XLII.

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

I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example, Although3 Longinus tells us there is no hymn [ple; Where the sublime soars forth on wings more amBut Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with "Formosum pastor Corydon." XLIII.

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,
fill 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 made 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 among 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)
'Tis 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 'tis 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 "Verbum sat."
I think I pick'd up, too, as well as most,
Knowledge of matters-but, no matter what-
I 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.

Among 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 bow to Cupid, (But this last simile is trite and stupid.)

XCVIII.

This may seem strange, but yet 'tis very common; For instance-gentlemen, whose ladies take Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman,

And break the-which commandment is't they (I have forgot the number, and think no man [break? Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.)

I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous, They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.

XCIX.

A real husband always is suspicious,

But still no less suspects in the wrong place, Jealous of some one who had no such wishes, Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace, By harboring some dear friend extremely vicious; The last indeed's infallibly the case: And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly, He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.

C.

Thus parents also are at times shortsighted; Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover The while the wicked world beholds, delighted, Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover, Till some confounded escapade has blighted

The plan of twenty years, and all is over; And then the mother cries, the father swears, And wonders why the devil he got heirs.

CI.

But Inez was so anxious, and so clear

Of sight, that I must think on this occasion,
She had some other motive much more near
For leaving Juan to this new temptation;
But what that motive was, I shan't say here;
Perhaps to finish Juan's education,
Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes,
In case he thought his wife too great a prize.
CII.

It was upon a day, a summer's day;

Summer's indeed a very dangerous season, And so is spring about the end of May;

The sun no doubt, is the prevailing reason, But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say,

And stand convicted of more truth than treason, That there are months which nature grows more merry in ;

March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.

CIII.

'Twas on a summer's day-the sixth of June: I like to be particular in dates,

Not only of the age, and year, but moon;
They are a sort of posthouse, where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.

CIV.

'Twas on the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six-perhaps still nearer seven, "hen Julia sate within as pretty a bower

s ere held houri in that heathenish heaven
scribed by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,
'o whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
th all the trophies of triumphant song-
won them well, and may he wear them long.

CV.

She sate, but not alone; I know not well
How this same interview had taken place,
And even if I knew, I should not tell-
People should hold their tongues in any case-
No matter how or why the thing befell,

But there were she and Juan face to face-
When two such faces are so, 'twould be wise,
But very difficult, to shut their eyes.

CVI..

How beautiful she looked! ·her conscious heart Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong; Oh love! how perfect is thy mystic art, [strong, Strengthening the weak and trampling on the How self-deceitful is the sagest part

Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along; The precipice she stood on was immenseSo was her creed in her own innocence.

CVII.

She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth:
And of the folly of all prudish fears,
Victorious virtue, and domestic truth,

And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years:
I wish these last had not occurr'd, in sooth,
Because that number rarely much endears,
And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny,
Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.

CVIII.

When people say, "I've told you fifty times,"
They mean to scold, and very often do;
When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes,"
They make you dread that they'll recite them too;
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes;
At fifty, love for love is rare, 'tis true;
But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,
A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.
CIX.

Julia had honor, virtue, truth and love,
For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,
By all the vows below to powers above,

She never would disgrace the ring she wore,
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove :

And while she ponder'd this, besides much more, One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown, Quite by mistake--she thought it was her own;

CX.

Unconsciously she lean'd upon the other,
Which play'd within the tangles of her hair;
And to contend with thoughts she could not smother,
She seem'd, by the distraction of her air.
'Twas surely very wrong in Juan's mother

To leave together this imprudent pair,
She who for many years had watch'd her son so-
I'm very certain mine would not have done so

CXI.

The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees
Gently, but palpably, confirm'd its grasp,
As if it said "detain me, if you please;"
Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze:

She would have shrunk as from a toad or asp,
Had she imagined such a thing could rouse
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.