Chapter XXV: Canto THE TENTH: I (3)

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 blundered;
Even Plutarch's Lives have but picked out a few,
And 'gainst those few your annalists have thundered;
And Mitford[624] in the nineteenth century
Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.

XX.

Good people all, of every degree,
Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers,
In this twelfth Canto 't is 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[625] does the thing 'gainst which he writes.

XXI.

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?[626]
Mankind just now seem wrapped in meditation
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.

XXII.

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"[627]
Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.

XXIII.

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.
'T is 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.

XXIV.

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.

XXV.

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:[lj]
When tired of play, he flirted without sin
With some of those fair creatures who have prided
Themselves on innocent tantalisation,[lk]
And hate all vice except its reputation.

XXVI.

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?"

XXVII.

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.

XXVIII.

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.

XXIX.

In one point only were you settled--and
You had reason; 't was 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.

XXX.

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,"[628]

XXXI.

And one or two sad, separate wives, without
A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough--
Begged 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).

XXXII.

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 "'t is 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!

XXXIII.

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.
"_Tantoene!_" 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.

XXXIV.

Some are soon bagged, and some reject three dozen:
'T is 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?

XXXV.

"Why?--Why?--Besides, Fred really was _attached_;
'T was not her fortune--he has enough without;
The time will come she'll wish that she had snatched
So good an opportunity, no doubt:--
But the old Marchioness some plan had hatched,
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?"

XXXVI.

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets
Are spurned 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.

XXXVII.

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 turned of forty 's sure[ll][629]
(If 't is not vain examples to recall)[lm]
To draw a high prize: now, howe'er he got her, I
See nought more strange in this than t' other lottery.

XXXVIII.

I, for my part--(one "modern instance" more,
"True,'t is a pity--pity 't is, 't is true")--[630]
Was chosen from out an amatory score,
Albeit my years were less discreet than few;
But though I also had reformed 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.

XXXIX.

Oh, pardon my digression--or at least
Peruse! 'T is always with a moral end
That I dissert, like grace before a feast:
For like an agéd 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.

XL.

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.

XLI.

But first of little Leila we'll dispose,[ln]
For like a day-dawn she was young and pure--
Or like the old comparison of snows,[631]
(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.

XLII.

Besides, he had found out he was no tutor
(I wish that others would find out the same),[632]
And rather wished 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.

XLIII.

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:[lo]
In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve,
As that abominable tittle-tattle,
Which is the cud eschewed[633] by human cattle.

XLIV.

Moreover I've remarked (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.

XLV.

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.

XLVI.

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.

XLVII.

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talked about--
As who has not, if female, young, and pretty?
But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalked about;
She merely was deemed amiable and witty,
And several of her best _bons-mots_ were hawked about:
Then she was given to charity and pity,
And passed (at least the latter years of life)
For being a most exemplary wife.

XLVIII.

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.

XLIX.

Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with her,
Because she thought him a good heart at bottom,
A little spoiled, but not so altogether;
Which was a wonder, if you think who got him,
And how he had been tossed, 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.

L.

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 deemed so weighty.

LI.

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.[lp]

LII.

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 turned for fits.

LIII.

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 cætera_, in fresh batches--
All matchless creatures--and yet bent on matches.

LIV.

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.

LV.

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin
About what's called success, or not succeeding:
Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;
'T is a "great moral lesson"[634] 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 foundered,
I think to canter gently through a hundred.

LVI.

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[635]--which is their handle,
Their Moon, their Sun, their gas, their farthing candle.

LVII.

He had many friends who had many wives, and was
Well looked 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 fêtes, and balls,
For the first season such a life scarce palls.

LVIII.

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,"[636] as I may say,
Where everybody 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.

LIX.

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.

LX.

Perhaps you'll have a letter from the mother,
To say her daughter's feelings are trepanned;
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.

LXI.

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 dreamed to have shown--
Yet neither frightened 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 formed a pair.

LXII.

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.

LXIII.

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 wrecked, with an inward scoffing.
This works a world of sentimental woe,[lq]
And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin;
But yet is merely innocent flirtation,
Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

LXIV.

"Ye gods, I grow a talker!"[637] Let us prate.
The next of perils, though I place it _stern_est,
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.

LXV.

