Chapter XIV: Canto THE TENTH (2)

Then there’s my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me; He’ll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth’d Boeotian ‘Savage Landor’ Has taken for a swan rogue Southey’s gander.

John Keats, who was kill’d off by one critique, Just as he really promised something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; ’Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff’d out by an article.

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders To that which none will gain—or none will know The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders His last award, will have the long grass grow Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. If I might augur, I should rate but low Their chances; they’re too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome’s annals wax’d but dirty.

This is the literary lower empire, Where the praetorian bands take up the matter;— A ‘dreadful trade,’ like his who ‘gathers samphire,’ The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, With the same feelings as you’d coax a vampire. Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, I’d try conclusions with those Janizaries, And show them what an intellectual war is.

I think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while With such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I’ve not the necessary bile; My natural temper ’s really aught but stern, And even my Muse’s worst reproof ’s a smile; And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past With some small profit through that field so sterile, Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last, Left it before he had been treated very ill; And henceforth found himself more gaily class’d Amongst the higher spirits of the day, The sun’s true son, no vapour, but a ray.

His morns he pass’d in business—which, dissected, Was like all business a laborious nothing That leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing, And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathing All kinds of toil, save for our country’s good— Which grows no better, though ’tis time it should.

His afternoons he pass’d in visits, luncheons, Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour In riding round those vegetable puncheons Call’d ‘Parks,’ where there is neither fruit nor flower Enough to gratify a bee’s slight munchings; But after all it is the only ‘bower’ (In Moore’s phrase), where the fashionable fair Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world! Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl’d Like harness’d meteors; then along the floor Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl’d; Then roll the brazen thunders of the door, Which opens to the thousand happy few An earthly paradise of ‘Or Molu.’

There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz, The only dance which teaches girls to think, Makes one in love even with its very faults. Saloon, room, hall, o’erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts, ’Midst royal dukes and dames condemn’d to climb, And gain an inch of staircase at a time.

Thrice happy he who, after a survey Of the good company, can win a corner, A door that’s in or boudoir out of the way, Where he may fix himself like small ‘Jack Horner,’ And let the Babel round run as it may, And look on as a mourner, or a scorner, Or an approver, or a mere spectator, Yawning a little as the night grows later.

But this won’t do, save by and by; and he Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share, Must steer with care through all that glittering sea Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where He deems it is his proper place to be; Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air, Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views Upon an heiress or his neighbour’s bride, Let him take care that that which he pursues Is not at once too palpably descried. Full many an eager gentleman oft rues His haste: impatience is a blundering guide, Amongst a people famous for reflection, Who like to play the fool with circumspection.

But, if you can contrive, get next at supper; Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle:— O, ye ambrosial moments! always upper In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle, Which sits for ever upon memory’s crupper, The ghost of vanish’d pleasures once in vogue! Ill Can tender souls relate the rise and fall Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.

But these precautionary hints can touch Only the common run, who must pursue, And watch, and ward; whose plans a word too much Or little overturns; and not the few Or many (for the number’s sometimes such) Whom a good mien, especially if new, Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense, Permits whate’er they please, or did not long since.

Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome, Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger, Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom, Before he can escape from so much danger As will environ a conspicuous man. Some Talk about poetry, and ‘rack and manger,’ And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble;— I wish they knew the life of a young noble.

They are young, but know not youth—it is anticipated; Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou; Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated; Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew; Both senates see their nightly votes participated Between the tyrant’s and the tribunes’ crew; And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored, The family vault receives another lord.

‘Where is the world?’ cries Young, at eighty—‘Where The world in which a man was born? ‘Alas! Where is the world of eight years past? ’Twas there— I look for it—’tis gone, a globe of glass! Crack’d, shiver’d, vanish’d, scarcely gazed on, ere A silent change dissolves the glittering mass. Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings, And dandies, all are gone on the wind’s wings.

Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows. Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell: Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those Who bound the bar or senate in their spell? Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes? And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well? Where are those martyr’d saints the Five per Cents? And where—oh, where the devil are the rents?

