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VI.

Most epic poets plunge in « medias res»
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,
What went before-by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,

Beside his mistress in some soft abode,

Palace or garden, paradise or cavern,

Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.

VII.

That is the usual method, but not mine-
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design

Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, And therefore I shall open with a line

(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning), Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother, if you 'd rather.

VIII.

In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,

Famous for oranges and women-he
Who has not seen it will be much to pity,
So says the proverb-and I quite agree;
Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
Cadiz perhaps, but that you soon may see:
Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,
A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquiver.
IX.

His father's name was Jose-Don, of course,
A true hidalgo, free from every stain
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain.
A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,

Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,
Than Jose, who begot our hero, who
Begot-but that's to come-Well, to renew
X.

Ilis mother was a learned lady, famed

For every branch of every science known-
In every christian language ever named,
With virtues equall'd by her wit alone;
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.
XI.

iler memory was a mine: she knew by heart
All Calderon and greater part of Lopé,

So that if any actor miss'd his part,

She could have served him for the prompter's copy;

For her Feinagle's were an useless art,

And he himself obliged to shut up shop-he

Could never make a memory so fine as

That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez.

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XU.

Her favourite science was the mathematical,
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity;
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
A prodigy-her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I wont stay puzzling.

XIII.

She knew the Latin-that is, « the Lord's prayer,» And Greek-the alphabet, I 'm nearly sure; She read some French romances here and there, Although her mode of speaking was not pure: For native Spanish she had no great care,

At least her conversation was obscure; Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem, As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'em.

XIV.

She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,
And said there was analogy between 'em;
She proved it somehow out of sacred song,

But I must leave the proofs to those who 've seen 'em ; But this I heard her say, aud can't be wrong,

And all may think which way their judgments lean' em, «T is strange-the Hebrew noun which means “I am,' The English always use to govern d—n.

XV.

XVI

In short, she was a walking calculation,

Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers,

Or Mrs Trimmer's books on education,

Or «Colebs Wife» set out in quest of lovers,

Morality's prim personification,

In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; To others' share let « female errors fall,» For she had not even one-the worst of all. XVII.

Oh! she was perfect past all parallel

Of any modern female saint's comparison; So far above the cunning powers of hell,

Her guardian angel had given up his garrison; Even her minutest motions went as well

As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison: In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine « incomparable oil,» Macassar!?

XVII.

Perfect she was, but as perfection is

Insipid in this naughty world of ours, Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss

Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss

(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours).

Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve,

Went plucking various fruit without her leave.

XIX.

He was a mortal of the careless kind,

With no great love for learning, or the learn d Who chose to go where'er he had a mind, And never dream'd his lady was concern'd: The world, as usual, wickedly inclined

To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd, Whisper'd he had a mistress, some said two, But for domestic quarrels one will do.

XX.

Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,
A great opinion of her own good qualities;
Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,

And such indeed she was in her moralities;
But then she had a devil of a spirit,

And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities, And let few opportunities escape

Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.

XXI.

This was an easy matter with a man

Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might << brain them with their lady's fan; a And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. XXII

'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed

With persons of no sort of education,
Or gentlemen who, though well-born and bred,
Grow tired of scientific conversation:

I don't chuse to say much upon this head,

I'm a plain man, and in a single station,

But-oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,

Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all'

XXIII.

Don Jose and his lady quarrell'd-why,

Not any of the many could divine; Though several thousand people chose to try. 'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine:

I loathe that low vice curiosity;

Fut if there's any thing in which I shine,
'Tis in arranging all my friends' affairs,
Not having, of my own, domestic cares.
XXIV.

And so I interfered, and with the best
Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;
think the foolish people were possess'd,
For neither of them could I ever find,
Although their porter afterwards confess'd—
But that's no matter, and the worst's behind-
For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs,
A pail of housemaid's water unawares.

XXV.

A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
And mischief-making monkey from his birth;
His parents ne'er agreed except in doting
Upon the most unquiet imp on earth:
Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in
Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth

To school, or had him whipp'd at home,
To teach him manners for the time to come.

XXVI.

Don Jose and the Donna Inez led

For sometime an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead; They lived respectably as man and wife, Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred, And gave no outward sigus of inward strife, Until at length the smother'd fire broke out, And put the business past all kind of doubt.

XXVII.

For Inez call'd some druggists and physicians, And tried to prove her loving lord was mad, But as he had some lucid intermissions,

She next decided he was only bad; Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions, No sort of explanation could be had, Save that her duty both to man and God Required this conduct-which seem'd very odd.

