"T is better on the whole to have felt and seen That which humanity may bear, or bear not : 'T will teach discernment to the sensitive, And not to pour their ocean in a sieve.

L.

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,

Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so,"

Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past, Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do, Own they foresaw that you would fall at last, And solace your slight lapse 'gainst "bonos mores," With a long memorandum of old stories.

LI.

The Lady Adeline's serene severity

Was not confined to feeling for her friend, Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity, Unless her habits should begin to mend : But Juan also shared in her austerity,

But mix'd with pity, pure as e'er was penn'd: His inexperience moved her gentle ruth, And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth.

LII.

These forty days' advantage of her years—

And hers were those which can face calculation, Boldly referring to the list of peers

And noble births, nor dread the enumeration Gave her a right to have maternal fears

For a young gentleman's fit education, Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap, In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.

LIII.

This may be fix'd at somewhere before thirty-
Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew
The strictest in chronology and virtue

Advance beyond, while they could pass for new.
O Time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty
With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew.
Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower,
If but to keep thy credit as a mower.

LIV.

But Adeline was far from that ripe age,

Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best :
"T was rather her experience made her sage,
For she had seen the world and stood its test,
As I have said in I forget what page;

My Muse despises reference, as you have guess'd By this time; - but strike six from seven-and-twenty, And you will find her sum of years in plenty.

LV.

At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,
She put all coronets into commotion:
At seventeen, too, the world was still enchanted
With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean:
At eighteen, though below her feet still panted
A hecatomb of suitors with devotion,
She had consented to create again
That Adam, called "The happiest of men."

which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy. "What is the matter, Sir William ?" cried Hare, of facetious memory. "Ah !" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D.""Lost! What at? Quinze or Hazard ?" was the consolatory rejoinder of the querist.

With the kind view of saving an éclat,
Both to the duchess and diplomatist,
The Lady Adeline, as soon 's she saw

That Juan was unlikely to resist —
(For foreigners dor't know that a faux pas
In England ranks quite on a different list
From those of other lands unblest with juries,
Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is ;-)
LXI.

The Lady Adeline resolved to take

Such measures as she thought night best impede The farther progress of this sad mistake.

She thought with some simplicity indeed; But innocence is hold even at the stake,

And simple in the world, and doth not need Nor use those palisades by dames erected, Whose virtue lies in never being detected.

LXII.

It was not that she fear'd the very worst: His Grace was an enduring, married man, And was not likely all at once to burst

Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan

1 The famous Chancellor Oxenstiern said to his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics: "You see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are governed."-[The true story is;-young

And first, in the overflowing of her heart,

Which really knew or thought it knew no guile, She call'd her husband now and then apart, And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art

To wean Don Juan from the siren's wile; And answer'd, like a statesman or a prophet, In such guise that she could make nothing of it. LXVI.

Firstly, he said, "he never interfered

In anybody's business but the king's:" Next, that "he never judged from what appear'd, Without strong reason, of those sort of things :" Thirdly, that "Juan had more brain than beard, And was not to be held in leading strings;" And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice, "That good but rarely came from good advice.”

LXVII.

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth
Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse
To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth-
At least as far as bienséance allows:
That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;
That young men rarely made monastic vows;
That opposition only more attaches-
But here a messenger brought in despatches:

LXVIII.

And being of the council call'd "the Privy,"
Lord Henry walk'd into his cabinet,
To furnish matter for some future Livy

To tell how he reduced the nation's debt;
And if their full contents I do not give ye,
It is because I do not know them yet;
But I shall add them in a brief appendix,
To come between mine epic and its index.

Oxenstiern, on being told he was to proceed on some diplomatic mission, expressed his doubts of his own fitness for such an office. The old Chancellor, laughing, answered, — Nescis, mi fili, quantulà scientia gubernatur mundus."]

LXXVI.

Eureka! I have found it! What I mean
To say is, not that love is idleness,
But that in love such idleness has been
An accessory, as I have cause to guess.
Hard labour's an indifferent go-between ;

Your men of business are not apt to express Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo, Convey'd Medea as her supercargo.

LXXVII.

"Beatus ille procul!” from “negotiis," 2
Saith Horace; the great little poet's wrong;

His other maxim, "Noscitur à sociis,"
Is much more to the purpose of his song;
Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,
Unless good company be kept too long;
But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station,
Thrice happy they who have an occupation!

LXXVIII.

Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,
Eve made up millinery with fig leaves—
The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing,
As far as I know, that the church receives :
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
That many of the ills o'er which man grieves,
And still more women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.
LXXIX.