Where’s Brummel? Dish’d. Where’s Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled. Where’s Whitbread? Romilly? Where’s George the Third? Where is his will? (That ’s not so soon unriddled.) And where is ‘Fum’ the Fourth, our ‘royal bird?’ Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled Unto by Sawney’s violin, we have heard: ‘Caw me, caw thee’—for six months hath been hatching This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.

Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That? The Honourable Mistresses and Misses? Some laid aside like an old Opera hat, Married, unmarried, and remarried (this is An evolution oft performed of late). Where are the Dublin shouts—and London hisses? Where are the Grenvilles? Turn’d as usual. Where My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.

Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses? Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,— Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies Of fashion,—say what streams now fill those channels? Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent, Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes, Have taken up at length with younger brothers: Some heiresses have bit at sharpers’ hooks: Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers; Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks: In short, the list of alterations bothers. There’s little strange in this, but something strange is The unusual quickness of these common changes.

Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to The humblest individual under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through. I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new: Nought ’s permanent among the human race, Except the Whigs not getting into place.

I have seen Napoleon, who seem’d quite a Jupiter, Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke (No matter which) turn politician stupider, If that can well be, than his wooden look. But it is time that I should hoist my ‘blue Peter,’ And sail for a new theme:—I have seen—and shook To see it—the king hiss’d, and then caress’d; But don’t pretend to settle which was best.

I have seen the Landholders without a rap— I have seen Joanna Southcote—I have seen— The House of Commons turn’d to a tax-trap— I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen— I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool’s cap— I have seen a Congress doing all that ’s mean— I have seen some nations like o’erloaded asses Kick off their burthens, meaning the high classes.

I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and Interminable—not eternal—speakers— I have seen the funds at war with house and land— I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers— I have seen the people ridden o’er like sand By slaves on horseback—I have seen malt liquors Exchanged for ‘thin potations’ by John Bull— I have seen John half detect himself a fool.—

But ‘carpe diem,’ Juan, ‘carpe, carpe!’ To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour’d by the same harpy. ‘Life ’s a poor player,’—then ‘play out the play, Ye villains!’ above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what you see.

But how shall I relate in other cantos Of what befell our hero in the land, Which ’tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as A moral country? But I hold my hand— For I disdain to write an Atalantis; But ’tis as well at once to understand, You are not a moral people, and you know it Without the aid of too sincere a poet.

What Juan saw and underwent shall be My topic, with of course the due restriction Which is required by proper courtesy; And recollect the work is only fiction, And that I sing of neither mine nor me, Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction, Will hint allusions never meant. Ne’er doubt This—when I speak, I don’t hint, but speak out.

Whether he married with the third or fourth Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess, Or whether with some virgin of more worth (I mean in Fortune’s matrimonial bounties) He took to regularly peopling Earth, Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is,— Or whether he was taken in for damages, For being too excursive in his homages,—

Is yet within the unread events of time. Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back Against the same given quantity of rhyme, For being as much the subject of attack As ever yet was any work sublime, By those who love to say that white is black. So much the better!—I may stand alone, But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.

CANTO THE TWELFTH.

Of all the barbarous middle ages, that Which is most barbarous is the middle age Of man; it is—I really scarce know what; But when we hover between fool and sage, And don’t know justly what we would be at— A period something like a printed page, Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were;—

Too old for youth,—too young, at thirty-five, To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore,— I wonder people should be left alive; But since they are, that epoch is a bore: Love lingers still, although ’twere late to wive; And as for other love, the illusion ’s o’er; And money, that most pure imagination, Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.

O Gold! Why call we misers miserable? Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall; Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable Which holds fast other pleasures great and small. Ye who but see the saving man at table, And scorn his temperate board, as none at all, And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing, Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.

Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker; Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss; But making money, slowly first, then quicker, And adding still a little through each cross (Which will come over things), beats love or liquor, The gamester’s counter, or the statesman’s dross. O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.

Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign O’er congress, whether royalist or liberal? Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain? (That make old Europe’s journals squeak and gibber all.) Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all? The shade of Buonaparte’s noble daring?— Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte, Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan Is not a merely speculative hit, But seats a nation or upsets a throne. Republics also get involved a bit; Columbia’s stock hath holders not unknown On ’Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru, Must get itself discounted by a Jew.

Why call the miser miserable? as I said before: the frugal life is his, Which in a saint or cynic ever was The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause, And wherefore blame gaunt wealth’s austerities? Because, you’ll say, nought calls for such a trial;— Then there’s more merit in his self-denial.

He is your only poet;—passion, pure And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays, Possess’d, the ore, of which mere hopes allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure; On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze, While the mild emerald’s beam shades down the dies Of other stones, to soothe the miser’s eyes.

The lands on either side are his; the ship From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads For him the fragrant produce of each trip; Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads, And the vine blushes like Aurora’s lip; His very cellars might be kings’ abodes; While he, despising every sensual call, Commands—the intellectual lord of all.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind, To build a college, or to found a race, A hospital, a church,—and leave behind Some dome surmounted by his meagre face: Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind Even with the very ore which makes them base; Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation, Or revel in the joys of calculation.

But whether all, or each, or none of these May be the hoarder’s principle of action, The fool will call such mania a disease:— What is his own? Go—look at each transaction, Wars, revels, loves—do these bring men more ease Than the mere plodding through each ‘vulgar fraction’? Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser! Let spendthrifts’ heirs enquire of yours—who ’s wiser?

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp:— Yes! ready money is Aladdin’s lamp.

‘Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,’—‘for love Is heaven, and heaven is love:’—so sings the bard; Which it were rather difficult to prove (A thing with poetry in general hard). Perhaps there may be something in ‘the grove,’ At least it rhymes to ‘love;’ but I’m prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If ‘courts’ and ‘camps’ be quite so sentimental.

But if Love don’t, Cash does, and Cash alone: Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides; Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none; Without cash, Malthus tells you—‘take no brides.’ So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides: And as for ‘Heaven being Love,’ why not say honey Is wax? Heaven is not Love, ’tis Matrimony.

Is not all love prohibited whatever, Excepting marriage? which is love, no doubt, After a sort; but somehow people never With the same thought the two words have help’d out: Love may exist with marriage, and should ever, And marriage also may exist without; But love sans bans is both a sin and shame, And ought to go by quite another name.

Now if the ‘court,’ and ‘camp,’ and ‘grove,’ be not Recruited all with constant married men, Who never coveted their neighbour’s lot, I say that line ’s a lapsus of the pen;— Strange too in my ‘buon camerado’ Scott, So celebrated for his morals, when My Jeffrey held him up as an example To me;—of whom these morals are a sample.

Well, if I don’t succeed, I have succeeded, And that ’s enough; succeeded in my youth, The only time when much success is needed: And my success produced what I, in sooth, Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded— Whate’er it was, ’twas mine; I’ve paid, in truth, Of late the penalty of such success, But have not learn’d to wish it any less.

That suit in Chancery,—which some persons plead In an appeal to the unborn, whom they, In the faith of their procreative creed, Baptize posterity, or future clay,— To me seems but a dubious kind of reed To lean on for support in any way; Since odds are that posterity will know No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

Why, I’m posterity—and so are you; And whom do we remember? Not a hundred. Were every memory written down all true, The tenth or twentieth name would be but blunder’d; Even Plutarch’s Lives have but pick’d out a few, And ’gainst those few your annalists have thunder’d; And Mitford in the nineteenth century Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.

Good people all, of every degree, Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, In this twelfth Canto ’tis my wish to be As serious as if I had for inditers Malthus and Wilberforce:—the last set free The Negroes and is worth a million fighters; While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, And Malthus does the thing ’gainst which he writes.

I’m serious—so are all men upon paper; And why should I not form my speculation, And hold up to the sun my little taper? Mankind just now seem wrapt in mediation On constitutions and steam-boats of vapour; While sages write against all procreation, Unless a man can calculate his means Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.

