The Turks do well to shut—at least, sometimes—The women up—because, in sad reality,

Their chastity, in these unhappy climes,

Is not a thing of that astringent quality,

Which, in the North, prevents precocious crimes,And makes our snow less pure than our mo-rality;

The sun which yearly melts the polar ic®,

Has quite the contrary effect on vice.

CLVIII.

Thus in the East they are extremely Btriot,.

And wedlock and a padlock mean the same;Excepting only when the former's pick'dIt ne’er can bo roplac'd in proper frame;

JUAN. 3G.3

Spoilt, as a piece of claret is when prick d ;

But then their own polygamy s to blame;

Why don't they knead two virtuous souls forlife,

Into that moral centaur, man and wife ?

cux.

Thus far our chronicle ; and now we pause,Though uot for want of matter; but t iB time,According to the ancient epic laws.

To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.

Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,

The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, por-haps

you'll pardou to my muse a few short naps.

PREFACE TO CANTOS VI, VII, AND VIII.

The details of the siege of Ismail, in two of the following cantos (♦. e. the seventh and eighth) were takenfrom the French work entitled “ Histoire de la Nouvelie Russie.” Some of the incidents attributed toDon Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actualcase of the late Due de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards thhfounder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded wit'*reverence.

In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of London-derry, but written some time before bis decease. Had that person’s oligarchy died with him. they wouldhave been suppressed • as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his lif&tp pre-sent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavour-ing to enslave. That he was an amiable man in private life, may or may not be true ; but with this t : , tP ublic have nothing to do • and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland hasceased to mourn for his birth. As a minister. I, for one of millions, looked upon him as one of the mostdespotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannised over a country It is the firsthme indeed, since the Normans , that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not®peak English , and that Parliament permuted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs Malaprop.

Of the manner of his death, little need be said, except that, if a poor Radical, such as Waddington orWatson, had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances ofthe stake and mallet. But the minister was au elegant lunatic—a sentimental suicide—he merely cutthe “carotid artery,” (blessings on their learning!) and lol the pageant, and the Abbey! and “thesyllables of dolour yelled forth* by the newspapers—and the harangue of the Coroner in a eulogy overme bleeding body of the deceased (an Antony worthy of such a Cesar)—and the nauseous and atro-cious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death

was necessarily one of two things by the laic —a felon or a madman—and in either case no great sub-ject for panegyric. In his life he was—what the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come,unless his death prove a “moral lesson’ to the surviving Sejani of Europe . It may at least serve as®ome consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happj', and in some instances judge solastly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man,-a nd let Ireland remove the RRhes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the putriot°f humanity repose by the Werther of politics?

with regard to the objections which have been made, on another score, to the already published cantos°f this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire :—“La pudeur s’est enfuite descoeurs, et s'est refugide sur les Ibvres. ’ * * * “Plus les mceurs sont depravdos, plus les expressionsGcviennent mesurdes; on croit regaguer en langage ce qu on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present•English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blas­ phemer —which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, Ac. are the charges which the hirelings area «-ily ringing in the ears of those who will listen—should be welcome to all who recollect on whom itWas originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and soha.ve been, and may be. many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God andme mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph : the “ wrotched infidel,'’ as lie is^Hed, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailauts. With his opinions 1 havehothing to do—they may be right or wrong—but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering forCf >nscience sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox Prelates to Christi-jjjnty, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insultsmo world with the name of ‘ Holy!" I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but!v bo wel1 if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung, should abate a littlo01 the cant which is the crying sin of tbip dotible-dealing aqd fulse-speakiqg time of selfish spoilers, and—~out; enough for the present.

Fisa, July. J3;>2. *