For 't is a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit
Country, where a young couple of the same ages[lr]
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.

LXVI.

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;[638]
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.

LXVII.

Juan, who did not stand in the predicament
Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more;
For he was sick--no, 't was not the word _sick_ I meant--
But he had seen so much good 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.[ls]

LXVIII.

But coming young from lands and scenes romantic,
Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risked for Passion
And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic,
Into a country where 't is half a fashion,
Seemed 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.

LXIX.

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_.

LXX.

Though travelled, 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_:"[639]
But if I _had been_ at Timbuctoo, there
No doubt I should be told that black is fair.[lt][640]

LXXI.

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 eye-sight:--
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!

LXXII.

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.[lu][641]

LXXIII.

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[642]
Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious:
They warm into a scrape, but keep of course,
As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

LXXIV.

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)[lv]
She keeps it for you like a true ally.

LXXV.

She cannot step as does an Arab barb,[643]
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
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 filled 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:[644]
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.[lw]

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 pondered
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 wondered
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_)
The World to gaze upon those Northern Lights,
Which flashed as far as where the musk-bull browses;[645]
He had also stood at times behind the Throne--
But Grey[646] was not arrived, and Chatham gone.[647]

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.
'T is 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,[648]
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 finished Gentleman from top to toe.[649]

LXXXV.

And Juan was received, as hath been said,
Into the best society; and there
Occurred what often happens, I'm afraid,
However disciplined and debonnaire:--
The talent and good humour he displayed,
Besides the marked distinction of his air,
Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation,
Even though himself avoided the occasion.

LXXXVI.

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.[650]

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;
That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.

LXXXVIII.

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 brewed 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."[651]

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.[652]

FOOTNOTES:

{455}[613] [See letter to Douglas Kinnaird, dated Genoa, January 18, 1823.]

[614] [Johnson would not believe that "a complete miser is a happy man." "That," he said, "is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a _miser_, because he is miserable. No, sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments."--Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1876, p. 605.]

{456}[615] [The _Descamisados_, or Sansculottes of the Spanish Revolution of 1820-1823. For Spanish "Liberals," see _Quarterly Review_, April, 1823, vol. xxix. pp. 270-276.]

[616] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 1, line 116.]

[617] [See _The Age of Bronze_, line 678, sq., _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 573, note 3.]

[618] [Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), as Governor of the Bank of France, advanced sums to Parisians to meet their enforced contributions to the allies, and, in 1817, advocated liberal measures as a Deputy.]

{458}[lg] _Were not worth one whereon their profile shines_.--[MS. erased.]

[619] ["They say that 'Knowledge is Power';--I used to think so; but I now know that they meant Money ... every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his _touch_-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I pronounce my pious belief--that _Cash is Virtue_."--Letter to Kinnaird, February 6, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 11.]

[620] [_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto III. stanza ii. lines 4-6.]

{459}[621] [See Godwin's Essay _Of Population_, 1820 (pp. 18, 19, _et passim_), in which he renews his attack on Malthus's _Essay on the Principles of Population_.]

[622] ["We have no notion that Lord B[yron] had any mischievous intention in these publications--and readily acquit him of any wish to corrupt the morals, or impair the happiness of his readers ... but it is our duty ... to say, that much of what he has published appears to us to have this tendency.... How opposite to this is the system, or the temper, of the great author of Waverley!"--_Edinburgh Review_, February, 1822, vol. 36, p. 451.]

[lh]
---- _for his moral pen_
_Held up to me by Jeffrey as example_.
_Of which with profit--as you'll soon see by a sample_.--[MS. erased.]

{460}[623] [In the case of Murray v. Benbow (February 9, 1822), the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon) refused the motion for an injunction to restrain the defendant from publishing a pirated edition of Lord Byron's poem of Cain (Jacob's _Reports_, p. 474, note). Hence (see _var._ i.) the allusion to "Law" and "Equity." The "suit" and the "appeal" (_vide ibid._) refer to legal proceedings taken, or intended to be taken, with regard to certain questions arising out of the disposition of property under Lady Noel's will. (See letters to Charles Hanson, September 21, November 30, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 115, 146.)]

