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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;
Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb-
le those bravuras (which I still am learning
To like, though I have been seven years in Italy,
And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily); —
LXXVI.

She cannot do these things, nor one or two
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style

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,
Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads
People some ten times less in fact to mind it,
And care but for discoveries and not deeds.
And as for chastity, you'll never bind it

By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads,
But aggravate the crime you have not prevented,
By rendering desperate those who had else repented.

LXXXI.

But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd
Upon the moral lessons of mankind:
Besides, he had not seen of several hundred
A lady altogether to his mind.

A little" blasé"-t is not to be wonder'd
At, that his heart had got a tougher rind :
And though not vainer from his past success,
No doubt his sensibilities were less.

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,
Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull
browses; 1

He had also stood at times behind the throne-
But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone.
LXXXIII.

He saw, however, at the closing session,

That noble sight, when really free the nation,
A king in constitutional possession

Of such a throne as is the proudest station,
Though despots know it not-till the progression
Of freedom shall complete their education.
"Tis not mere splendour makes the show august
To eye or heart-it is the people's trust.
LXXXIV.

There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now)
A Prince, the prince of princes at the time,
With fascination in his very bow,

And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though royalty was written on his brow,

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,
Into the best society: and there
Occurr'd what often happens, I'm afraid,

However disciplined and debonnaire : —
The talent and good humour he display'd,

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
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.
LXXXVIIL

And if my thunderbolt not always rattles,

Remember, reader! you have had before,
The worst of tempests and the best of battles,
That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore,
Besides the most sublime of Heaven knows what
else:

An usurer could scarce expect much more —
But my best canto, save one on astronomy,
Will turn upon "political economy."

LXXXIX.

That is your present theme for popularity:
Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake,
It grows an act of patriotic charity,

To show the people the best way to break.
My plan (but I, if but for singularity,
Reserve it) will be very sure to take.
Meantime, read all the national-debt sinkers,

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,
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious.

But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why, A jest at Vice by Virtue 's call'd a crime,
Is not to be put hastily together;
And as my object is morality

(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,
And hew out a huge monument of pathos,
As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos. 6
LXXXVII.

Here the twelfth canto of our introduction
Ends. When the body of the book's begun,
You'll find it of a different construction
From what some people say 't will be when done :
The plan at present 's simply in concoction.
I can't oblige you, reader, to read on;

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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:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,
Although when long a little apt to weary us;
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,
As an old temple dwindled to a column.

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)
Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,

And beauteous, even where beauties most abound,
In Britain — which of course true patriots find
The goodliest soil of body and of mind.

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,
Reluctant as all placemen to resign

Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera,
For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line:
But then they have their claret and Madeira,
To irrigate the dryness of decline;
And county meetings, and the parliament,
And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.
VI.

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,
Right honestly, "he liked an honest hater!"- 1
The only truth that yet has been confest

Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest:-
For my part, I am but a mere spectator,
And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is,
Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles ; 2
VIII.

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
Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,
And still pursues the right; — to curb the bad
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight
His guerdon 't is his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;
A sorrier still is the great moral taught
By that real epic unto all who have thought.
X.

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 ?

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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,
O'er Juan he could no distinction claim ;
In years he had the advantage of time's sequel;

And, as he thought, in country much the same—
Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill,
At which all modern nations vainly aim;
And the Lord Henry was a great debater,
So that few members kept the house up later.
XXI.

These were advantages: and then he thought-
It was his foible, but by no means sinister-
That few or none more than himself had caught
Court mysteries, having been himself a minister:
He liked to teach that which he had been taught,
And greatly shone whenever there had been a stir;
And reconciled all qualities which grace man,
Always a patriot, and sometimes a placeman.
1["'Tis not in mortals to command success;
But we'll do more, Sempronius - we'll deserve it.".
Cato.]

XXII.

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity;
He almost honour'd him for his docility,
Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity,
Or contradicted but with proud humility.

He knew the world, and would not see depravity
In faults which sometimes show the soil's fertility,
If that the weeds o'erlive not the first crop-
For then they are very difficult to stop.

XXIII.

And then he talk'd with him about Madrid,
Constantinople, and such distant places;
Where people always did as they were bid,

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 Juan, like a true-born Andalusian,
Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian.
XXIV.

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs,
And diplomatic dinners, or at other—
For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs,
As in freemasonry a higher brother.

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
By naming streets: since men are so censorious,
And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares,
Reaping allusions private and inglorious,
Where none were dreamt of, unto love's affairs,
Which were, or are, or are to be notorious,
That therefore do I previously declare,

Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.
XXVI.

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,
A place where peccadillos are unknown;
But I have motives, whether wise or silly,

For letting that pure sanctuary alone.
Therefore I name not square, street, place, until I
Find one where nothing naughty can be shown,
A vestal shrine of innocence of heart:

Such are but I have lost the London Chart.

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