I.
IF from great Nature's or our own abyss[703]
Of Thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps Mankind might find the path they miss--
But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this[704]
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.II.
But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than _not_ to trust your senses;
And yet what are your other evidences?III.
For me, I know nought; nothing I deny,
Admit--reject--contemn: and what know _you_,
Except perhaps that you were born to die?
And both may after all turn out untrue.
An age may come, Font of Eternity,
When nothing shall be either old or new.
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of Life is passed in sleep.IV.
A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very Suicide that pays his debt
At once without instalments (an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret),
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of Life than dread of Death.V.
'T is round him--near him--here--there--everywhere--
And there's a courage which grows out of fear,
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
The worst to _know_ it:--when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o'er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawns,--you can't gaze a minute,
Without an awful wish to plunge within it.VI.
'T is true, you don't--but, pale and struck with terror,
Retire: but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,
The lurking bias,[705] be it truth or error,
To the _unknown_; a secret prepossession,
To plunge with all your fears--but where? You know not,
And that's the reason why you do--or do not.VII.
But what's this to the purpose? you will say.
Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation,
For which my sole excuse is--'t is my way;
Sometimes _with_ and sometimes without occasion,
I write what's uppermost, without delay;
This narrative is not meant for narration,
But a mere airy and fantastic basis,
To build up common things with common places.VIII.
You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,
"Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"[706]
And such a straw, borne on by human breath,
Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows;
A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and Death,
A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws:
And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise,
But just to play with, as an infant plays.IX.
The World is all before me[707]--or behind;
For I have seen a portion of that same,
And quite enough for me to keep in mind;--
Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame,
To the great pleasure of our friends, Mankind,
Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame;
For I was rather famous in my time,
Until I fairly knocked it up with rhyme.X.
I have brought this world about my ears, and eke
The other; that's to say, the Clergy--who
Upon my head have bid their thunders break
In pious libels by no means a few.
And yet I can't help scribbling once a week,
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.
In Youth I wrote because my mind was full,
And _now_ because I feel it growing dull.XI.
But "why then publish?"[708]--There are no rewards
Of fame or profit when the World grows weary.
I ask in turn,--Why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read?--To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery;
And what I write I cast upon the stream,
To swim or sink--I have had at least my dream.XII.
I think that were I _certain_ of success,
I hardly could compose another line:
So long I've battled either more or less,
That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.
This feeling 't is not easy to express,
And yet 't is not affected, I opine.
In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing--
The one is winning, and the other losing.XIII.
Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction:
She gathers a repertory of facts,
Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,
But mostly sings of human things and acts--
And that's one cause she meets with contradiction;
For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts;
And were her object only what's called Glory,
With more ease too she'd tell a different story.XIV.
Love--War--a tempest--surely there's variety;
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;
A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society;
A slight glance thrown on men of every station.
If you have nought else, here's at least satiety,
Both in performance and in preparation;
And though these lines should only line portmanteaus,
Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.XV.
The portion of this World which I at present
Have taken up to fill the following sermon,
Is one of which there's no description recent:
The reason why is easy to determine:
Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,
A dull and family likeness through all ages,
Of no great promise for poetic pages.XVI.
With much to excite, there's little to exalt;
Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;
A sort of varnish over every fault;
A kind of common-place, even in their crimes;
Factitious passions--Wit without much salt--
A want of that true nature which sublimes
Whate'er it shows with Truth; a smooth monotony
Of character, in those at least who have got any.XVII.
Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,
They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;
But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,
And they must be or seem what they _were_: still
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade:
But when of the first sight you have had your fill,
It palls--at least it did so upon me,
This paradise of Pleasure and _Ennui_.XVIII.
When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,
Dressed, voted, shone, and, may be, something more--
With dandies dined--heard senators declaiming--
Seen beauties brought to market by the score,
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming--
There's little left but to be bored or bore.
Witness those _ci-devant jeunes hommes_ who stem
The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.XIX.
