She cannot step as does an Arab barb, Or Andalusian girl from mass returning, Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb, Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning; She cannot do these things, nor one or two 1 [Major Denham says, that when he first saw European women after his travels in Africa, they appeared to him to have unnatural sickly countenances.] 2 The Russians, as is well known, run out from their hot baths to plunge into the Neva; a pleasant practical antithesis, which it seems does them no harm. 3 ["A Gaulish or German soldier sent to arrest him, over Which takes so much. —to give the devil his due; Nor is she quite so ready with her smile, Nor settles all things in one interview, (A thing approved as saving time and toil); — But though the soil may give you time and trouble, Well cultivated, it will render double. LXXVII. And if in fact she takes to a "grande passion," It is a very serious thing indeed : Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on, Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the tenth instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will or may do. LXXVIII. The reason's obvious; if there's an éclat, They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias; And when the delicacies of the law Have fill'd their papers with their comments various, Society, that china without flaw, (The hypocrite!) will banish them like Marius, To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt: 3 For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt. LXXIX. Perhaps this is as it should be; it is A comment on the Gospel's "Sin no more, And be thy sins forgiven: "- but upon this I leave the saints to settle their own score. Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss, An erring woman finds an opener door For her return to Virtue-as they call That lady, who should be at home to all. LXXX. For me, I leave the matter where I find it, By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads, LXXXI. But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd A little" blasé"-t is not to be wonder'd LXXXII. He also had been busy seeing sights The Parliament and all the other houses; Had sat beneath the gallery at nights, To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses) awed by his aspect, recoiled from the task; and the people of the place, as if moved by the miracle, concurred in aiding his escape. The presence of such an exile on the ground where Carthage had stood was supposed to increase the majesty and the melancholy of the scene. Go,' he said to the lictor who brought him the orders of the prætor to depart, tell him that you have seen Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage.'' FERGUSON.] ЗАЗ The world to gaze upon those northern lights, He had also stood at times behind the throne- He saw, however, at the closing session, That noble sight, when really free the nation, Of such a throne as is the proudest station, There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) And full of promise, as the spring of prime. He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime, Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman from top to toe. 5 LXXXV. And Juan was received, as hath been said, However disciplined and debonnaire : — Besides the mark'd distinction of his air, Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation, Even though himself avoided the occasion. LXXXVI. That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit And if my thunderbolt not always rattles, Remember, reader! you have had before, An usurer could scarce expect much more — LXXXIX. That is your present theme for popularity: To show the people the best way to break. And tell me what you think of our great thinkers. Don Juan. CANTO THE THIRTEENTH. I. I Now mean to be serious; — it is time, But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why, A jest at Vice by Virtue 's call'd a crime, (Whatever people say), I don't know whether I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry, But harrow up his feelings, till they wither, Here the twelfth canto of our introduction 3 [William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, died in May, 1778, after having been carried home from the House of Lords, where he had fainted away at the close of a remarkable speech on the American war.] 4 ["Nature had bestowed uncommon graces on his figure and person. Convivial as well as social in his temper, destitute of all reserve, and affable even to familiarity in his reception of every person who had the honour to approach him; endued with all the aptitudes to profit of instruction, his mind had been cultivated with great care; and he was probably the only prince in Europe, heir to a powerful monarchy, competent to peruse the Greek as well as the Roman poets and historians in their own language. Humane and compassionate, his purse was open to every application of distress; nor was it ever shut against genius or merit."- WRAXALL, 1783.] 5["Waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after And critically held as deleterious: II. The Lady Adeline Amundeville ('T is an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees, by those who wander still Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) And beauteous, even where beauties most abound, some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities; be preferred you to every other bard past and present. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both. All this was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to manners certainly superior to those of any living gentleman."— Lord B. to Sir Walter Scott, July, 1812.] 6 A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over a nation of freemen.- ["Strasicrates, an engineer in the service of Alexander, offered to convert the whole mountain into a statue of that prince. The enormous figure was to hold a city in its left hand, containing ten thousand inhabitants, and in the right, an immense basin, whence the collected torrents of the mountain should issue in a mighty river. But the project was thought to be too extravagant, even by Alexander."