That ’s noble! That ’s romantic! For my part, I think that ‘Philo-genitiveness’ is (Now here’s a word quite after my own heart, Though there’s a shorter a good deal than this, If that politeness set it not apart; But I’m resolved to say nought that ’s amiss)— I say, methinks that ‘Philo-genitiveness’ Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.

And now to business.—O my gentle Juan, Thou art in London—in that pleasant place, Where every kind of mischief ’s daily brewing, Which can await warm youth in its wild race. ’Tis true, that thy career is not a new one; Thou art no novice in the headlong chase Of early life; but this is a new land, Which foreigners can never understand.

What with a small diversity of climate, Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate, I could send forth my mandate like a primate Upon the rest of Europe’s social state; But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at, Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate. All countries have their ‘Lions,’ but in thee There is but one superb menagerie.

But I am sick of politics. Begin, ‘Paulo Majora.’ Juan, undecided Amongst the paths of being ‘taken in,’ Above the ice had like a skater glided: When tired of play, he flirted without sin With some of those fair creatures who have prided Themselves on innocent tantalisation, And hate all vice except its reputation.

But these are few, and in the end they make Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows That even the purest people may mistake Their way through virtue’s primrose paths of snows; And then men stare, as if a new ass spake To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o’erflows Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it) With the kind world’s amen—‘Who would have thought it?’

The little Leila, with her orient eyes, And taciturn Asiatic disposition (Which saw all western things with small surprise, To the surprise of people of condition, Who think that novelties are butterflies To be pursued as food for inanition), Her charming figure and romantic history Became a kind of fashionable mystery.

The women much divided—as is usual Amongst the sex in little things or great. Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you all— I have always liked you better than I state: Since I’ve grown moral, still I must accuse you all Of being apt to talk at a great rate; And now there was a general sensation Amongst you, about Leila’s education.

In one point only were you settled—and You had reason; ’twas that a young child of grace, As beautiful as her own native land, And far away, the last bud of her race, Howe’er our friend Don Juan might command Himself for five, four, three, or two years’ space, Would be much better taught beneath the eye Of peeresses whose follies had run dry.

So first there was a generous emulation, And then there was a general competition, To undertake the orphan’s education. As Juan was a person of condition, It had been an affront on this occasion To talk of a subscription or petition; But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages, Whose tale belongs to ‘Hallam’s Middle Ages,’

And one or two sad, separate wives, without A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough— Begg’d to bring up the little girl and ‘out,’— For that ’s the phrase that settles all things now, Meaning a virgin’s first blush at a rout, And all her points as thorough-bred to show: And I assure you, that like virgin honey Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money).

How all the needy honourable misters, Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy, The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters (Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy At making matches, where ‘’tis gold that glisters,’ Than their he relatives), like flies o’er candy Buzz round ‘the Fortune’ with their busy battery, To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!

Each aunt, each cousin, hath her speculation; Nay, married dames will now and then discover Such pure disinterestedness of passion, I’ve known them court an heiress for their lover. ‘Tantaene!’ Such the virtues of high station, Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet ’s ‘Dover!’ While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares, Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs.

Some are soon bagg’d, and some reject three dozen. ’Tis fine to see them scattering refusals And wild dismay o’er every angry cousin (Friends of the party), who begin accusals, Such as—‘Unless Miss (Blank) meant to have chosen Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I pray, Look yes last night, and yet say no to-day?

‘Why?—Why?—Besides, Fred really was attach’d; ’Twas not her fortune—he has enough without: The time will come she’ll wish that she had snatch’d So good an opportunity, no doubt:— But the old marchioness some plan had hatch’d, As I’ll tell Aurea at to-morrow’s rout: And after all poor Frederick may do better— Pray did you see her answer to his letter?’

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets Are spurn’d in turn, until her turn arrives, After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives; And when at last the pretty creature gets Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or drives, It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected To find how very badly she selected.

