"
Heigho! I would I were in mine island!--I am not well; and yet I look in
good health. At times, I fear, "I am not in my perfect mind;" [4]--and
yet my heart and head have stood many a crash, and what should ail them
now? They prey upon themselves, and I am sick--sick--"Prithee, undo
this button--why should a cat, a rat, a dog have life--and thou no life
at all?" [5]
Six-and-twenty years, as they call them, why, I might and should have
been a Pasha by this time. "I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun." [6]
Buonaparte is not yet beaten; but has rebutted Blucher, and repiqued
Schwartzenburg [7]. This it is to have a head. If he again wins, _Vae
victis!_
[Footnote 1:
"I am myself alone."
'Henry VI.', Part III. act v. sc. 6.]
[Footnote 2: 'Hamlet', act ii. sc. 2.]
[Footnote 3:
"This ancient housemaid, of whose gaunt and witch-like appearance it
would be impossible to convey any idea but by the pencil, furnished
one among the numerous instances of Lord Byron's proneness to attach
himself to any thing, however homely, that had once enlisted his good
nature in its behalf, and become associated with his thoughts. He
first found this old woman at his lodgings in Bennet Street, where,
for a whole season, she was the perpetual scarecrow of his visitors.
When, next year, he took chambers in Albany, one of the great
advantages which his friends looked to in the change was, that they
should get rid of this phantom.
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