'T is said--indeed a general complaint--
That no one has succeeded in describing
The _monde_, exactly as they ought to paint:
Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing
The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint,
To furnish matter for their moral gibing;
And that their books have but one style in common--
My Lady's prattle, filtered through her woman.XX.
But this can't well be true, just now; for writers
Are grown of the _beau monde_ a part potential:
I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters,
Especially when young, for that's essential.
Why do their sketches fail them as inditers
Of what they deem themselves most consequential,
The _real_ portrait of the highest tribe?
'T is that--in fact--there's little to describe.XXI.
_"Haud ignara loquor;"_[709] these are _Nugae_, "_quarum
Pars_ parva _fui_," but still art and part.
Now I could much more easily sketch a harem,
A battle, wreck, or history of the heart,
Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em,
For reasons which I choose to keep apart.
_"Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit"_--[710]
Which means, that vulgar people must not share it.XXII.
And therefore what I throw off is ideal--
Lowered, leavened, like a history of Freemasons,
Which bears the same relation to the real,
As Captain Parry's Voyage may do to Jason's.
The grand _Arcanum_'s not for men to see all;
My music has some mystic diapasons;
And there is much which could not be appreciated
In any manner by the uninitiated.XXIII.
Alas! worlds fall--and Woman, since she felled
The World (as, since that history, less polite
Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held),
Has not yet given up the practice quite.
Poor Thing of Usages! coerced, compelled,
Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,
Condemned to child-bed, as men for their sins
Have shaving too entailed upon their chins,--XXIV.
A daily plague, which in the aggregate
May average on the whole with parturition.--
But as to women--who can penetrate
The real sufferings of their she condition?
Man's very sympathy with their estate
Has much of selfishness, and more suspicion.
Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,
But form good housekeepers--to breed a nation.XXV.
All this were very well, and can't be better;
But even this is difficult, Heaven knows,
So many troubles from her birth beset her,
Such small distinction between friends and foes;
The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter,
That--but ask any woman if she'd choose
(Take her at thirty, that is) to have been
Female or male? a schoolboy or a Queen?XXVI.
"Petticoat Influence" is a great reproach,
Which even those who obey would fain be thought
To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;
But since beneath it upon earth we are brought,
By various joltings of Life's hackney coach,
I for one venerate a petticoat--
A garment of a mystical sublimity,
No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.[mv]XXVII.
Much I respect, and much I have adored,
In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil,
Which holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard,
And more attracts by all it doth conceal--
A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword,
A loving letter with a mystic seal,
A cure for grief--for what can ever rankle
Before a petticoat and peeping ankle?XXVIII.
And when upon a silent, sullen day,
With a Sirocco, for example, blowing,
When even the sea looks dim with all its spray,
And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing,
And the sky shows that very ancient gray,
The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,--
'T is pleasant, if _then_ anything is pleasant,
To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.XXIX.
We left our heroes and our heroines
In that fair clime which don't depend on climate,
Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,
Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at,
Because the Sun, and stars, and aught that shines,
Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,
Are there oft dull and dreary as a _dun_--
Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.XXX.
An in-door life is less poetical;
And out-of-door hath showers, and mists, and sleet
With which I could not brew a pastoral:
But be it as it may, a bard must meet
All difficulties, whether great or small,
To spoil his undertaking, or complete--
And work away--like Spirit upon Matter--
Embarrassed somewhat both with fire and water.XXXI.
Juan--in this respect, at least, like saints--
Was all things unto people of all sorts,
And lived contentedly, without complaints,
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts--
Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,
And mingling modestly in toils or sports.
He likewise could be most things to all women,
Without the coxcombry of certain _she_ men.XXXII.
A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;
'T is also subject to the double danger
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange
Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:
But Juan had been early taught to range
The wilds, as doth an Arab turned avenger,
So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,
Knew that he had a rider on his back.XXXIII.
And now in this new field, with some applause,
He cleared hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail,
And never _craned_[711] and made but few _"faux pas,"_
And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail.
He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws
Of hunting--for the sagest youth is frail;
Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then,
And once o'er several Country Gentlemen.XXXIV.
But on the whole, to general admiration,
He acquitted both himself and horse: the Squires
Marvelled at merit of another nation;
The boors cried "Dang it! who'd have thought it?"--Sires,
The Nestors of the sporting generation,
Swore praises, and recalled their former fires;
The Huntsman's self relented to a grin,
And rated him almost a whipper-in.[mw]XXXV.
Such were his trophies--not of spear and shield,
But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes;
Yet I must own,--although in this I yield
To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes,--
He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,
And what not, though he rode beyond all price.
Asked next day, "If men ever hunted _twice_?"[mx][712]XXXVI.
He also had a quality uncommon
To early risers after a long chase,
Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon
December's drowsy day to his dull race,--
A quality agreeable to Woman,
When her soft, liquid words run on apace,
Who likes a listener, whether Saint or Sinner,--
He did not fall asleep just after dinner;XXXVII.
But, light and airy, stood on the alert,
And shone in the best part of dialogue,
By humouring always what they might assert,
And listening to the topics most in vogue,
Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;
And smiling but in secret--cunning rogue!
He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer;--
In short, there never was a better hearer.XXXVIII.
And then he danced;--all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the eloquence
Of pantomime!--he danced, I say, right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense--
A thing in footing indispensable;
He danced without theatrical pretence,
Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drilled nymphs, but like a gentleman.XXXIX.
Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,
And Elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimmed the ground,[713]
And rather held in than put forth his vigour;
And then he had an ear for Music's sound,
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour.
Such classic _pas_--sans flaws--set off our hero,
He glanced like a personified Bolero;[714]XL.
Or like a flying Hour before Aurora,
In Guido's famous fresco[715] (which alone
Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a
Remnant were there of the old World's sole throne):
The "_tout ensemble_" of his movements wore a
Grace of the soft Ideal, seldom shown,
And ne'er to be described; for to the dolour
Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour.XLI.
No marvel then he was a favourite;
A full-grown Cupid,[716] very much admired;
A little spoilt, but by no means so quite;
At least he kept his vanity retired.
Such was his tact, he could alike delight
The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired.
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved _tracasserie_,
Began to treat him with some small _agacerie_.XLII.
She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,
Desirable, distinguished, celebrated
For several winters in the grand, _grand Monde_:
I'd rather not say what might be related
Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;
Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:
Her late performance had been a dead set
At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.XLIII.
This noble personage began to look
A little black upon this new flirtation;
But such small licences must lovers brook,
Mere freedoms of the female corporation.
Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke!
'Twill but precipitate a situation
Extremely disagreeable, but common
To calculators when they count on Woman.XLIV.
The circle smiled, then whispered, and then sneered;
The misses bridled, and the matrons frowned;
Some hoped things might not turn out as they feared;
Some would not deem such women could be found;
Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard;
Some looked perplexed, and others looked profound:
And several pitied with sincere regret
Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.XLV.
But what is odd, none ever named the Duke,
Who, one might think, was something in the affair:
True, he was absent, and, 'twas rumoured, took
But small concern about the when, or where,
Or what his consort did: if he could brook
Her gaieties, none had a right to stare:
Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt,
Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out.XLVI.
But, oh! that I should ever pen so sad a line!
Fired with an abstract love of Virtue, she,
My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline,
Began to think the Duchess' conduct free;
Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line,
And waxing chiller in her courtesy,
Looked grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,
For which most friends reserve their sensibility.XLVII.
There's nought in this bad world like sympathy:
'Tis so becoming to the soul and face,
Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,
And robes sweet Friendship in a Brussels lace.
Without a friend, what were Humanity,
To hunt our errors up with a good grace?
Consoling us with--"Would you had thought twice!
Ah! if you had but followed my advice!"XLVIII.
O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,
Especially when we are ill at ease;
They're but bad pilots when the weather's rough,
Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.
Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,
As they will do like leaves at the first breeze:
When your affairs come round, one way or t' other,
Go to the coffee-house, and take another.[717]XLIX.
But this is not my maxim: had it been,
Some heart-aches had been spared me: yet I care not--
I would not be a tortoise in his screen
Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not:
'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen
That which Humanity may bear, or bear not:
'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive,
And not to pour their Ocean in a sieve.L.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so,"
Uttered by friends, those prophets of the _past_,
Who, 'stead of saying what you _now_ should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,[my]
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst _bonos mores_,
With a long memorandum of old stories.LI.
The Lady Adeline's serene severity
Was not confined to feeling for her friend,
Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity,
Unless her habits should begin to mend:
But Juan also shared in her austerity,
But mixed with pity, pure as e'er was penned
His Inexperience moved her gentle ruth,
And (as her junior by six weeks) his Youth.LII.
These forty days' advantage of her years--
And hers were those which can face calculation,
Boldly referring to the list of Peers
And noble births, nor dread the enumeration--
Gave her a right to have maternal fears
For a young gentleman's fit education,
Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap,
In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.LIII.
This may be fixed at somewhere before thirty--
Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew
The strictest in chronology and virtue
Advance beyond, while they could pass for new.
O Time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty
With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew:
Reset it--shave more smoothly, also slower,
If but to keep thy credit as a mower.LIV.
But Adeline was far from that ripe age,
Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best:
'Twas rather her Experience made her sage,
For she had seen the World and stood its test,
As I have said in--I forget what page;
My Muse despises reference, as you have guessed
By this time;--but strike six from seven-and-twenty,
And you will find her sum of years in plenty.LV.
At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,
She put all coronets into commotion:
At seventeen, too, the World was still enchanted
With the new Venus of their brilliant Ocean:
At eighteen, though below her feet still panted
A Hecatomb of suitors with devotion,
She had consented to create again
That Adam, called "The happiest of Men."LVI.
Since then she had sparkled through three glowing winters,
Admired, adored; but also so correct,
That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters,
Without the apparel of being circumspect:
They could not even glean the slightest splinters
From off the marble, which had no defect.
She had also snatched a moment since her marriage
To bear a son and heir--and one miscarriage.LVII.
Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her,
Those little glitterers of the London night;
But none of these possessed a sting to wound her--
She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight.
Perhaps she wished an aspirant profounder;
But whatsoe'er she wished, she acted right;
And whether Coldness, Pride, or Virtue dignify
A Woman--so she's good--what _does_ it signify?LVIII.
I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle
Which with the landlord makes too long a stand,
Leaving all-claretless the unmoistened throttle,
Especially with politics on hand;
I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle,
Who whirl the dust as Simooms whirl the sand;
I hate it as I hate an argument,
A Laureate's Ode, or servile Peer's "Content."LIX.
'T is sad to hack into the roots of things,
They are so much intertwisted with the earth;
So that the branch a goodly verdure flings,
I reck not if an acorn gave it birth.
To trace all actions to their secret springs
Would make indeed some melancholy mirth:
But this is not at present my concern,
And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.[718]LX.
With the kind view of saving an _éclat_,
Both to the Duchess and Diplomatist,
The Lady Adeline, as soon's she saw
That Juan was unlikely to resist--
(For foreigners don't know that a _faux pas_
In England ranks quite on a different list
From those of other lands unblest with juries,
Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is;--)[mz]LXI.
The Lady Adeline resolved to take
Such measures as she thought might best impede
The farther progress of this sad mistake.
She thought with some simplicity indeed;
But Innocence is bold even at the stake,
And simple in the World, and doth not need
Nor use those palisades by dames erected,
Whose virtue lies in never being detected.LXII.
It was not that she feared the very worst:
His Grace was an enduring, married man,
And was not likely all at once to burst
Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan
Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded first
The magic of her Grace's talisman,
And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret)
With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.LXIII.
Her Grace, too, passed for being an _intrigante_,
And somewhat _méchante_ in her amorous sphere;
One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt
A lover with caprices soft and dear,
That like to _make_ a quarrel, when they can't
Find one, each day of the delightful year:
Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow,
And--what is worst of all--won't let you go:LXIV.
The sort of thing to turn a young man's head,
Or make a Werter of him in the end.
No wonder then a purer soul should dread
This sort of chaste _liaison_ for a friend;
It were much better to be wed or dead,
Than wear a heart a Woman loves to rend.
'T is best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,
If that a _bonne fortune_ be really _bonne_.LXV.
And first, in the overflowing of her heart,
Which really knew or thought it knew no guile,
She called her husband now and then apart,
And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile
Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art
To wean Don Juan from the Siren's wile;
And answered, like a statesman or a prophet,
In such guise that she could make nothing of it.LXVI.
Firstly, he said, "he never interfered
In anybody's business but the King's:"
Next, that "he never judged from what appeared,
Without strong reason, of those sort of things:"
Thirdly, that "Juan had more brain than beard,
And was not to be held in leading strings;"
And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice,
"That good but rarely came from good advice."LXVII.
And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth
Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse
To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth--
At least as far as _bienséance_ allows:[na]
That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;
That young men rarely made monastic vows;
That Opposition only more attaches--
But here a messenger brought in despatches:LXVIII.
And being of the council called "the Privy,"
Lord Henry walked into his cabinet,
To furnish matter for some future Livy
To tell how he reduced the Nation's debt;
And if their full contents I do not give ye,
It is because I do not know them yet;
But I shall add them in a brief appendix,
To come between mine Epic and its index.LXIX.
But ere he went, he added a slight hint,
Another gentle common-place or two,
Such as are coined in Conversation's mint,
And pass, for want of better, though not new:
Then broke his packet, to see what was in 't,
And having casually glanced it through,
Retired: and, as he went out, calmly kissed her,
Less like a young wife than an agéd sister.LXX.
He was a cold, good, honourable man,
Proud of his birth, and proud of everything;
A goodly spirit for a state Divan,
A figure fit to walk before a King;
Tall, stately, formed to lead the courtly van
On birthdays, glorious with a star and string;
The very model of a chamberlain--
And such I mean to make him when I reign.LXXI.
But there was something wanting on the whole--
I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell--
Which pretty women--the sweet souls!--call _soul_.
_Certes_ it was not body; he was well
Proportioned, as a poplar or a pole,
A handsome man, that human miracle;
And in each circumstance of Love or War
Had still preserved his perpendicular.LXXII.
Still there was something wanting, as I've said--
That undefinable "_Je ne sçais quoi_"
Which, for what I know, may of yore have led
To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed;
Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy
Was much inferior to King Menelaüs:--
But thus it is some women will betray us.LXXIII.
There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,
Unless like wise Tiresias[719] we had proved
By turns the difference of the several sexes;
Neither can show quite _how_ they would be loved.
The Sensual for a short time but connects us--
The Sentimental boasts to be unmoved;
But both together form a kind of Centaur,
Upon whose back 't is better not to venture.LXXIV.
A something all-sufficient for the _heart_
Is that for which the sex are always seeking:
But how to fill up that same vacant part?
There lies the rub--and this they are but weak in.
Frail mariners afloat without a chart,
They run before the wind through high seas breaking;
And when they have made the shore through every shock,
'T is odd--or odds--it may turn out a rock.LXXV.
There is a flower called "Love in Idleness,"[720]
For which see Shakespeare's ever-blooming garden;--
I will not make his great description less,
And beg his British godship's humble pardon,
If, in my extremity of rhyme's distress,
I touch a single leaf where he is warden;--
But, though the flower is different, with the French
Or Swiss Rousseau--cry _"Voilà la Pervenche.'"_[721]LXXVI.
Eureka! I have found it! What I mean
To say is, not that Love is Idleness,
But that in Love such idleness has been
An accessory, as I have cause to guess.
Hard Labour's an indifferent go-between;
Your men of business are not apt to express
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,
Conveyed Medea as her supercargo.LXXVII.
_"Beatus ille procul!_" from "_negotiis,_"[722]
Saith Horace; the great little poet's wrong;
His other maxim, _"Noscitur à sociis,"_[723]
Is much more to the purpose of his song;
Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,
Unless good company be kept too long;
But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station,
Thrice happy they who _have_ an occupation!LXXVIII.
Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,
Eve made up millinery with fig leaves--
The earliest knowledge from the Tree so knowing,
As far as I know, that the Church receives:
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
That many of the ills o'er which Man grieves,
And still more Women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.LXXIX.
And hence high life is oft a dreary void,
A rack of pleasures, where we must invent
A something wherewithal to be annoyed.
Bards may sing what they please about _Content_;
_Contented_, when translated, means but cloyed;
And hence arise the woes of Sentiment,
Blue-devils--and Blue-stockings--and Romances
Reduced to practice, and performed like dances.LXXX.
I do declare, upon an affidavit,
Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen;
Nor, if unto the World I ever gave it,
Would some believe that such a tale had been:
But such intent I never had, nor have it;
Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.[nb]LXXXI.
"An oyster may be crossed in love"[724]--and why?
Because he mopeth idly in his shell,
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,
Much as a monk may do within his cell:
And _à-propos_ of monks, their Piety
With Sloth hath found it difficult to dwell:
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.LXXXII.
O Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,
Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
Thou moral Washington of Africa!
But there's another little thing, I own,
Which you should perpetrate some summer's day,
And set the other half of Earth to rights;
You have freed the _blacks_--now pray shut up the whites.LXXXIII.
Shut up the bald-coot[725] bully Alexander!
Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;
Teach them that "sauce for goose is sauce for gander,"
And ask them how _they_ like to be in thrall?
Shut up each high heroic Salamander,
Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small);
Shut up--no, _not_ the King, but the Pavilion,[726]
Or else 't will cost us all another million.LXXXIV.
Shut up the World at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of _soi-disant_ sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among Mankind;
But till that _point d'appui_ is found, alas!
Like Archimedes, I leave Earth as 't was.LXXXV.
Our gentle Adeline had one defect--
Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wrecked,
Because 't is frailer, doubtless, than a staunch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an Earthquake's ruin.LXXXVI.
She loved her Lord, or thought so; but _that_ love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move
Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble,--conjugal, but cold.LXXXVII.
There was no great disparity of years,
Though much in temper; but they never clashed:
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters washed,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The River from the Lake, all bluely dashed
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.[727]LXXXVIII.
Now when she once had ta'en an interest
In anything, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best,
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guessed,
And gathered as they run like growing water
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impressed.LXXXIX.
But when it was, she had that lurking Demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named--
Firmness yclept in Heroes, Kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As _Obstinacy_, both in Men and Women,
Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:--
And 't will perplex the casuist in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.XC.
Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo,
It had been firmness; now 't is pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?
I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e'er be drawn by Man's capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.XCI.
She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was _then_ in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger,--
Her husband's friend--her own--young--and a stranger.XCII.
She was, or thought she was, his friend--and this
Without the farce of Friendship, or romance
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss
Ladies who have studied Friendship but in France
Or Germany, where people _purely_ kiss.[nc]
To thus much Adeline would not advance;
But of such friendship as Man's may to Man be
She was as capable as Woman can be.XCIII.
No doubt the secret influence of the Sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex,
And tune the concord to a finer mood.[nd]
If free from Passion, which all Friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman Earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.XCIV.
Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of Change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term
Is shown through Nature's whole analogies;[728]
And how should the most fierce of all be firm?
Would you have endless lightning in the skies?
Methinks Love's very title says enough:
How should "the _tender_ passion" e'er be _tough?_XCV.
Alas! by all experience, seldom yet
(I merely quote what I have heard from many)
Had lovers not some reason to regret
The passion which made Solomon a zany.[ne]
I've also seen some wives (not to forget
The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.[nf]XCVI.
I've also seen some female _friends_[729] ('t is odd,[ng]
But true--as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,[nh]
At home, far more than ever yet was Love--
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod
Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,
Despite the snake Society's loud rattles.XCVII.
Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discussed hereafter, I opine:
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in _suspense_;
The surest way--for ladies and for books--
To bait their tender--or their tenter--hooks.XCVIII.
Whether they rode, or walked, or studied Spanish,
To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish;
Whether their talk was of the kind called "small,"
Or serious, are the topics I must banish
To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose, and display
Considerable talent in my way.XCIX.
Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter:
They'll only make mistakes about the fair,
And Juan, too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done, in this Epic Satire.
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin.C.
But great things spring from little:--Would you think,
That in our youth, as dangerous a passion
As e'er brought Man and Woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards[730]--
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.CI.
'T is strange,--but true; for Truth is always strange--
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the World would men behold!
How oft would Vice and Virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their Souls' antipodes.CII.
What "antres vast and deserts idle,"[731] then,
Would be discovered in the human soul!
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
With self-love in the centre as their Pole!
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!
Were things but only called by their right name,
Cæsar himself would be ashamed of Fame.[732]
FOOTNOTES:
[703] Fry. 23, 1814 (_sic_).--[MS.]
[704] [Compare--
"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be."
Tennyson's _In Memoriam_.]
{517}[705] [With this open mind with regard to the future, compare
Charles Kingsley's "reverent curiosity" (_Letters and Memoirs, etc._,
1883, p. 349).]
{518}[706] ["We usually try which way the wind bloweth, by casting up
grass or chaff, or such light things into the air."--Bacon's _Natural
History_, No. 820, _Works_, 1740, iii. 168.]
[707] ["The World was all before them." _Paradise Lost_, bk. xii. line
646.]
{519}[708]
["But why then publish?--Granville, the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write."
Pope, _Prologue to Satires_, lines 135, 136.]
{521}[709] [Virg., _Aen._, ii. 91 "(Haud ignota);" et _ibid._, line 6.]
[710] [Hor., _Od._ iii. 2. 26.]
{522}[mv]
_And though by no means overpowered with riches_,
_Would gladly place beneath it my last rag of breeches_.--[MS. erased.]
{524}[711] _Craning_.--"To _crane_" is, or was, an expression used to
denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, "to look
before he leaped;"--a pause in his "vaulting ambition," which in the
field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be
immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. "Sir, if you don't choose to
take the leap, let me!"--was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant
on again; and to good purpose: for though "the horse and rider" might
fall, they made a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the
field might follow.
{525}[mw]
_The sulky Huntsman grimly said "The Frenchman_
_Was almost worthy to become his henchman_."--[MS. erased.]
[mx]
_And what not--though he had ridden like a Centaur_
_When called next day declined the same adventure_.--[MS.]
[712] [Mr. W. Ernst, in his _Memoirs of the Life of Lord Chesterfield_,
1893 (p. 425, note 2), quotes these lines in connection with a
comparison between French and English sport, contained in a letter from
Lord Chesterfield to his son, dated June 30, 1751: "The French manner of
hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and boobies."
Elsewhere, however (_The World_, No. 92, October 3, 1754), commenting on
a remark of Pascal's, he admits "that the jolly sportsman ... improves
his health, at least, by his exercise."]
{526}[713]
[" ... as she skimm'd along,
Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung."
Dryden's _Virgil_ (_Aen._, vii. 1101, 1102).]
[714] [See _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]
[715] [Guido's fresco of the Aurora, "scattering flowers before the
chariot of the sun" is on a ceiling of the Casino in the Palazzo
Rospigliosi, in Rome.]
[716] [Byron described Count Alfred D'Orsay as having "all the airs of a
_Cupidon déchaîné_." See letters to Moore and the Earl of Blessington,
April 2, 1823, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 180, 185.]
{528}[717] In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think it is
mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered
by an universal Pylades: "When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's
Coffee-house, and take another." I recollect having heard an anecdote of
the same kind.--Sir W.D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the
Club of which he was a member, he was observed to look
melancholy.--"What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious
memory.--"Ah!" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D."--"Lost!
What at? Quinze or Hazard?" was the consolatory rejoinder of the
querist.
[The _dramatis personae_ are probably Sir William Drummond (1770--1828),
author of the _Academical Questions, etc._, and Francis Hare, the wit,
known as the "'Silent Hare,' from his extreme loquacity."--Gronow's
_Reminiscences_, 1889, ii. 98-101.]
{529}[my] _They own that you are fairly dished at last_.--[MS. erased.]
{531}[718] The famous Chancellor [Axel Oxenstiern (1583-1654)] said to
his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects
arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics: "You see
by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are
governed."
[The story is that his son John, who had been sent to represent him at
the Congress of Westphalia, 1648, wrote home to complain that the task
was beyond him, and that he could not cope with the difficulties which
he was encountering, and that the Chancellor replied, "Nescis, mi fili,
quantillâ prudentiâ homines regantur."--_Biographie Universelle_, art.
"Oxenstierna."]
{532}[mz] _Who are our sureties that our moral pure is_.--[MS. erased.]
{533}[na] And not to encourage whispering in the house.--[MS. erased.]
{535}[719] [Once upon a time, Tiresias, who was shepherding on Mount
Cyllene, wantonly stamped with his heel on a pair of snakes, and was
straightway turned into a woman. Seven years later he was led to treat
another pair of snakes in like fashion, and, happily or otherwise, was
turned back into a man. Hence, when Jupiter and Juno fell to wrangling
on the comparative enjoyments of men and women, the question was
referred to Tiresias, as a person of unusual experience and authority.
He gave it in favour of the woman, and Juno, who was displeased at his
answer, struck him with blindness. But Jupiter, to make amends, gave him
the "liberty of prophesying" for seven, some say nine, generations. (See
Ovid, _Metam._, iii. 320; and Thomas Muncker's notes on the _Fabulae_ of
Hyginus, No. lxxv. ed. 1681, pp. 126-128.)]
[720] [_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii. sc. i, line 168.]
{536}[721] See _La Nouvelle Héloïse_.
[722] Hor., _Epod._, II. line 1.
[723] [The Latin proverb, _Noscitur ex sociis_, is not an Horatian
maxim.]
{537}[nb] _I, therefore, deal in generals--which is wise_.--[MS.
erased.]
[724] [See Sheridan's _Critic_ ("Tilburina" _loq._), act iii. _s.f._]
{538}[725] [For "the coxcomb Czar ... the somewhat agéd youth," see _The
Age of Bronze_, lines 434-483, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 563, note 1.]
[726] [Compare _Sardanapalus_, act i. sc. 2, line 1, _ibid._, p. 15,
note 1.]
{539}[727] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxi. line 3,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 261, 300. note 17.]
{540}[nc]
_Or Germany--she knew nought of all this_
_Impracticable, novel-reading trance_.--[MS. erased.]
[nd]
_Even there--as in relationship will hold,
And make the feeling of a finer mood_.--[MS. erased.]
[728]
["These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die."
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii. sc. 6, lines 9, 10.]
{541}[ne]
_Alas! I quote experience--seldom yet
I had a paramour--and I've had many--
Whom I had not some reason to regret--
For whom I did not make myself a Zany_.--[MS.]
[nf]
_I also had a wife--not to forget_
_The marriage state--the best or worst of any,_
_Who was the very paragon of wives_
/ many \
_Yet made the misery of < both our > lives_.--[MS. erased.]
\ several /
[729] [Lady Holland, Lady Jersey, Madame de Staël, and before and above
all, his sister, Mrs. Leigh.]
[ng]
_I also had some female_ friends--_by G--d!_
_Or if the oath seem strong--I swear by Jove!_--[MS.]
[nh] _Who stuck to me_----.--[MS. erased.]
{542}[730] [Byron must have been among the first to naturalize the
French _milliard_ (a thousand millions), which was used by Voltaire.]
{543}[731] [_Othello_, act i. sc. 3, line 140.]
[732] B. March 4^th^ 1823.--[MS.]