The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 7 | Page 6

has ever been
written like it in English, nor, if I may venture to prophesy, will there
be, unless carrying upon it the mark of a secondary and borrowed
light.... You are building up a drama," he adds, "such as England has
not yet seen, and the task is sufficiently noble and worthy of you."
Again, of the fifth canto he writes (Shelley's _Prose Works_, ed. H.
Buxton Forman, iv. 219), "Every word has the stamp of immortality....
It fulfils, in a certain degree, what I have long preached of

producing--something wholly new and relative to the age, and yet
surpassingly beautiful." Finally, a living poet, neither a disciple nor
encomiast of Byron, pays eloquent tribute to the strength and splendour
of _Don Juan_: "Across the stanzas ... we swim forward as over the
'broad backs of the sea;' they break and glitter, hiss and laugh, murmur
and move like waves that sound or that subside. There is in them a
delicious resistance, an elastic motion, which salt water has and fresh
water has not. There is about them a wide wholesome air, full of vivid
light and constant wind, which is only felt at sea. Life undulates and
Death palpitates in the splendid verse.... This gift of life and variety is
the supreme quality of Byron's chief poem" (_A Selection, etc._, by
A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. x.).
Cantos I., II. of _Don Juan_ were reviewed in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, August, 1819, vol. v. pp. 512-518; Cantos III., IV., V.,
August, 1821, vol. x. pp. 107-115; and Cantos VI., VII., VIII., July,
1823, vol. xiv. pp. 88-92: in the _British Critic_, Cantos I., II. were

reviewed August, 1819, vol. xii. pp. 195-205; and Cantos III., IV., V.,
September, 1821, vol. xvi. pp. 251-256: in the _British Review_,
Cantos I., II. were reviewed August, 1819, vol. xiv. pp. 266-268; and
Cantos III., IV., V., December, 1821, vol. xviii. pp. 245-265: in the
_Examiner_, Cantos I., II. were reviewed October 31, 1819; Cantos III.,
IV., V., August 26, 1821; and Cantos XV., XVI., March 14 and 21,
1824: in the _Literary Gazette_, Cantos I., II. were reviewed July 17
and 24, 1819; Cantos III., IV., V., August 11 and 18, 1821; Cantos VI.,
VII., VIII., July 19, 1823; Cantos IX., X., XL, September 6, 1823;
Cantos XII., XIII., XIV., December 6, 1823; and Cantos XV., XVI.,
April 3, 1824: in the _Monthly Review_., Cantos I., II. were reviewed
July, 1819, Enlarged Series, vol. 89, p. 309; Cantos III., IV., V., August,
1821, vol. 95, p. 418; Cantos VI., VII., VIII., July, 1823, vol. 101, p.
316; Cantos IX., X., XI., October, 1823, vol. 102, p. 217; Cantos XII.,
XIII., XIV., vol. 103, p. 212; and Cantos XV., XVI., April, 1824, vol.
103, p. 434: in the _New Monthly Magazine_, Cantos I., II. were
reviewed August, 1819, vol. xii. p. 75. See, too, an article on the
"Morality of _Don Juan_," _Dublin University Magazine_, May, 1875,
vol. lxxxv. pp. 630-637.
Neither the _Quarterly_ nor the _Edinburgh Review_ devoted separate
articles to _Don Juan_; but Heber, in the _Quarterly Review_ (Lord
Byron's _Dramas_), July, 1822, vol. xxvii. p. 477, and Jeffrey, in the
_Edinburgh Review_ (Lord Byron's _Tragedies_), February, 1822, vol.
36, pp. 446-450, took occasion to pass judgment on the poem and its
author.
For the history of the legend, see _History of Spanish Literature_, by
George Ticknor, 1888, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381; and _Das Kloster_, von J.
Scheible, 1846, vol. iii. pp. 663-765. See, too, _Notes sur le Don
Juanisme_, par Henri de Bruchard, _Mercure de France_, Avril, 1898,
vol. xxvi. pp. 58-73; and _Don Juan_, par Gustave Kahn, _Revue

Encyclopédique_, 1898, tom. viii. pp. 326-329.
DON JUAN.
FRAGMENT
ON THE BACK OF THE MS. OF CANTO I.

I WOULD to Heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone,
marrow, passion, feeling--
Because at least the past were passed away,

And for the future--(but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk
exceedingly to-day,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I
say--the future is a serious matter--
And so--for God's sake--hock and
soda-water!
DEDICATION.[1]
I.
BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate,
And representative of
all the race;
Although 't is true that you turned out a Tory at

Last,--yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic
Renegade! what are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?

A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like "four and twenty
Blackbirds in a pye;
II.
"Which pye being opened they began to sing,"
(This old song and
new simile holds good),
"A dainty dish to set before the King,"
Or
Regent, who admires such kind of food;--
And Coleridge, too, has
lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,--

Explaining Metaphysics to the nation--
I wish he would explain his
Explanation.[2]
III.
You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in
your wish
To