These words went through his soul like Arab spears,
So that he spoke not, but burst into tears.

She was a great deal shocked; not shocked at tear>,
For women shed and use them at their liking;
But there is something, when man's eye appears
Wet, still more disagreeable and striking:
A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears,
Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in
His heart to force it out, for (to be shorter)
To them 'tis a relief, to us a torture.

And she would have consoled, but knew not how-
Having no equals, nothing which had e'er
Infected her with sympathy till now,

And never having dreamt what 'twas to bear
Aught of a serious sorrowing kind, although

There might arise some pouting petty care
To cross her brow, she wondered how, so near
Her eyes, another's eye could shed a tear.
But Nature teaches more than power can spoil,
And, when a strong, although a strange sensation,
Moves-female hearts are such a genial soil
For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation,
They naturally pour the wine and oil,'
Samaritans in every situation;

And thus Gulleyaz, though she knew not why,
Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye.

But tears must stop like all things else; and soon
Juan, who for an instant had been moved

To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone

Of one who dared to ask if he had loved,'
Galled back the stoic to his eyes, which shone

Bright with the very weakness he reproved;
And although sensitive to beauty, he

Felt most indignant still at not being free.

Juan replies,

'Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proof

How much I have loved-that I love not thee:
In this vile garb, the distaff's web and woof
Were fitter for me-love is for the free!

I am not dazzled by this splendid roof

Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be, Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne, And hands obey-our hearts are still our own.'

The rage of Gulleyaz is of a towering kind:

If I said fire flashed from Gulleyaz' eyes,

'Twere nothing-for her eyes flashed always fire;
Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes,
I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer,
So supernatural was her passion's rise;

For ne'er till now she knew a checked desire;
Even ye who know what a checked woman is,
All that you know would much fall short of this.

A storm it raged-and like the storm it passed-
Passed without words-in fact, she could not speaks,
And then her sex's shame broke in at last,

A sentiment till then in her but weak,
But now it flowed in natural and fast,

As water through an unexpected leak,
For she felt humbled-and humiliation
Is sometimes good for people in her station.

It teaches them that they are flesh and blood,
It also gently hints to them that others,
Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud;

That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers,
And works of the same pottery, bad or good,

Though not all born of the same sires and mothers-
It teaches-Heaven knows only what it teaches,
But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches.

Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head;
Her second to cut only his-acquaintance:
Her third, to ask him where he had been bred ;

Her fourth, to rally him into repentance;

Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed;

Her sixth to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence

The lash to Baba-but her grand resource

Was to sit down again, and cry of course.

Her tears move Juan more than her rage, and he is making his apologies, when Baba enters to announce the coming of the sultan. The monarch of the east, preceded by a long file of attendants, then

enters:

His highness was a man of solemn port,

Shawled to the nose, and bearded to the eyes,
Snatched from a prison to preside at court;

His lately bow-strung brother caused his rise;
He was as good a sovereign of the sort
As any mentioned in the histories
Of Cantemir, or Knolles, where few shine
Save Solyman, the glory of their line.

He went to mosque in state, and said his prayers
With more than oriental scrupulosity;

He left to his vizier all state affairs,

And showed but little royal curiosity;

I know not if he had domestic cares—

No process proved connubial animosity;

Four wives, and twice five hundred maids, unseen,
Were ruled as calmly as a Christian queen!

If now and then there happened a slight slip,
Little was heard of criminal or crime-
The story scarcely passed a single lip-

The sack and sea had settled all in time,
From which the secret nobody could rip:
The public knew no more than does this rhyme;
No scandals made the daily press a curse-
Morals were better, and the fish no worse.

He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journeyed fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular any where;
His empire also was without a bound—

'Tis true, a little troubled here and there,

By rebel Pachas, and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to the Seven Towers ;'

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent

To lodge there when a war broke out, according

To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant

- Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword in
Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent

Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording
Their lies, ycleped dispatches, without risk or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.

His highness looks about him, and, seeing Juan in his female dress, observes that it is a pity a mere Christian should be so pretty. This speech raises the envy of all the other ladies present, whom he leaves, at the end of the canto, tossing their heads at his highness's preference of the new-comer.

With the canto, of which we have just ended the examination, all the real merit of Don Juan,' such as it was, ended. Up to this point the excellencies were so mingled with the faults and improprieties of the poem, that, although the former made the judicious grieve,' they were impelled to exclaim, every now and then, With all its faults—and faults it has many-none but Lord Byron could have written some of the stanzas which "Don Juan" contains.'

The sixth canto begins with describing the storm of passion which raged in the breast of Gulleyaz when she was compelled to dismiss the youth upon whom she had fixed her affections. This is feebly and fantastically done. Juan follows, in the train of the ladies of the seraglio, the old governante, or, as she is called, the mother of the maids,' to the chambers in which they commonly reside. A newcomer is, in a seraglio as well as in every other place, an object of attraction. Three of the ladies take a fancy to Juan, or, as he is called in his female disguise, Juanna. The hour for going to rest approaches, and the mother of the maids is somewhat embarrassed how to dispose of her new charge, the beds being all full. She proposes to share her own with Juanna; but the three ladies we have mentioned are all desirous of showing her the most hospitable attentions, and offer their beds. At length the matron fixes upon Dudù, the quietest of the three, and to her care Juanna is consigned. Dudu's character is thus drawn:

Dudu, as has been said, was a sweet creature,
Not very dashing, but extremely winning,

With the most regulated charms of feature,

Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning

Against proportion-the wild strokes of nature
Which they hit off at once in the beginning,
Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,
And, pleasing or unpleasing, still are like.

But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,
Where all was harmony and calm and quiet,
Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,

Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it
Than are your mighty passions, and so forth,

Which, some call the sublime:' I wish they'd try it:
I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

But she was pensive more than melancholy,
And serious more than pensive-and serene,

It may be, more than either-not unholy

Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.
The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly
Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen,
That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;

She never thought about herself at all.

The description of the chamber and its inmates is very powerfully and fancifully given:

There was deep silence in the chamber: dim

And distant from each other burned the lights,
And slumber hovered o'er each lovely limb

Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,

They should have walked there in their sprightliest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.

Many and beautiful lay those around,

Like flowers of different hue and clime and root,

In some exotic garden sometimes found,

With cost and care and warmth induced to shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,

And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath
And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.