-BELOE.] III. I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue; I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best: An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue, Is no great matter, so't is in request, "T is nonsense to dispute about a hue The kindest may be taken as a test. The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman. IV. And after that serene and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days More quiet, when our moon's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because indifference begins to lull Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place. V. I know that some would fain postpone this era, Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera, And is there not religion, and reform, Peace, war, the taxes, and what's call'd the "NaThe struggle to be pilots in a storm? The landed and the monied speculation? The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm, Instead of love, that mere hallucination? Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. VII. [tion?" Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd, Within these latest thousand years or later. But neither love nor hate in much excess; Though 't was not once so. If I sneer sometimes, It is because I cannot well do less, And now and then it also suits my rhymes. I should be very willing to redress Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail. 1 ["Sir, I love a good hater."- See BoswELL's Johnson, vol. ix. p. 30. edit. 1835.] 2 [Mephistopheles is the name of the Devil in Goethe's Faust.] 3 [" Mr. Spence, the author of the late ingenious Tour in Spain, seems to believe, what I should have supposed was entirely exploded, that Cervantes wrote his book for the purpose of ridiculing knight-errantry; and that, unfortunately for his country, his satire put out of fashion, not merely the absurd misdirection of the spirit of heroism, but that sacred spirit itself. But the practice of knight-errantry, if ever there was such a thing, had, it is well known, been out of date long before the age in which Don Quixote appeared; and as for IX. and more sad, Of all tales 't is the saddest Redressing injury, revenging wrong, To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native :Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thick and thin sought! And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote ? the spirit of heroism, I think few will sympathise with the critic who deems it possible that an individual, to say nothing of a nation, should have imbibed any contempt, either for that or any other elevating principle of our nature, from the manly page of Cervantes. One of the greatest triumphs of his skill is the success with which he continually prevents us from confounding the absurdities of the knight-errant with the generous aspirations of the cavalier. For the last, even in the midst of madness, we respect Don Quixote himself."— LOCKHART: Preface to Don Quixote, 1823.] 4 ["Your husband is in his old lunes again." - Merry Wives of Windsor.] 5 ["Davus sum, non Edipus."-TER.] XV. It chanced some diplomatical relations, Arising out of business, often brought Himself and Juan in their mutual stations Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience, And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought, And form'd a basis of esteem, which ends In making men what courtesy calls friends. XVI. And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow In judging men — when once his judgment was Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe, Had all the pertinacity pride has, Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided, Because its own good pleasure hath decided. XVII. His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions, Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but more His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before. His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians, Of common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at the mere ague still Of men's regard, the fever or the chill. XVIII. "'T is not in mortals to command success: 1 But do you more, Sempronius - don't deserve it," And take my word, you won't have any less. Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it; Give gently way, when there 's too great a press; And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it; For, like a racer, or a boxer training, "T will make, if proved, vast efforts without paining. XIX. Lord Henry also liked to be superior, As most men do, the little or the great; The very lowest find out an inferior, : At least they think so, to exert their state Upon for there are very few things wearier Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight, Which mortals generously would divide, By bidding others carry while they ride. XX. In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal, And, as he thought, in country much the same— These were advantages: and then he thought- XXII. He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity; He knew the world, and would not see depravity XXIII. And then he talk'd with him about Madrid, Or did what they should not with foreign graces. Of coursers also spake they: Henry rid Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races; And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs, Upon his talent Henry had no doubts; His manner show'd him sprung from a high mother; And all men like to show their hospitality To him whose breeding matches with his quality. XXV. At Blank-Blank Square; for we will break no squares Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square. Also there bin 2 another pious reason For making squares and streets anonymous; Which is, that there is scarce a single season Which doth not shake some very splendid house With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason— A topic scandal doth delight to rouse : Such I might stumble over unawares, Unless I knew the very chastest squares. XXVII. 'Tis true, I might have chosen Piccadilly, For letting that pure sanctuary alone. Such are but I have lost the London Chart. |