VI. 'Twas the boy's "mite," and, like the "widow's," may Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now; But whether such things do or do not weigh, All who have loved, or love, will still allow Life has nought like it. God is love, they say, And Love's a God, or was before the brow Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears Of- but Chronology best knows the years. VII. We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius. (1) VIII. I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. (1) Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was ridiculed by IX. I am not, like Cassio," an arithmetician," That, adding to the account his Highness' years, The fair Sultana err'd from inanition; For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly-the heart. X. It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the trans gression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, XI. Now if this holds good in a Christian land, And take, what kings call "an imposing attitude;" the Romans, who observed, that Martia entered the house of Hortensius very poor, but returned to the bed of Cato loaded with treasures. — PLU TARCH. (1) ["Forsooth, a great arithmetician, That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric," &c. Othello.] And for their rights connubial make a stand, [tude: XII. Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Most wise men with one moderate woman wed, To make the nuptial couch a " Bed of Ware." (') XIII. His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,— (A "Highland welcome" (3) all the wide world over). (1) ["At Ware, the inn known by the sign of the Saracen's Head still contains the famous bed, measuring twelve feet square, to which an allusion is made by Shakspeare in 'Twelfth Night."," CLUTTERBUCK's Hertford, vol. iii. p. 285.] (2) "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes but to one table: that's the end."- Hamlet. (3) See Waverley. XIV. Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, May look like what is-neither here nor there, They are put on as easily as a hat, Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate, Which form an ornament, but no more part Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. XV. A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Rather to hide what pleases most unknown, Are the best tokens (to a modest mind) Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, A sincere woman's breast,-for over-warm Or over-cold annihilates the charm. XVI. For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr❜d to the first buyer At a sad discount: while your over chilly Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly. XVII. That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest, XVIII. The "tu"'s too much,—but let it stand,—the verse Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old hexameters ; But, after all, there's neither tune nor time In the last line, which cannot well be worse, And was thrust in to close the octave's chime: I own no prosody can ever rate it As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. XIX. If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not-it succeeded, and success i (1) "The blessed Francis, being strongly solicited one day by the emotions of the flesh, pulled off his clothes and scourged himself soundly: being after this inflamed with a wonderful fervour of mind, he plunged his naked body into a great heap of snow. The devil, being overcome, retired immediately, and the holy man returned victorious into his cell." -See BUTLER's Lives of the Saints. |