Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable, An exquisite small chapel had been able, Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined Yet left a grand impression on the mind, At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts. Nor judge at first if all be true to Nature. The picture-gallery is described with equal skill. The comparison between an English Autumn and those of every other country is gratifying, because it shows, with a thousand other proofs, that Lord Byron's contempt of his native land was ouly a skin-deep affectation. The mellow Autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. In russet jacket:-lynx-like is his aim, Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Then, if she hath not that serene decline Which makes the Southern Autumn's day appear As if 'twould to a second spring resign The season, rather than to winter drear Of in-door comforts still she bath a mine The sea-coal fires, the earliest of the year; I have seen more than I'll say :-but we will see The party might consist of thirty-three Of highest caste-the Brahmins of the ton. We have not room for the catalogue of the guests, who are enumerated in the fourteenth canto with great power and bitterness. Among these Juan was a great favorite: he shot and hunted with the men, and did both as well as the most thorough-bred Englishman. He talked with the ladies-never fell asleep after dinner-and danced like a gentleman. The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, a lady who loved agacerie, begins a serious flirtation with him: She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde, For several winters in the grand, grand Monde. I'd rather not say what might be related At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. The Lady Adeline Amundeville is vexed at the dead set which the duchess makes at the Spaniard, and entertains fears on his accoun which are by no means well founded, for Juan knows how to take care of himself at least as well as her ladyship, and too well to dread the attack of her Grace of Fitz-Fulke. She then endeavours to persuade her husband to caution Juan; but he, like a wise man, declines, on the plea that he never interferes u the business of anybody but the king. Lady Adeline's benevolence is not chilled by this repulse; but by way of securing Juan from the wicked duchess, she recommends him to marry: Next to the making matches for herself, And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin, Or wed already, who object to this) Was there chaste dame who had not in her head Observed as strictly both at board and bed As those of Aristotle, though sometimes They turn out melodrames or pantomimes. She points out to him various ladies for this purpose, and, among others, one whom Lord Byron ought not to have introduced. It is surely encugh, even for a poet's malice, to wound and make miserable, without also making ridiculous, a woman whose only fault had been to believe that he was worthy of her hand. We do not hesitate to insert the passage, because it can do Lady Byron no harm: the heart which has borne the fierce and destructive blows which have been poured upon hers can neither fear nor feel such petty malignity as this: There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea, That usual paragon, an only daughter, Who seemed the cream of equanimity, Till skimmed-and then there was some milk and water, With a slight shade of Blue too it might be, Beneath the surface; but what did it matter? Among these unmarried ladies, however, Lady Amundeville forgot to mention one, Aurora Raby, whose charms entitled her to notice; and this omission, by a natural consequence, made Juan think the more of that young lady. Lord Byron ends his fifteenth canto with preparing his readers for a ghost, and the manner in which he does it convinces us that he clung to the superstition—if superstition it be―of believing in spectral apparitions, together with many wise men, and many more who do not deserve that appellation, but who comprise the great majority of the whole world: Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost? No; but you have heard-I understand-be dumb! For you have got that pleasure still to come: Of these things, or by ridicule benumb Serious? You laugh ;-you may; that will I not; I say I do believe a haunted spot Exists and where? That shall I not recall, 'Shadows the soul of Richard' may appal. I think too that I have sate up too late : And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way I feel some chilly midnight shudderings, Hobbes; who, doubting of his own soul, paid that compliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of which he had some apprehension. Shadows;—but you must be in my condition Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. How less what we may be! Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Of empires heave but like some passing waves. The sixteenth canto brings the spectre, for whose coming, lest his readers should be frightened, the poet thought fit to prepare them in the last. Juan has retired after a day of revelry to his chamber, and is sitting half undressed in a thoughtless mood-not a very usual one with bim-when the adventure occurs: As Juan mused on mutability, Or on his mistress-terms synonymous No sound except the echo of his sigh Or step ran sadly through that antique house, A supernatural agent or a mouse, It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, arrayed In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appeared, He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't Coined from surviving superstition's mint, Which passes ghosts in currency like gold, |