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;
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.
LXVIII.

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 't is 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.
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 travell'd, I have never had the luck to
Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger,
To that impracticable place, Tombuctoo,

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 Tombuctoo, there
No doubt I should be told that black is fair.

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 see'st 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.

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 snows3
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 pityAnd 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.

LXXV.

She cannot step as does an Arab barb,

Or Andalusian girl from mass returning, Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,

Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning ; Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb

le those bravuras (which I still am learning To like, though I have been seven years in Italy, And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily); — LXXVI.

She cannot do these things, nor one or two

Others, in that off-hand and dashing style Which takes so much-to give the devil his duc; 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 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.

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 open door For her return to virtue-as they call The lady who should be at home to all.

LXXX.

For me, I leave the matter where I find it,
Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads
People some ten times less in fact to mind it,
And care but for discoveries and not decds.
And as for chastity, you 'll never bind it

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

But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd

Upon the moral lessons of mankind:
Besides, he had not seen, of several hundred,
A lady altogether to his mind.

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

LXXXII.

He also had been busy seeing sights-

The parliament and all the other houses; Had sate beneath the galleries at nights,

To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses) The world to gaze upon those northern lights4

Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull browses: He had also stood at times behind the throneBut Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone. LXXXIII.

He saw, however, at the closing session,

That noble sight, when really free the nation,

A king in constitutional possession

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

То сус

LXXXIV.

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

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

He had then the grace too, rare in every clime, Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.

LXXXV.

And Juan was received, as hath been said, Into the best society and there Occurr'd what often happens, I'm afraid, However disciplined and debonuaire : The talent and good humour he display'd,

Besides the mark'd distinction of his air, Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation, Even though himself avoided the occasion.

LXXXVI.

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 brew'd from elements or gore, Besides the most sublime of-Heaven knows what else: An usurer could scarce expect much moreBut my best canto, save one on astronomy, Will turn upon « political economy.»

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.5

I 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 hueThe kindest may be taken as a test. The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.

IV.

And after that serene and somewhat dull

Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days More quiet, when our moon 's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because indifference begins to lull

Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways;
Also because the figure and the face

Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place.
V.

I know that some would fain postpone this era,
Reluctant as all placemen to resign

Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera,

For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line:
But then they have their claret and madeira
To irrigate the dryness of decline;
And county meetings and the Parliament,
And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.
VI.

And is there not religion and reform,

Peace, war, the taxes, and what's call'd the << 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.

VII.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd,
Right honestly, « he liked an honest hater»-
The only truth that yet has been confess'd

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.

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.

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 thing creative?

A jest, a riddle, fame through thin and thick sought? And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?

XL

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.

XII.

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. XIII.

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.

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 seem'd secureShe 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 form'd a basis of esteem, which ends In making men what courtesy calls friends.

XVI.

And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as

Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow In judging men-when once his judgment was Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe, Had all the pertinacity pride has,

Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided, Because its own good pleasure hath decided.

XVII.

His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions, Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but more His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians

And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before. His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians, Of common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at—the mere ague still Of men's regard, the fever or the chill.

XVIII.

«T is not in mortals to command success;

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, where 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.
ΧΧΙ.

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.
XXI.

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.

XXI.

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

Or did what they should not with foreign graces. Of coursers also spake they: Henry rid

Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races: And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian, Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian.

XXIV.

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs,
And diplomatic dinners, or at other-
For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs,
As in Freemasonry a higher brother.
Upon his talent Henry had no doubts,

His manner show'd him sprung from a high mother; And all men like to show their hospitality

To him whose breeding marches with his quality.

XXXII.

To all she was polite without parade;

To some she show'd attention of that kind Which flatters, but is flattery convey'd

In such a sort as cannot leave behind
A trace unworthy either wife or maid ;-
A gentle genial courtesy of mind,

To those who were, or pass'd 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 distinguish'd men,
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise,
The praise of persecution. Gaze again

On the most favour'd; and, amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd,
What can ye recognize?—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 any thing which Nature would express: Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine,At least his manner suffers not to guess That any thing he views can greatly please, Perhaps we have borrow'd this from the Chinese

XXXV.

Herhaps from Horace; his « Nil admirari»
Was what he call'd the « Art of Happiness;»

An art on which the artists greatly vary,
And have not yet attain'd 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 cetera. 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 stirr'd 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.

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;
And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre
A hidden nectar under a cold presence.
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 coufounded 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 ascertain'd the Pole
(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),
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're 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, whilst 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,
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.

The London winter 's ended in July-
Sometimes a little later. I don't err
In this whatever other blunders lie
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver
My Muse a glass of Weatherology,

For Parliament is our barometer;
Let Radicals its other acts attack,
Its sessions form our only almanack.

XLIV.

When its quicksilver 's down at zero,-lo! Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage! Wheels whirl from Carlton Palace to Soho,

And happiest they who horses can engage : The turnpikes glow with dust, and Rotten Row Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age; And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces, Sigh, as the post-boys fasten on the traces.

XLV.

They and their bills, «Arcadians both,» 3 are left
To the Greek kalends of another session.
Alas! to them of ready cash bereft,

What hope remains? Of hope the full possession, Or generous draft, conceded as a gift,

At a long date-till they can get a fresh one,Hawk'd about at a discount, small or large;Also the solace of an overcharge.