For sometimes they accept some long pursuer, Worn out with importunity; or fall (But here perhaps the instances are fewer) To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all. A hazy widower turn’d of forty ’s sure (If ’tis not vain examples to recall) To draw a high prize: now, howe’er he got her, I See nought more strange in this than t’ other lottery.

I, for my part (one ‘modern instance’ more, ‘True, ’tis a pity—pity ’tis, ’tis true’), Was chosen from out an amatory score, Albeit my years were less discreet than few; But though I also had reform’d before Those became one who soon were to be two, I’ll not gainsay the generous public’s voice, That the young lady made a monstrous choice.

O, pardon my digression—or at least Peruse! ’Tis always with a moral end That I dissert, like grace before a feast: For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend, A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest, My Muse by exhortation means to mend All people, at all times, and in most places, Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces.

But now I’m going to be immoral; now I mean to show things really as they are, Not as they ought to be: for I avow, That till we see what ’s what in fact, we’re far From much improvement with that virtuous plough Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar Upon the black loam long manured by Vice, Only to keep its corn at the old price.

But first of little Leila we’ll dispose; For like a day-dawn she was young and pure, Or like the old comparison of snows, Which are more pure than pleasant to be sure. Like many people everybody knows, Don Juan was delighted to secure A goodly guardian for his infant charge, Who might not profit much by being at large.

Besides, he had found out he was no tutor (I wish that others would find out the same); And rather wish’d in such things to stand neuter, For silly wards will bring their guardians blame: So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor To make his little wild Asiatic tame, Consulting ‘the Society for Vice Suppression,’ Lady Pinchbeck was his choice.

Olden she was—but had been very young; Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that ’s wrong: In fact, there’s nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the cud eschew’d by human cattle.

Moreover I’ve remark’d (and I was once A slight observer in a modest way), And so may every one except a dunce, That ladies in their youth a little gay, Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense Of the sad consequence of going astray, Are wiser in their warnings ’gainst the woe Which the mere passionless can never know.

While the harsh prude indemnifies her virtue By railing at the unknown and envied passion, Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you, Or, what ’s still worse, to put you out of fashion,— The kinder veteran with calm words will court you, Entreating you to pause before you dash on; Expounding and illustrating the riddle Of epic Love’s beginning, end, and middle.

Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter, As better knowing why they should be so, I think you’ll find from many a family picture, That daughters of such mothers as may know The world by experience rather than by lecture, Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show Of vestals brought into the marriage mart, Than those bred up by prudes without a heart.

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talk’d about— As who has not, if female, young, and pretty? But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalk’d about; She merely was deem’d amiable and witty, And several of her best bon-mots were hawk’d about: Then she was given to charity and pity, And pass’d (at least the latter years of life) For being a most exemplary wife.

High in high circles, gentle in her own, She was the mild reprover of the young, Whenever—which means every day—they’d shown An awkward inclination to go wrong. The quantity of good she did ’s unknown, Or at the least would lengthen out my song: In brief, the little orphan of the East Had raised an interest in her, which increased.

Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with her, Because she thought him a good heart at bottom, A little spoil’d, but not so altogether; Which was a wonder, if you think who got him, And how he had been toss’d, he scarce knew whither: Though this might ruin others, it did not him, At least entirely—for he had seen too many Changes in youth, to be surprised at any.

And these vicissitudes tell best in youth; For when they happen at a riper age, People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth, And wonder Providence is not more sage. Adversity is the first path to truth: He who hath proved war, storm, or woman’s rage, Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty, Hath won the experience which is deem’d so weighty.

How far it profits is another matter.— Our hero gladly saw his little charge Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter Being long married, and thus set at large, Had left all the accomplishments she taught her To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor’s barge, To the next comer; or—as it will tell More Muse-like—like to Cytherea’s shell.

I call such things transmission; for there is A floating balance of accomplishment Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss, According as their minds or backs are bent. Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss Of metaphysics; others are content With music; the most moderate shine as wits; While others have a genius turn’d for fits.

