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XLII.

There shall they rot- Ambition's honour'd fools!!
Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!
Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools,

The broken tools, that tyrants cast away

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By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts to what? a dream alone. Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

are become brave (like the rest of their kind, in a corner), pray let them display it. But there is a subscription for these 'Ogaru-do,' (they need not be ashamed of the epithet once applied to the Spartans); and all the charitable patronymics, from ostentatious A. to diffident Z., and 17. 1s. Od. from An Admirer of Valour,' are in requisition for the lists at Lloyd's, and the honour of British benevolence. Well! we have fought, and subscribed, and bestowed peerages, and buried the killed by our friends and foes; and, lo! all this is to be done over again! Like Lien Chi (in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World), as we grow older, we grow never the better.' It would be pleasant to learn who will subscribe for us, in or about the year 1815, and what nation will send fifty thousand men, first to be decimated in the capital, and then decimated again (in the Irish fashion, nine out of ten), in the bed of honour;' which, as Serjeant Kite says, is considerably larger and more commodious than the bed of Ware.' Then they must have a poet to write the Vision of Don Perceval,' and generously bestow the profits of the well and widely printed quarto, to rebuild the Backwynd' and the Canongate,' or furnish new kilts for the half-roasted Highlanders. Lord Wellington, however, has enacted marvels; and so did his Oriental brother, whom I saw charioteering over the French flag, and heard clipping bad Spanish, after listening to the speech of a patriotic cobbler of Cadiz, on the event of his own entry into that city, and the exit of some five thousand bold Britons out of this best of all possible worlds.' Sorely were we puzzled how to dispose of that same victory of Talavera; and a victory it surely was somewhere, for everybody claimed it. The Spanish despatch and mob called it Cuesta's, and made no great mention of the Viscount; the French called it theirs (to my great discomfiture,- for a French consul stopped my mouth in Greece with a pestilent Paris gazette, just as I had killed Sebastiani 'in buckram,' and King Joseph in Kendal

XLIII.

Oh, Albuera, glorious field of grief!

As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim prick'd his steed,
Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,

A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed! Peace to the perish'd! may the warrior's meed And tears of triumph their reward prolong! Till others fall where other chieftains lead, Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, And shine in worthless lays, the theme of transient song. 2

XLIV.

Enough of Battle's minions! let them play
Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame :
Fame that will scarce re-animate their clay,
Though thousands fall to deck some single name.
In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble aim
Who strike, blest hirelings! for their country's good,
And die, that living might have proved her shame;
Perish'd, perchance, in some domestic feud,

Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's path pursued.

green'), and we have not yet determined what to call it, or whose; for, certes, it was none of our own. Howbeit, Massena's retreat is a great comfort; and as we have not been in the habit of pursuing for some years past, no wonder we are a little awkward at first. No doubt we shall improve; or, if not, we have only to take to our old way of retrograding, and there we are at home."]

["There let them rot- while rhymers tell the fools

How honour decks the turf that wraps their clay !
Liars avaunt!"— MS.]

2 [This stanza is not in the original MS. It was written at Newstead, in August 1811, shortly after the battle of Albuera, which took place on the 16th of May.]

XLV.

Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way
Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued:
Yet is she free the spoiler's wish'd-for prey!
Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude,
Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude.
Inevitable hour! 'Gainst fate to strive

Where Desolation plants her famish'd brood Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre might yet survive, And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive.

XLVI.

But all unconscious of the coming doom,
The feast, the song, the revel here abounds;
Strange modes of merriment the hours consume,
Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds:
Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck 2 sounds;
Here Folly still his votaries inthralls;

And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds :

Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals,

Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls.

["At Seville, we lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, women of character, the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and, in the course of further observ. ation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of Spanish belles. The eldest honoured your unworthy son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg you will retain till my return. Her last words were, Adios, tu hermoso! me gusto mucho.'' Adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much.' -Lord B. to his Mother, Aug. 1809.]

2 [A kind of fiddle, with only two strings, played on by a bow, said to have been brought by the Moors into Spain.]

XLVII.

Not so the rustic with his trembling mate
He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar,
Lest he should view his vineyard desolate,
Blasted below the dun hot breath of war.
No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star
Fandango twirls his jocund castanet :

Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar,
Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret ;

The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet!

XLVIII.

How carols now the lusty muleteer?

Of love, romance, devotion is his lay,

As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer,
His quick bells wildly jingling on the way?
No! as he speeds, he chants "Viva el Rey!"1
And checks his song to execrate Godoy,
The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day

When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy, And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy.

1 "Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand! is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs. They are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them: some of the airs are beautiful. Don Manuel Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, of an ancient but decayed family, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish guards; till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country.-[See, for ample particulars concerning the flagitious court of Charles IV., Southey's History of the Peninsular War, vol. i.]

XLIX.

On yon long, level plain, at distance crown'd
With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest,
Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded ground;
And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken'd vest
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:

Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host,
Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest ;
Still does he mark it with triumphant boast,
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost.

L.

And whomsoe'er along the path you meet
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue,
Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet: 1
Woe to the man that walks in public view,
Without of loyalty this token true:

Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke;
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue,
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke,
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke.

LI.

At every turn Morena's dusky height
Sustains aloft the battery's iron load;
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight,
The mountain-howitzer, the broken road,
The bristling palisade, the fosse o'erflow'd,
The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch,
The magazine in rocky durance stow'd,

The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch,
The ball-piled pyramid 2, the ever-blazing match,

1 The red cockade, with "Fernando Septimo," in the centre. 2 All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was

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