In truth he had the happy trick

Without constraint in conversation

Of touching lightly every theme.

Silent, oracular ye'd see him

Amid a serious disputation,

Then suddenly discharge a joke

The ladies' laughter to provoke.

VI.

Latin is just now not in vogue,

But if the truth I must relate,

Oneguine knew enough, the rogue

A mild quotation to translate,

A little Juvenal to spout,

With "vale" finish off a note;

Two verses he could recollect

Of the Aeneid, but incorrect.

In history he took no pleasure,

The dusty chronicles of earth

For him were but of little worth,

Yet still of anecdotes a treasure

Within his memory there lay,

From Romulus unto our day.

VII.

For empty sound the rascal swore he

Existence would not make a curse,

Knew not an iamb from a choree,

Although we read him heaps of verse.

Homer, Theocritus, he jeered,

But Adam Smith to read appeared,

And at economy was great;

That is, he could elucidate

How empires store of wealth unfold,

How flourish, why and wherefore less

If the raw product they possess