But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords, Theology, fine arts, or finer stays, May be the baits for gentlemen or lords With regular descent, in these our days, The last year to the new transfers its hoards; New vestals claim men’s eyes with the same praise Of ‘elegant’ et caetera, in fresh batches— All matchless creatures, and yet bent on matches.

But now I will begin my poem. ’Tis Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new, That from the first of Cantos up to this I’ve not begun what we have to go through. These first twelve books are merely flourishes, Preludios, trying just a string or two Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure; And when so, you shall have the overture.

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin About what ’s call’d success, or not succeeding: Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen; ’Tis a ‘great moral lesson’ they are reading. I thought, at setting off, about two dozen Cantos would do; but at Apollo’s pleading, If that my Pegasus should not be founder’d, I think to canter gently through a hundred.

Don Juan saw that microcosm on stilts, Yclept the Great World; for it is the least, Although the highest: but as swords have hilts By which their power of mischief is increased, When man in battle or in quarrel tilts, Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east, Must still obey the high—which is their handle, Their moon, their sun, their gas, their farthing candle.

He had many friends who had many wives, and was Well look’d upon by both, to that extent Of friendship which you may accept or pass, It does nor good nor harm being merely meant To keep the wheels going of the higher class, And draw them nightly when a ticket ’s sent: And what with masquerades, and fetes, and balls, For the first season such a life scarce palls.

A young unmarried man, with a good name And fortune, has an awkward part to play; For good society is but a game, ‘The royal game of Goose,’ as I may say, Where every body has some separate aim, An end to answer, or a plan to lay— The single ladies wishing to be double, The married ones to save the virgins trouble.

I don’t mean this as general, but particular Examples may be found of such pursuits: Though several also keep their perpendicular Like poplars, with good principles for roots; Yet many have a method more reticular— ‘Fishers for men,’ like sirens with soft lutes: For talk six times with the same single lady, And you may get the wedding dresses ready.

Perhaps you’ll have a letter from the mother, To say her daughter’s feelings are trepann’d; Perhaps you’ll have a visit from the brother, All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to demand What ‘your intentions are?’—One way or other It seems the virgin’s heart expects your hand: And between pity for her case and yours, You’ll add to Matrimony’s list of cures.

I’ve known a dozen weddings made even thus, And some of them high names: I have also known Young men who—though they hated to discuss Pretensions which they never dream’d to have shown— Yet neither frighten’d by a female fuss, Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone, And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair, In happier plight than if they form’d a pair.

There’s also nightly, to the uninitiated, A peril—not indeed like love or marriage, But not the less for this to be depreciated: It is—I meant and mean not to disparage The show of virtue even in the vitiated— It adds an outward grace unto their carriage— But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot, ‘Couleur de rose,’ who ’s neither white nor scarlet.

Such is your cold coquette, who can’t say ‘No,’ And won’t say ‘Yes,’ and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow— Then sees your heart wreck’d, with an inward scoffing. This works a world of sentimental woe, And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin; But yet is merely innocent flirtation, Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

‘Ye gods, I grow a talker!’ Let us prate. The next of perils, though I place it sternest, Is when, without regard to ‘church or state,’ A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest. Abroad, such things decide few women’s fate— (Such, early traveller! is the truth thou learnest)— But in old England, when a young bride errs, Poor thing! Eve’s was a trifling case to hers.

For ’tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit Country, where a young couple of the same ages Can’t form a friendship, but the world o’erawes it. Then there’s the vulgar trick of those d—d damages! ! A verdict—grievous foe to those who cause it!— Forms a sad climax to romantic homages; Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders, And evidences which regale all readers.

But they who blunder thus are raw beginners; A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners, The loveliest oligarchs of our gynocracy; You may see such at all the balls and dinners, Among the proudest of our aristocracy, So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste— And all by having tact as well as taste.

Juan, who did not stand in the predicament Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more; For he was sick—no, ’twas not the word sick I meant— But he had seen so much love before, That he was not in heart so very weak;—I meant But thus much, and no sneer against the shore Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings, Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings.

