[jm]---- _thou Sea which lavest Life's sand_.--[MS. erased.] {392}[514] ["Fortune and victory sit on thy helm."--_Richard III._, act v, sc. 3, line 79.] [515] ["Catherine had been handsome in her youth, and she preserved a gracefulness and majesty to the last period of her life. She was of a moderate stature, but well proportioned; and as she carried her head very high, she appeared rather tall. She had an open front, an aquiline nose, an agreeable mouth, and her chin, though long, was not mis-shapen. Her hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, and her blue eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but oftener still a mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not deficient in expression; but this expression never discovered what was passing in the soul of Catherine, or rather it served her the better to disguise it."--_Life of Catherine II._, by W. Tooke, iii. 381 (translated from _Vie de Catherine II._ (J.H. Castéra), 1797, ii. 450).] {393}[516] ["His fortune swells him: 'Tis rank, he's married."--_Sir Giles Overreach_, in Massinger's _New Way to pay Old Debts_, act v. sc. 1.] {394}[517] [_Hamlet_, act iii. sc. iv. lines 58, 59.] {395}[518] ["Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove; No! make me mistress to the man I love." Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard_, lines 87, 88.] [jn] _O'er whom an Empress her Crown-jewels scattering_ _Was wed with something better than a ring_.--[MS. erased.] [519] ["Several persons who lived at the court affirm that Catherine had very blue eyes, and not brown, as M. Rulhières has stated."--_Life of Catherine II._, by W. Tooke, 1800, iii. 382.] {396}[520] [The historic Catherine (_æt._ 62) was past her meridian in the spring of 1791.] [jo] _Her figure, and her vigour, and her rigour_.--[MS. erased.] [jp] _In its sincere beginning, or dull end_.--[MS. erased.] {397}[jq] _For such all women are just_ then, _no doubt_.--[MS.] [jr] _Of such sensations, in the drowsy drear_ After--_which shadows the, say_--second _year_.--[MS.] _Of that sad heavy, drowsy, doubly drear_ After, _which shadows the first--say, year_.--[MS. erased.] [521] [Stanza lxxvi. is not in the MS.] {398}[522] A Russian estate is always valued by the number of the slaves upon it. {399}[523] [The "Protassova" (born 1744) was a cousin of the Orlofs. She survived Catherine by many years, and was, writes M. Waliszewski (_The Story of a Throne_, 1895, ii. 193), "present at the Congress of Vienna, covered with diamonds like a reliquary, and claiming precedence of every one." She is named _l'éprouveuse_ in a note to the _Mémoires Secrets_, 1800, i. 148.] [js] _And not be dazzled by its early glare_.--[MS. erased.] [524] End of Canto 9^th^, Augt. Sept., 1822. B. CANTO THE TENTH. I.