, of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch; And, thirdly, he who brought you the despatch! LXVI. Shakspeare talks of the herald Mercury LXVII. Her Majesty look'd down, the youth look'd upAnd so they fell in love-she with his face. His grace, his God-knows-what; for Cupid's cup With the first draught intoxicates apace, A quintessential laudanum, or 'black drop, Which makes one drunk at once, without the [base Though somewhat large, exuberant, and trucu-Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye, lent, [a figure In love, drinks all life's fountains (save tears) dry. When wroth,-while pleased, she was as fine With her the latter, though at times convenient, And always used her favourites too well. widow all Nations, she liked man as an individual. LXIV. What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head! And what a whirlpool, full of depth and danger, Is all the rest about her! Whether wed Or widow, maid or mother, she can change her Mind like the wind: whatever she has said Or done, is light to what she'll say or doThe oldest thing on record, and yet new! LXV. Oh Catharine! (for of all interjections, To thee both oh! and ah! belong of right, His fortune swells him, it is rank, he's married.'-Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts.. LXVIII. He, on the other hand, if not in love, Fell into that no less imperious passion. Self-love-which, when some sort of thing above Ourselves, a singer, dancer much in fashion, Or duchess, princess, empress, 'deigns to prove (Tis l'ope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash one, Makes us believe ourselves as good as any. LXIX. Besides, he was of that delighted age Which makes all female ages equal-when We don't much care with whom we may engage, As bold as Daniel in the lions' den, So that we can our native sun assuage In the next ocean, which may flow just then, To make a twilight in, just as Sol's heat is Quench'd in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis. LXX. And Catharine (we must say thus much for Catharine), Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing Whose temporary passion was quite flattering, Because each lover look'd a sort of king, Made up upon an amatory pattern, A royal husband in all save the ring,Which, being the damn'dest part of natrimony, Seem'd taking out the sting to leave the honey. LXXI. And when you add to this her womanho d In its meridian, her blue eyes of grey Hamlet, Act iii, Sc. 1. (The last, if they have soul, are quite as good, Juan much flatter'd by her love, or lust- Too wise to look through optics black or blue)-But in such matters Russia's mighty Empress Those movements, those improvements in our Which make all bodies anxious to get out The noblest kind of love is love Platonical, To end or to begin with; the next grand LXXVII. Well, we won't analyse-our story must Tell for itself: the sovereign was smitten, Behaved no better than a common sempstress. LXXVIII. The whole court melted into one wide whisper, LXXIX. All the ambassadors of all the powers, Inquired who was this very new young man, Upon his cabinet, besides the presents LXXX. Catharine was generous-all such ladies are; And was not the best wife, unless we call LXXXI. Love had made Catharine make each lover's for- The truth; and though grief her old age might Because she put a favourite to death, LXXXII. But when the levée rose, and all was bustle Of gentle dames, among whose recreations LXXXIII. Juan, who found himself, he knew not how, A Russian estate was always valued by the number of slaves upon it. XIV. Of life reach'd ten o'clock: and while a glow, IX. But Juan was not meant to die so soon. Because December, with his breath so hoary, ray, To hoard up warmth against a wintry day. X. Besides, he had some qualities which fix Know little more of love than what is sung And nought remains unseen, but much untold, XV. A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, XVI. And all our little feuds, at least all mine, In rhymes, or dreamt (for fancy will play tricks) (As far as rhyme and criticism combine In visions of those skies from whence Love Some reckon women by their suns or years: This were the worst desertion :-renegadoes, To make such puppets of us things below), Are over: Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne !' I do not know you, and may never know Your face-but you have acted, on the whole, Most nobly; and I own it from my soul. XVII. And when I use the phrase of Auld Lang Syne,' XVIII. As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and All my boy-feelings, all my gentler dreams seems My childhood in this childishness of mine: Query: suit -Printer's Devil. The Brig of Don, near the Auld Toun' of Aberdeen, with its one arch and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me pause to [seize cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, being an Should not veer round with every breath, nor only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying, as recol To pain, the moment when you cease to please.lected by me, was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age: |