And hence high life is oft a dreary void,

A rack of pleasures, where we must invent A something wherewithal to be annoy'd. Bards may sing what they please about Content; Contented, when translated, means but cloy'd; And hence arise the woes of sentiment, Blue devils, and blue-stockings, and romances Reduced to practice, and perform'd like dances. LXXX.

I do declare, upon an affidavit,

Romances I ne'er read like those I have scen; Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,

Would some believe that such a tale had been: But such intent I never had, nor have it;

Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.

Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander!

Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal ;

Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo,

It had been firmness; now 'tis pertinacity:

And ask them how they like to be in thrall ? Shut up each high heroic salamander,

Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small); Shut up-no, not the King, but the Pavilion, Or else 't will cost us all another million.

LXXXIV.

Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d'appui is found, alas !
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 't was.
LXXXV.

Our gentle Adeline had one defect—

Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion; Her conduct had been perfectly correct,

As she had seen nought claiming its expansion. A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd,

Because 't is frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an earthquake's ruin.
LXXXVI.

She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sysiphus, if once we move

Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble,-conjugal, but cold.

LXXXVII.

There was no great disparity of years,

Though much in temper; but they never clash'd: They moved like stars united in their spheres,

Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd, Where mingled and yet separate appears

The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd Through the serene and placid glassy deep, Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep. 3

LXXXVIII.

Now when she once had ta'en an interest
In any thing, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best,

Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guess'd,
And gather'd as they run like growing water
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impress'd.
LXXXIX.

But when it was, she had that lurking demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named-
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,

Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed: -
And 'twill perplex the casuist in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.

[The bald-coot is a small bird of prey in marshes. The Emperor Alexander was baldish.]

2 [The King's palace at Brighton.]

I leave it to your people of sagacity

To draw the line between the false and true;
If such can e'er be drawn by man's capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.

XCI.

She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy

(I will not say it was a false or true one)

In him, because she thought he was in danger,— Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger,

XCII.

She was, or thought she was, his friend-and this Without the farce of friendship, or romance Platonism, which leads so oft amiss

Ladies who have studied friendship but in France, Or Germany, where people, purely kiss.

To thus much Adeline would not advance; But of such friendship as man's may to man be She was as capable as woman can be.

XCIII

No doubt the secret influence of the sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex,

And tune the concord to a finer mood.
If free from passion, which all friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.
XCIV.

Love bears within its breast the very germ

Of change; and how should this be otherwise ? That violent things more quickly find a term

Is shown through nature's whole analogies; 4 And how should the most fierce of all be firm? Would you have endless lightning in the skies? Methinks Love's very title says enough: How should" the tender passion" e'er be tough? XCV.

Alas! by all experience, seldom yet

(I merely quote what I have heard from many) Had lovers not some reason to regret

The passion which made Solomon a zany.
I've also seen some wives (not to forget

The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.
XCVI.

I've also seen some female friends ('tis odd,
But true- as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,
At home, far more than ever yet was Love-
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod

Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,
Despite the snake Society's loud rattles.

XCVII.

Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine:

At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense :
The surest way for ladies and for books

To bait their tender or their tenter hooks.
XCVIII.

Whether they rode, or walk'd, or studied Spanish,
To read Don Quixote in the original,

A pleasure before which all others vanish;

Whether their talk was of the kind call'd "small,"

Or serious, are the topics I must banish

To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall Say something to the purpose, and display Considerable talent in my way.

XCIX.

Above all, I beg all men to forbear

Anticipating aught about the matter: They'll only make mistakes about the fair, And Juan too, especially the latter.

And I shall take a much more serious air, Than I have yet done, in this epic satire.

It is not clear that Adeline and Juan

Will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin.

C.

But great things spring from little: -Would you think,
That in our youth, as dangerous a passion

As e'er brought man and woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards.
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.

CI.

'Tis strange, but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,

How much would novels gain by the exchange!

How differently the world would men behold !
How oft would vice and virtue places change!

The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their souls' antipodes.
CII.

What "antres vast and deserts idle "1 then
Would be discover'd in the human soul!
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,-
With self-love in the centre as their pole!
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten

Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!
Were things but only call'd by their right name,
Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.

Don Juan.

CANTO THE FIFTEENTH. 2

I.

AH! What should follow slips from my reflection; Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be

[Othello, Act I. Sc. ill.]

2 [Cantos XV. and XVI. were published in London, in March, 1824.]