The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,

"Short solace, vain relief! - thought came too quick,

Even as the Simoom sweeps the blasted plains."

arose

And he begun a long low island song Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong. "Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall In time to his old tune; he changed the theme,

And sung of love; the fierce name struck through-all

Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream Of what she was, and is, if you could call To be so, being; in a gushing stream The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain,

Like mountain mists at length dissolved in

And whirl'd her brain to madness; she

As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick, And flew at all she met, as on her foes; But no one ever heard her speak or shriek, Although her paroxysm drew towards its close:

Her's was a phrensy which disdain'd to rave, Even when they smote her, in the hope to

save.

Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense;

Nothing could make her meet her father's face, Though on all other things with looks intense She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;

Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence Availed for either; neither change of place,

Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her Senses to sleep-the power seem'd gone for ever.

"Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last,

Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to

show

Don Juan in the meantime is carried aboard one of Lambro's vessels, where he is placed among a cargo of singers, who had been taken in going on from Leghorn to Sicily on a professional trip. The pirate destined them for the Constantinople slavemarket, where in due time they arrive, and Don Juan is purchased for the favourite Sultana. Baba, the eunuch who made the bargain, carries him to the palace where she resided.

"Baba led Juan onward room by room Through glittering galleries, and o'er marble floors,

Till a gigantic portal through the gloom, Haughty and huge, along the distance

To ope this door, which they could really do, The hinges being as smooth as Rogers' rhymes;

And now and then with tough strings of the bow, As is the custom of those eastern climes, To give some rebel Pacha a cravat; For mutes are generally used for that. "They spoke by signs that is, not spoke at all;

And looking like two incubi, they glared As Baba with his fingers made them fall Toheaving back the portal folds: it scared Juan a moment, as this pair so small With shrinking serpent optics on him stared;

It was as if their little looks could poison Or fascinate whome'er they fix'd their eyes

on."

Baba having opened the door, Juan is introduced into a magnificent room, where wealth had done wonders, taste not much.

" In this imperial hall, at distance lay
Under a canopy, and there reclined
Quite in a confidential queenly way,
A lady; Baba stopp'd, and kneeling sign'd
To Juan, who though not much used to pray,
Knelt down by instinct, wondering in his

What all this meant: while Baba bow'd and bended His head, until the ceremony ended. "The lady rising up with such an air As Venus rose with from the wave, on them

Bent like an antelope a Paphian pair Of eyes, which put out each surrounding gem; And raising up an arm as moonlight fair, She sign'd to Baba, who first kiss'd the hem

Of her deep-purple robe, and speaking low Pointed to Juan, who remain'd below. Her presence was as lofty as her state; Her beauty of that overpowering kind, Whose force description only would abate :

I'd rather leave it much to your own mind,
Than lessen it by what I could relate
Of forms and features; it would strike
you blind

Could I do justice to the full detail;
So, luckily for both, my phrases fail."

"Something imperial, or imperious, threw A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain Was thrown as 'twere about the neck of

you

And rapture's self will seem almost a pain With aught which looks like despotism in view;

Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain We would against them make the flesh obeyThe spirit in the end will have its way. " Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet;

Her very nod was not an inclination; These was a self-will even in her small feet, As though they were quite conscious of her station

They trode as upon necks; and to complete
Her state, (it is the custom of her nation,)
A poniard deck'd her girdle, as a sign
She was a sultan's bride, (thank Heaven,

not mine.")

She had seen Juan in the market, and had ordered him to be bought for her. The description of a seraglian love-making is touched with the author's gayest satire, but Juan, still quivering at the heart with the remembrance of Haidée, is very coy to the Sultana, and actually bursts into tears when she says to him,

"Christian, can'st thou love."

