The sacraments have been reduced to two And witches unto none, though somewhat late Since burning aged women (save a few, Not witches, only bitches, who create Mischief in families, as some know or knew, Should still be singed, but slightly let me state) Has been declared an act of inurbanity, Malgré Sir Matthew Hale’s great humanity. Great Galileo was debarred the sun, Because he fixed it, and to stop his talking How earth could round the solar orbit run, Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking. The man was well nigh dead, ere men begun To think his skull had not some need of caulking, But now it seems he’s right, his notion just, No doubt a consolation to his dust. Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages Might be filled up, as vainly as before, With the sad usage of all sorts of sages, Who in his lifetime each was deemed a bore. The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages; This they must bear with and perhaps much more. The wise man’s sure when he no more can share it, he Will have a firm post-obit on posterity. If such doom waits each intellectual giant, We little people in our lesser way To life’s small rubs should surely be more pliant, And so for one will I, as well I may. Would that I were less bilious—but oh fie on’t! Just as I make my mind up everyday To be a totus teres stoic, sage, The wind shifts and I fly into a rage. Temperate I am, yet never had a temper; Modest I am, yet with some slight assurance; Changeable too, yet somehow idem semper; Patient, but not enamoured of endurance; Cheerful, but sometimes rather apt to whimper; Mild, but at times a sort of Hercules furens; So that I almost think that the same skin For one without has two or three within. Our hero was in canto the sixteenth Left in a tender moonlight situation, Such as enables man to show his strength Moral or physical: on this occasion Whether his virtue triumphed, or at length His vice—for he was of a kindling nation— Is more than I shall venture to describe, Unless some beauty with a kiss should bribe. I leave the thing a problem, like all things. The morning came, and breakfast, tea and toast, Of which most men partake, but no one sings. The company, whose birth, wealth, worth have cost My trembling lyre already several strings, Assembled with our hostess and mine host. The guests dropped in, the last but one, Her Grace, The latest, Juan with his virgin face. Which best is to encounter, ghost or none, ’Twere difficult to say, but Juan looked As if he had combated with more than one, Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked The light that through the Gothic windows shone. Her Grace too had a sort of air rebuked, Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept A vigil or dreamt rather more than slept.