XXVIII.

She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,
And open'd certain trunks of books and letters,
All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;
And then she had all Seville for abettors,
Besides her good old grandmother (who doted);
The hearers of her case became repeaters,
Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,
Some for amusement, others for old grudges.
XXIX.

And then this best and meckest woman bore
With such serenity her husband's woes,
Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,

Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose
Never to say a word about them more-

Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity,

That all the world exclaim'd, « What magnanimity!»

XXX.

No doubt, this patience, when the world is damning us,
Is philosophic in our former friends;
T is also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous,
The more so in obtaining our own ends;
And what the lawyers call a «malus animus,»
Conduct like this by no means comprehends:
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue,
But then 't is not my fault if others hurt you.
XXXI.

And if our quarrels should rip up old stories,
And help them with a lie or two additional,
I'm not to blame, as you well know, no more is
Any one else they were become traditional;
Besides, their resurrection aids our glories

By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all :
And science profits by this resurrection-
Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.
XXXII.

Their friends had tried at reconciliation,

Then their relations, who made matters worse (T were hard to tell upon a like occasion

To whom it may be best to have recourseI can't say much for friend or yet relation) : The lawyers did their utmost for divorce, But scarce a fee was paid on either side Before, unluckily, Don Jose died.

XXXIII.

He died: and most unluckily, because,
According to all hints I could collect
From counsel learned in those kinds of laws

(Although their talk's obscure and circumspect),
His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;
A thousand pities also with respect
To public feeling, which on this occasion
Was manifested in a great sensation.

XXXIV.

But ah! he died! and buried with him lay
The public feling and the lawyers' fees:
His house was sold, his servants sent away,
A Jew took one of his two mistresses,
A priest the other—at least so they say:
I ask'd the doctors after his disease,
He died of the slow fever called the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.
XXXV.

Yet Jose was an honourable man,

That I must say, who knew him very well,
Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan,

Indeed there were not many more to tell;
And if his passions now and then outran
Discretion, and were not so peaceable
As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),
He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.
XXXVI.

Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,
Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him,
Let's own, since it can do no good on earth;

It was a trying moment that which found him,
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
Where all his household goods lay shiver'd round him;
No choice was left his feelings or his pride
Save death or Doctors' Commons-so he died.
XXXVII.

Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir

To a chancery-suit, and messuages, and lands, Which, with a long minority and care,

Promised to turn out well in proper hands: Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,

And answer'd but to nature's just demands;
An only son left with an only mother

Is brought up much more wisely than another.
XXXVIII.

Sagest of women, even of widows, she

Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree

(His sire was of Castile, his dam from Arragon): Then for accomplishments of chivalry,

In case our lord the king should go to war again,
He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress-or a nunnery.

ΧΧΧΙΧ.

But that which Donna Inez most desired,
And saw into herself each day before all
The learned tutors whom for him she hired,
Was that his breeding should be strictly moral;
Much into all his studies she inquired,

And so they were submitted first to her, all
Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery
To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history

XL.

The languages, especially the dead,

The sciences, and most of all the abstruse, The arts, at least all such as could be said

To be the most remote from common use, In all these he was much and deeply read; But not a page of any thing that 's loose, Or hints continuation of the species, Was ever suffer'd, lest he should grow vicious. XLI.

His classic studies made a little puzzle,

Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses, Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,

But never put on pantaloons or boddices; His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,

And for their Eneids, Hlads, and Odysseys, Were forced to make an odd sort of apology, For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

XLII.

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him;
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample;
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem;

I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although 3 Longinus tells us there is no hymu
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample;
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with « Formosum pastor Corydon.»

XLII.

Lucretius' irreligion is too strong

For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food, I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,

Although no doubt his real intent was good,
For speaking out so plainly in his song,

So much indeed as to be downright rude;
And then what proper person can be partial
To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?
XLIV.
Juan was taught from out the best edition,
Expurgated by learned men, who place,
Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,
The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface
Too much their modest bard by this omission,
And pitying sore his mutilated case,
They only add them all in an appendix, 4
Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;
XLV.

For there we have them all at one fell swoop,»
Instead of being scatter'd through the pages;
They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop,
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
Till some less rigid editor shall stoop

To call them back into their separate cages,
Instead of standing staring altogether,
Like garden gods—and not so decent, either.
XLVI.

The Missal too (it was the family Missal)

Was ornamented in a sort of way Which ancient mass books often are, and this all Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all, Could turn their optics to the text and pray Is more than I know-but Don Juan's mother Kept this herself, and gave her son another.

