Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!' The travelling Don's retinue is thus enumerated : But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow, The ship in which Juan is embarked encounters a heavy storm as she is passing the Gulf of Lyons; and the manner in which this is told is an eminent example of Lord Byron's power of description. He has collected, from the published narrations of such mariners as have escaped shipwreck, all the details which characterize so appalling an event; and his own nautical experience enabled him to throw these together in a most striking and original form. For this some of the carping little-witted persons, who call themselves critics, thought fit to attack Lord Byron; and one of them, who has gained a certain unenviable sort of fame by his labours, took the trouble of pointing out, from some collection of the histories of shipwrecks, what use Lord Byron had made of the relations of the sufferers. This the ingenious person called plagiarism; and, because his own frivolous brain was never capable of conceiving an original idea, he fancied that the first poet of the age was to be tried by the insignificant standard of his own wit. The only consequence of his attempt was, that it enabled the pseudo critic to write himself down an ass,' and let the public into the secret of his shallowness. To return, however, to Don Juan and his shipwreck, and to give our readers an opportunity of judging of the most effective and lively description of the sort that was perhaps ever before produced :—the ship springs a leak, which the united efforts of the men are hardly able so to counteract as to keep the vessel above water: As day advanced the weather seemed to abate, And then the leak they reckoned to reduce, Kept two hand and one chain pump still in use. The wind blew fresh again: as it grew late A squall came on, and, while some guns broke loosF * Immediately the masts were cut away Both main aud mizen; first the mizen went, Eased her at last, (although we never meant The sailors, as is common upon such occasions, intended to break open the spirit-room, and thus hasten, by wilful drunkenness, the death which their destiny had prepared for them. This, however, is prevented by the resolute courage of Juan : There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms, Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for Got to the spirit-room, and stood before It with a pair of pistols: and their fears, The night is passed in dreadful sufferings and more dreadful suspense: the day arrives, and the efforts of the crew are renewed. The leak is partially stopped, but it is found that so much damage has been done to the vessel, that it is impossible she can live: Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea; That made his eyelids as a woman's be; Two things for dying people quite bewildering. The despair of the crew when this news is announced to them is fearfully told. Some of those, however, who still retain their reason, set about launching the ship's boats, in which they throw such provisions as could be got at; and thirty persons embark in the cutter, and nine in the long-boat. The day closes upon their miserable condition; and the approach of darkness, which seems in such a case to bring with it despair, is vividly figured in the following stanza : 'Twas twilight, for the sunless day went down Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone But the sinking of the ship, and of such of the crew as could not or would not leave her, is one of the poet's most masterly efforts: Then rose from sea to sky the wild Farewell,' Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave; As eager to anticipate their grave; And the Sea yawned around her like a hell, And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die. And first one universal shriek there rushed, |