"She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears,

For women shed and use them at their liking;

But there is something when man's eye Wet, still more disagreeable and striking:

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." What ensued I have not time at present to tell, I must refer you to the book itself, for I hear the postman's bell passing the end of the street, and he will be here before I can say half of what I would. I have, however, given enough from the poem to convince you that Byron's powers are in no degree abated, and that there is some tendency to an improvement of manners, in the manner, of this, in so many respects, felicitous work. It will certainly help to redeem his poetical reputation from the effects of that lumbering mass of waggon-wheeled blank verse, "The Doge." But to those who suspect him of "a strange design,

Against the creed and morals of the land, And trace it in this poem every line," it will be found as bad as ever; indeed, with all my own partiality, Christopher, for this singularly gifted nobleman, I dare not venture to approve of some of his allusions in these cantos. He shows his knowledge of the world too openly; and it is no extenuation of this freedom that he

does it playfully. Only infants can be

shown naked in company, bút his Lordship pulls the very robe de chambre from both men and women, and goes on with his exposure as smirkingly as a barrister cross-questioninga chamber maid in a case of crim. con. This, as nobody can approve, I must confess, is very bad, and I give you full liberty, Christopher, to drub him well for it in your next. You may also introduce a few parenthetical notices respecting the three hundred and fifty ricketty stanzas, of which he ought, as a versemaker, to feel as much ashamed as any carpenter ever did of a slovenly piece of work. But in your flagellation, be not so peremptory as you sometimes are. Lord Byron may have his faults, you may have your own, my good friend, but there is some difference between constitutional errors, and evil intentions, and propensities, it is harsh to ascribe to wicked motives what may be owing to the temptations of circumstances, or the headlong impulse of passion. Even the worst habits should be charitably considered, for they are often the result of the slow, but irresistible force of nature, over the artificial manners and discipline of society, the flowing stream that wastes away its embankments. We know not what sins the worst men have mastered, when we condemn them for the crime that subjects them to punishment. Man towards his fellow-man, should be at least compassionate, for he can be no judge of the instincts and the impulses of action, he can only see effects.

"Tremble thou wretch

That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipped of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjured, and thou simular mar of virtue

That art incestuous: Catiff, to pieces shake, Who, under covert and convenient seeming, Hath practised on man's life! Close

pent-up guilts

Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace."

In short, Christopher, look to thyself, and believe me truly yours,

HARRY FRANKLIN.

Berkley Square, Thursday.

BELOVED CHRISTOPHER,

Certain individuals, not acting in concert, having betaken themselves, according to your prescription, to the seaside, it was found, by an indescribable sort of freemasonry, that each was labouring under the same distressing symptoms of one species of the love of fame, aggravated to an intermittent fever by a constipation or improper secretion of their several productions in your escritoire. We therefore form a little knot of fellow-sufferers in the same way, although indeed we are but a mere frustum from that " immense body of mankind which forms the mass of your contributors"-a mere block or two of the stately pile which is growing under your architectonic skill. Having been all disappointed of relief from the short statement you made in your July Number, when there was a chance that you would be explicit, we have at last determined to lay our complaints before you. We have conferred with one another, and each has submitted to all the rest the compositions of his or her's, which are lying in your hands, and they have been taken into impartial consideration. We trust we have herein acted ingenuously, honestly, and honourably. Each author laid down a copy of such articles as are candidates for entrance in your Magazine, and it was made a sine qua non that the writer should be absent while the rest heard the work read, and then discussed it, and passed sentence on it; each of us in succession thereby becoming examiner and examinee. A perpetual board of green cloth, with interchangeable claimants and referees, thus sat for more than a month; and as many of the articles were of great length, and each member too fearful that his own progeny might be over

hastily dealt with, if he grudged his time and attendance, by decreeing a summary rejection of any thing, so it was rather a tedious business. We have got through all the compositions of the party written and transmitted previously to the 15th July, subsequent ones being pronounced inadmissible at our sittings, lest they might never terminate; for we found that many of us, while our elder-born were coram judice, helped off the weary time by another literary parturition. An end was made of the committee at last-essay, tale, and letter, song, sonnet, canto, and pastoral, vanished one by one, with our painstaking mark of approbation or condemnation affixed to it. Persons not well acquainted with the circumstances may think us partial, and so we may be individually, each to his or her own performance, but that solemn quorum, from which the immediate author was excluded, scanned with severer eyes the labours of their absent competitor, in which condition every one by turns was placed. Where we commend we have done it from a sense of justice; and where we found reason to reject, those compositions are entirely passed over in the present statement. Having thus explained ourselves, trust that the aggregate commendation of so impartial a body will induce you, if not to introduce the articles, discriminated beneath, into your Magazine, yet at least to give them the preference of a decision.

(Signed)

DOMESTICUS.

X.

H. TWITCH. P. P.

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