[li]
_That suit in Chancery--have a Chancery suit--
In right good earnest--also an appeal
Before the Lords, whose Chancellor's more acute
In Law than Equity--as I can feel
Because my Cases put his Lordship to 't
And--though no doubt 't is for the Public weal,
His Lordship's Justice is not that of Solomon--
Not that I deem our Chief Judge is a hollow man_.--[MS. erased.]

[624] See [William] Mitford's Greece (1829, v. 314, 315), _"Græcia Verax."_ His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all, _his_ is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues--learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest.

[Byron consulted Mitford when he was at work on _Sardanapalus_. (See Extracts from a Diary, January 5, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 152, note 1.)]

{461}[625] [Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) married, in 1804, Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath. There were three children of the marriage, of whom two survived him. Byron may be alluding to the apocryphal story of "his eleven daughters," related by J.L.A. Cherbuliez, in the _Journal des Économistes_ (1850, vol. xxv. p. 135): "Un soir ... il y avait cercle chez M. de Sismondi, à sa maison de campagne près de Genève.... Enfin, on annonce le _révérend Malthus et sa famille_. Sa famille!... Alors on voit entrer une charmante jeune fille, puis une seconde, puis une troisième, puis une quatrième, puis ... Il n'y en avait, ma fois, pas moins de onze!" See _Malthus and his Work_, by James Bonar, 1885, pp. 412, 413. See, too, _Nouveau Dictionnaire de L'Économie Politique_, 1892, art. "Malthus."]

[626] [Compare--

"How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun."

_Love of Fame, the Universal Passion_, by Edward Young, _Sat_. vii. lines 97, 98.]

{462}[627] [Philo-_pro_genitiveness. Spurzheim and Gall discover the organ of this name in a bump behind the ears, and say it is remarkably developed in the bull.]

[lj] _He played and paid, made love without much sin_.--[MS. erased.]

{463}[lk] _Themselves on seldom yielding to temptation_.--[MS. erased.]

{464}[628] [Henry Hallam (1778-1859) published his _View of the State of Europe in the Middle Ages_ in 1818.]

{465}[ll] _A drunken Gentleman of forty's sure._--[MS.]

[629] This line may puzzle the commentators more than the present generation.

[lm]
_If he can hiccup nonsense at a ball._
or, _If he goes after dinner to a ball_.-[MS. erased.]

{466}[630] [_As You Like It_, act ii. sc. 7, line 156; and _Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2, lines, 97, 98.]

[ln] _But first of little Leilah----._--[MS.]

[631] [For the allusion to "unsunned snows," _vide ante_, p. 275, note 1.]

{467}[632] [The reference may be to Hobhouse and the "Zoili of Albemarle Street," who did their best to "tutor" him with regard to "blazing indiscretions" in _Don Juan_.]

[lo]
_That--but I will not listen, by your leave,
Unto a single syllable_----.--[MS.]

[633] [For another instance of this curious mistake, see letter to Hodgson, December 8, 1811, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 85; et ibid., p. 31, note 1.]

{469}[lp]
_Painted and gilded--or, as it will tell
More Muse-like--say--like Cytherea's shell_.--[MS.]

{470}[634] [_Vide ante_, Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII., p. 266.]

[635] ["Enfin partout la bonne société régle tout."--Voltaire.]

{471}[636] ["This game originated, I believe, in Germany.... It is called the game of the _goose_, because at every fourth and fifth compartment of the table in succession a _goose_ is depicted; and if the cast thrown by the player falls upon a _goose_, he moves forward double the number of his throw" (_Sports and Pastimes, etc._, by Joseph Strutt, 1801, p. 250).

Goldsmith, in his _Deserted Village_, among other "parlour splendours," mentions "the twelve good rules, the royal game of goose."]

{472}[lq]
_Most young beginners may be taken so,
But those who have been a little used to roughing
Know how to end this half-and-half flirtation_.--[MS. erased.]

[637] ["I'll grow a talker for this gear."

_Merchant of Venice_, act i. sc. 1, line 110.]

{473}[lr] _Country where warm young people_----.--[MS. erased.]

[638] [Pope and Scott use the quasi-contracted "gynocracy" for "gynæcocracy." (See _N. Engl. Dict._)]

[ls]
_Of white cliffs--and white bosoms--and blue eyes--
And stockings--virtues, loves and Chastities_.--[MS. erased.]

