EXHORTATION TO MR. WILBERFORCE.

(DON JUAN, Canto xiv. Stanzas 82-84.)

O WILBERFORCE ! thou man of black renown,
Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
Thou moral Washington of Africa !
But there's another little thing, I own,

Which you should perpetrate some summer's day,

And set the other half of earth to rights;

You have freed the blacks-now pray shut up the whites.

Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander !

Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal ;

Teach them that "sauce for goose is sauce for gander," And ask them how they like to be in thrall?

Shut up each high heroic salamander,

Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small);
Shut up-no, not the King, but the Pavilion,
Or else 'twill cost us all another million.

Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,

As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d'appui is found, alas !
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 'twas.

EXHORTATION TO MRS. FRY.

(DON JUAN, Canto x. Stanzas 85-87.)

OH Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin
With Carlton, or with other houses? Try
Your hand at harden'd and imperial sin.
To mend the people's an absurdity.

A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,
Unless you make their betters better :-Fy!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

Teach them the decencies of good threescore;

Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses; Tell them that youth once gone returns no more, That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses; Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore,

Too dull even for the dullest of excesses, The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal,

A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.

Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late
On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated,

To set up vain pretences of being great,

'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state;

And tell them- —But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but by and by I'll prattle Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle.

SATAN CLAIMS, AT HEAVEN'S GATE,

GEORGE THE THIRD.

(VISION OF JUDGMENT, Stanzas 42-49.)

"Look to the earth, I said, and say again :

When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor

worm

Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign,
The world and he both wore a different form,
And much of earth and all the watery plain

Of ocean call'd him king: through many a storm
His isles had floated on the abyss of time;
For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.

"He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old : Look to the state in which he found his realm,

And left it; and his annals too behold,

How to a minion first he gave the helm ;
How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold,
The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm
The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance
Thine eye along America and France.

"'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last

(I have the workmen safe); but as a tool So let him be consumed. From out the past Of ages, since mankind have known the rule Of monarchs-from the bloody rolls amass'd Of sin and slaughter-from the Cæsar's school, Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain.

"He ever warr'd with freedom and the free:

Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes,
So that they utter'd the word 'Liberty !'

Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose
History was ever stain'd as his will be

With national and individual woes?
I grant his household abstinence; I grant
His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want;

"I know he was a constant consort; own

He was a decent sire, and middling lord.
All this is much, and most upon a throne;
As temperance, if at Apicius' board,
Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.
I grant him all the kindest can accord;
And this was well for him, but not for those
Millions who found him what oppression chose.

"The New World shook him off: the Old yet groans
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not
Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones
To all his vices, without what begot
Compassion for him—his tame virtues; drones
Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot
A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake
Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake!

"Five millions of the primitive, who hold

The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored A part of that vast all they held of old,—

Freedom to worship-not alone your Lord, Michael! but you; and you, Saint Peter! Cold Must be your souls, if you have not abhorr'd

The foe to Catholic participation

In all the license of a Christian nation.

"True! he allow'd them to pray God; but as

A consequence of prayer, refused the law Which would have placed them upon the same base With those who did not hold the saints in awe. But here Saint Peter started from his place,

And cried, "You may the prisoner withdraw : Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph, While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself!”

THE SEX.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanza 34.)

NOT much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast,
Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs;
What careth she for hearts when once possess'd?
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes,

But not too humbly, or she will despise

Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes :
Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise;
Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes;

Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes.