Don Juan
Whose suicide was almost an anomaly—
One sad example more, that ‘All is vanity’
(The jury brought their verdict in ‘Insanity’).
In short, she was a walking calculation,
Miss Edgeworth’s novels stepping from their covers,
Or Mrs. Trimmer’s books on education,
Or ‘Coelebs’ 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.
O! 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!
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.
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.
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.
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;’
And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,
And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,
And why and wherefore no one understands.
’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 choose 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?
Don Jose and his lady quarrell’d—why,
Not any of the many could divine,
Though several thousand people chose to try,
’Twas surely no concern of theirs nor mine;
I loathe that low vice—curiosity;
But if there’s anything in which I shine,
’Tis in arranging all my friends’ affairs,
Not having of my own domestic cares.
And so I interfered, and with the best
Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;
I 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.
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 soundly whipp’d at home,
To teach him manners for the time to come.
Don Jose and the Donna Inez led
For some time 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 signs of inward strife,
Until at length the smother’d fire broke out,
And put the business past all kind of doubt.
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.
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.
And then this best and weakest 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!’
No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us,
Is philosophic in our former friends;
’Tis 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 ’tis not my fault, if others hurt you.
And if your 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.
Their friends had tried at reconciliation,
Then their relations, who made matters worse.
(’Twere hard to tell upon a like occasion
To whom it may be best to have recourse—
I 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.
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.
But, ah! he died; and buried with him lay
The public feeling 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 call’d the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.
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.
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 gods lay shiver’d round him:
No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
Save death or Doctors’ Commons—so he died.
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.
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 Aragon):
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.
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.
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.
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 bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Æneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort! of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.
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 Longinus tells us there is no hymn
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample:
But Virgil’s songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with ‘Formosum Pastor Corydon.’
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?
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,
Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;
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 all together,
Like garden gods—and not so decent either.
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.
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 ensured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
Which make the reader envy his transgressions.
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;