{474}[639] [Hor., _Epist._, lib. 1, ep. xiv. line 43. The meaning is that Europe makes but little progress in the discovery and settlement of Africa, and, as it were, "ploughs the sands."]

[lt]
_Though many thousands both of birth and pluck too,
Have ventured past the jaws of Moor and Tiger_.[*]

[*]_Note. By particular licence, "positively for the last time, by desire," etc., to be pronounced "tydger." Such is what Gifford calls "the necessity of rhyming."_--[MS. erased.]

[640] ["Though many degrees nearer our own fair and blue-eyed beauties in complexion ... yet no people ever lost more by comparison than did the white ladies of Moorzuk [capital of Fezzan] with the black ones of Bornou and Soudan."--_Narrative of Travels ... in Northern and Central Africa_, 1822-24, by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, 1828, ii. 133.]

{475}[lu] _Above, all sunshine, and, below, all ice_.--[MS. erased.]

[641] [Compare _Prisoner of Chillon_, lines 82-85, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 17.]

[642] 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.

{476}[lv] _But once there (few have felt this more than I)_.--[MS. erased.]

[643] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lviii. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 59, note 1.]

{477}[644] [See Plutarch's _Caius Marius_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, pp. 304, 305.]

[lw] _That Lady who is not at home to all_.--[MS. erased.]

{478}[645] For a description and print of this inhabitant of the polar region and native country of the Aurorae Boreales, see Sir E. Parry's _Voyage In Search of a North-West Passage_, [1821, p. 257. The print of the Musk-Bull is drawn and engraved by W. Westall, A.R.A., from a sketch by Lieut. Beechy. He is a "fearful wild-fowl!"]

[646] [Charles, second Earl Grey, born March 13, 1764, succeeded to the peerage in 1807, died July 17, 1847.]

[647] [William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, born November 15, 1708, died May 11, 1778.]

[648] ["His person was undoubtedly cast by Nature in an elegant and pleasing mould, of a just height, well-proportioned, and with due regard to symmetry.... His countenance was handsome and prepossessing.... His manners were captivating, noble, and dignified, yet unaffectedly condescending.... Homer, as well as Virgil, was familiar to the Prince of Wales; and his memory, which was very tenacious, enabled him to cite with graceful readiness the favourite passages of either poet."--_The Historical ... Memoirs_ of Sir N.W. Wraxall, 1884, v. 353, 354.]

[649] ["Waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities; he 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_."--Letter to Sir Walter Scott, July 6, 1812, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 134.]

{479}[650] B. 10^bre^ 7^th^ 1822.--[MS.]

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.

[It was an architect named Stasicrates who proposed to execute this imperial monument. But Alexander bade him leave Mount Athos alone. As it was, it might be christened "Xerxes, his Folly," and, for his part, he preferred to regard Mount Caucasus, and the Himalayas, and the river Don as the symbolic memorials of his acts and deeds.--Plutarch's _Moralia_. "De Alexandri Fortuna et Virtute," Orat. II. cap. ii.]

{480}[651] [The "Political Economy" Club was founded in April, 1821. James Mill, Thomas Tooke, and David Ricardo were among the original members, See _Political Economy Club_, Revised Report, 1876, p. 60.]

[652] [Stanzas lxxxviii. and lxxxix. are not in the MS.]

CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.[653]

I.

I now mean to be serious;--it is time,
Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious;
A jest at Vice by Virtue's called 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.

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.

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 turned 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 passed 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 called the "Nation"?
The struggle to be pilots in a storm?[654]
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.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, professed,
Right honestly, "he liked an honest hater!"[655]--
The only truth that yet has been confessed
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;

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.

IX.[656]

Of all tales 't is 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: '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.[lx]

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

XI.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away;
A single laugh demolished 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.

XII.

I'm "at my old lunes"[657]--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.

XIII.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare
To venture a solution: "_Davus sum!_"[658]
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 reckoned,
And since that time there has not been a second.

XIV.

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 seemed secure--
She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

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 formed 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 confirmed 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:"[659]
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.

XXII.

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity;
He almost honoured 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 talked 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[660] 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 showed 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[661]
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[662] 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.

'T is true, I might have chosen Piccadilly,[663]
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.