But coming young from lands and scenes romantic, Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risk’d for Passion, And Passion’s self must have a spice of frantic, Into a country where ’tis half a fashion, Seem’d to him half commercial, half pedantic, Howe’er he might esteem this moral nation: Besides (alas! his taste—forgive and pity!) At first he did not think the women pretty.

I say at first—for he found out at last, But by degrees, that they were fairer far Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast Beneath the influence of the eastern star. A further proof we should not judge in haste; Yet inexperience could not be his bar To taste:—the truth is, if men would confess, That novelties please less than they impress.

Though travell’d, I have never had the luck to Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger, To that impracticable place, Timbuctoo, Where Geography finds no one to oblige her With such a chart as may be safely stuck to— For Europe ploughs in Afric like ‘bos piger:’ But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there No doubt I should be told that black is fair.

It is. I will not swear that black is white; But I suspect in fact that white is black, And the whole matter rests upon eyesight. Ask a blind man, the best judge. You’ll attack Perhaps this new position—but I’m right; Or if I’m wrong, I’ll not be ta’en aback:— He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark Within; and what seest thou? A dubious spark.

But I’m relapsing into metaphysics, That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics, Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame; And this reflection brings me to plain physics, And to the beauties of a foreign dame, Compared with those of our pure pearls of price, Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes;— Not that there’s not a quantity of those Who have a due respect for their own wishes. Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious: They warm into a scrape, but keep of course, As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

But this has nought to do with their outsides. I said that Juan did not think them pretty At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides Half her attractions—probably from pity— And rather calmly into the heart glides, Than storms it as a foe would take a city; But once there (if you doubt this, prithee try) She keeps it for you like a true ally.

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);—

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

And if in fact she takes to a ‘grande passion,’ It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten ’tis 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.

The reason ’s obvious; if there’s an eclat, 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: For Fame ’s a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.

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.

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.

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 ‘blase’—’tis 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.

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) The world to gaze upon those northern lights Which flash’d as far as where the musk-bull browses; He had also stood at times behind the throne— But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone.

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.

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.

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.

But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why, 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.

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 ’twill be when done: The plan at present ’s simply in concoction, I can’t oblige you, reader, to read on; That ’s your affair, not mine: a real spirit Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.

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.’

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 your great thinkers.

CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.

I now mean to be serious;—it is time, Since laughter now-a-days is deem’d too serious. A jest at Vice by Virtue ’s call’d a crime, 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.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville (’Tis 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.

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 ’tis in request, ’Tis 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.

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 ’tis time to give the younger place.

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.

And is there not religion, and reform, Peace, war, the taxes, and what ’s call’d the ‘Nation’? The 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.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess’d, Right honestly, ‘he liked an honest hater!’— 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;

But neither love nor hate in much excess; Though ’twas 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.

Of all tales ’tis the saddest—and more sad, 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: ’tis 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.

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 thin and thick sought! And Socrates himself but Wisdom’s Quixote?

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away; A single laugh demolish’d the right arm Of his own country;—seldom since that day Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm, The world gave ground before her bright array; And therefore have his volumes done such harm, That all their glory, as a composition, Was dearly purchased by his land’s perdition.

I’m ‘at my old lunes’—digression, and forget The Lady Adeline Amundeville; The fair most fatal Juan ever met, Although she was not evil nor meant ill; But Destiny and Passion spread the net (Fate is a good excuse for our own will), And caught them;—what do they not catch, methinks? But I’m not OEdipus, and life ’s a Sphinx.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare To venture a solution: ‘Davus sum!’ And now I will proceed upon the pair. Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world’s hum, Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that ’s fair; Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb. The last ’s a miracle, and such was reckon’d, And since that time there has not been a second.

Chaste was she, to detraction’s desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against either, and both seem’d secure— She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

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.

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.

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.

‘’Tis not in mortals to command success: 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, ’Twill make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.

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.

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.

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.

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.