XLVII.

Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,

He did not take such studies for restraints:
But how faith is acquired, and then insured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine, in his fine Confessions,
Which make the reader envy his transgressions.
XLVIII.

This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan-
I can't but say that his mamma was right,
If such an education was the true one.

She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one
You might be sure she was a perfect fright;
She did this during even her husband's life-
I recommend as much to every
wife.

XLIX.

Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace:
At six a charming child, and at eleven
With all the promise of as fine a face

As e'er to man's maturer growth was given :
He studied steadily and grew apace,

And seem'd, at least, in the right road to heaven; For half his days were pass'd at church, the other Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.

L.

At six, I said he was a charming child,
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;
Although in infancy a little wild,

They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd,

At least it seem'd so; and his mother's joy Was to declare how sage and still, and steady, Her young philosopher was grown already.

LI.

I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still, But what I say is neither here nor there;

I knew his father well, and have some skill In character-but it would not be fair From sire to son to augur good or ill:

He and his wife were an ill-sorted pairBut scandal 's my aversion-I protest Against all evil speaking, even in jest.

LII.

For my part I say nothing-nothing-but

This I will say my reasons are my own— That if I had an only son to put

To school (as God be praised that I have none) "T is not with Donna Inez I would shut Him up to learn his catechism alone; No, no-I'd send him out betimes to college, For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.

LIII.

For there one learns-'t is not for me to boast,
Though I acquired-but I pass over that,

As well as all the Greek I since have lost:

I say that there's the place-but « l'erbum sat.» I think I pick'd up, too, as well as most, Knowledge of matters-but, no matter whatI never married-but I think, I know, That sons should not be educated so.

LIV.

Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,
Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit; he seem'd
Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;

And every body but his mother deem'd
Him almost man; but she flew in a rage,

And bit her lips (for else she might have scream'd) If any said so, for to be precocious

Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.

LV.

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
Selected for discretion and devotion,
There was the Donna Julia, whom to call
Pretty were but to give a feeble notion
Of many charms in her as natural

As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean,
Her zone to Venus, or his how to Cupid
(But this last simile is trite and stupid).
LVI.

The darkness of her oriental eye

Accorded with her Moorish origin (Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin). When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly, Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain, Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.

LVII.

She married (I forget the pedigree)

With an hidalgo, who transmitted down

His blood less noble than such blood should be:
At such alliances his sires would frown,

In that point so precise in each degree

That they bred in and in, as might be shown,
Marrying their cousins-nay, their aunts and nieces,
Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.
LVIII.

This heathenish cross restored the breed again,
Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh.
For, from a root, the ugliest in Old Spain,

Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;
The sons no more were short, the daughters plain;
But there's a rumour which I fain would hush-
T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.

LIX.

However this might be, the race went on
Improving still through every generation,
Until it centred in an only son

Who left an only daughter; my narration
May have suggested that this single one

Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion I shall have much to speak about), and she Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

LX.

Her eye (I'm fond of handsome eyes)
very
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise

A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.

LXI.

Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting, at times to a transparent glow,

As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth, Possess'd an air and grace by no means common: Her stature tall-I hate a dumpy woman.

LXII.

Wedded she was some years, and to a man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE,
'T were better to have two of five-and-twenty,
Especially in countries near the sun :

And now I think on 't, « mi vien in mente,>>
Ladies, even of the most uneasy virtue,
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.
LXIII.

T is a sad thing, I cannot chuse but say,
And all the fault of that indecent sun
Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,

But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
That, howsoever people fast and pray,

The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone : What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry. LXIV.

Happy the nations of the moral north!

Where all is virtue, and the winter season Sends sin without a rag on, shivering forth

(T was snow that brought Saint Anthony to reason); Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,

By laying whate'er sum, in mulǝt, they please on The lover, who must pay a handsome price, Because it is a marketable vice.

LXV.

Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,

A man well looking for his years, and who Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd: They lived together as most people do, Suffering each others' foibles by accord, And not exactly either one or two; Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

LXVI.

Julia was-yet I never could see why

With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;
Between their tastes there was small sympathy,
For not a line had Julia ever peun'd:
Some people whisper (but no doubt they lie,

For malice still imputes some private end)
That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage,
Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;
LXVII.

And that, still keeping up the old connexion,
Which time had lately render'd much more chaste,
She took his lady also in affection,

And certainly this course was much the best:
She flatter'd Julia with her sage protection,

And complimented Don Alfonso's taste;
And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,
At least she left it a more slender handle.

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