XXVIII.

At Henry's mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square,
Was Juan a _recherché_, welcome guest,
As many other noble scions were;
And some who had but Talent for their crest;
Or Wealth, which is a passport everywhere;
Or even mere Fashion, which indeed's the best
Recommendation; and to be well dressed
Will very often supersede the rest.

XXIX.

And since "there's safety in a multitude
Of counsellors," as Solomon has said,
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood;--
Indeed we see the daily proof displayed
In Senates, at the Bar, in wordy feud,
Where'er collective wisdom can parade,
Which is the only cause that we can guess
Of Britain's present wealth and happiness;--

XXX.

But as "there's safety" grafted in the number
"Of counsellors," for men,--thus for the sex
A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber;
Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex--
Variety itself will more encumber.[ly]
'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks--
And thus with women: howsoe'er it shocks some's
Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of coxcombs.

XXXI.

But Adeline had not the least occasion
For such a shield, which leaves but little merit
To Virtue proper, or good education.
Her chief resource was in her own high spirit,
Which judged Mankind at their due estimation;
And for coquetry, she disdained to wear it--
Secure of admiration: its impression
Was faint--as of an every-day possession.

XXXII.

To all she was polite without parade;
To some she showed attention of that kind
Which flatters, but is flattery conveyed
In such a sort as cannot leave behind
A trace unworthy either wife or maid;--
A gentle, genial courtesy of mind,[lz]
To those who were, or passed for meritorious,
Just to console sad Glory for being glorious;

XXXIII.

Which is in all respects, save now and then,
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze
Upon the shades of those distinguished men
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise,
The praise of persecution. Gaze again
On the most favoured; and amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-browed,
What can ye recognise?--a gilded cloud.

XXXIV.

There also was of course in Adeline
That calm patrician polish in the address,
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
Of anything which Nature would express;
Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine,--
At least his manner suffers not to guess,
That anything he views can greatly please:
Perhaps we have borrowed this from the Chinese--[ma]

XXXV.

Perhaps from Horace: his _"Nil admirari"_
Was what he called the "Art of Happiness"--
An art on which the artists greatly vary,
And have not yet attained to much success.
However, 't is expedient to be wary:
Indifference, certes, don't produce distress;
And rash Enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.

XXXVI.

But Adeline was not indifferent: for
(_Now_ for a common-place!) beneath the snow,
As a Volcano holds the lava more
Within--_et cætera_. Shall I go on?--No!
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor,
So let the often-used Volcano go.
Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others,
It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers!

XXXVII.

I'll have another figure in a trice:--
What say you to a bottle of champagne?
Frozen into a very vinous ice,
Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain,
Yet in the very centre, past all price,
About a liquid glassful will remain;
And this is stronger than the strongest grape
Could e'er express in its expanded shape:

XXXVIII.

'T is the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;
And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre
A hidden nectar under a cold presence.[mb]
And such are many--though I only meant her
From whom I now deduce these moral lessons,
On which the Muse has always sought to enter.
And your cold people are beyond all price,
When once you've broken their confounded ice.

XXXIX.

But after all they are a North-West Passage
Unto the glowing India of the soul;
And as the good ships sent upon that message
Have not exactly ascertained the Pole
(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),[mc]
Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal;
For if the Pole's not open, but all frost
(A chance still), 't is a voyage or vessel lost.

XL.

And young beginners may as well commence
With quiet cruising o'er the ocean, Woman;
While those who are not beginners should have sense
Enough to make for port, ere Time shall summon
With his grey signal-flag; and the past tense,
The dreary _Fuimus_ of all things human,
Must be declined, while Life's thin thread's spun out
Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.

XLI.

But Heaven must be diverted; its diversion
Is sometimes truculent--but never mind:
The World upon the whole is worth the assertion
(If but for comfort) that all things are kind:
And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian,[664]
Of the "Two Principles," but leaves behind
As many doubts as any other doctrine
Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.

XLII.

The English winter--ending in July,
To recommence in August--now was done.
'T is the postilion's paradise: wheels fly;
On roads, East, South, North, West, there is a run.
But for post-horses who finds sympathy?
Man's pity's for himself, or for his son,
Always premising that said son at college
Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.

XLIII.