Imagination's quite enough for that: Adeline, no deep judge of character, Was apt to add a colouring from her own: 'Tis thus the good will amiably err, And eke the wise, as has been often shown. Experience is the chief philosopher, But saddest when his science is well known: And persecuted sages teach the schools Their folly in forgetting there are fools. XVIII. Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon? Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still,* Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken, And Thy pure creed made sanction of all ill? Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken, How was Thy toil rewarded? We might fill Volumes with similar sad illustrations, But leave them to the conscience of the nations. XIX. I perch upon an humbler promontory, With no great care for what is nicknamed glory, On what may suit, or may not suit, my story, I rattle on exactly as I'd talk With anybody in a ride or walk. XX. I don't know that there may be much ability Which may round off an hour upon a time. XXI. Omnia vult belle Matho dicere-dic aliquando The second may be sadly done or gaily; I As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean by Diviner still,' Christ. If ever God was man, or man God, He was both. never arraigned His creed, but the use, or abuse, made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation. But laissez aller-knights and dames I sing, (Keeping the due proportions still in sight) The difference is, that in the days of old, Men made the manners; manners now make men- Your writers, who must either draw again XXVII. We'll do our best to make the best on't: March, March, my Muse! if you cannot fly, yet flutter; And when you may not be sublime, be arch, Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter. We surely may find something worth research: Columbus found a new world in a cutter, Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage, While yet America was in her nonage, XXVIII. When Adeline, in all her growing sense Which is for innocence a sad temptationAs women hate half measures, on the whole, She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul, XXIX. She had a good opinion of advice, Like all who give and eke receive it gratis, She thought upon the subject twice or thrice, Juan replied, with all becoming deference, Next to the making matches for herself, And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin, But never yet (except of course a miss Observed as strictly, both at board and bed, Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage, Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes, Without those sad expenses which disparage What Nature naturally most encourages), Why call'd he' Harmony' a state sans wedlock? Now here I've got the preacher at a dead lock. XXXVI, Because he either meant to sneer at harmony Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly; But whether reverend Rapp learn'd this in Ger many Or not, 'tis said his sect is rich and godly, Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any Of ours, although they propagate more broadly. But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons, Of all the modest part of propagation; XXXVIII. Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't tell : I wish she had; his book's the eleventh commandment, Which says, 'Thou shalt not marry,' unless well! This he (as far as I can understand) meant. 'Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell, Nor canvass what 'so eminent a hand'* meant; But certes it conducts to lives ascetic, Or turning marriage into arithmetic. XXXIX. But Adeline, who probably presumed Or separate maintenance, in case 'twas doom'd- Of marriage (which might form a painter's fame, Like Holbein's Dance of Death-but 'tis the san:e): XL. But Adeline determined Juan's wedding In her own mind, and that's enough for woman: But then with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading, Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman, And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding. She deem'd his merits something more than common: like those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same month perhaps.' These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent writers on America. Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed to call his writers able pens, 'persens of honour,' and especially eminent hands.' Vide Correspondence, etc. All these were unobjectionable matches, XLI. There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea, Till skimm'd-and then there was some milk and water, With a slight shade of blue, too, it might be, Beneath the surface; but what did it matter? Love's riotous, but marriage should have quiet, And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet. XLII. And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring, And then there was--but why should I go on, Of the best class, and better than her class- O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass; A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded, A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded; XLIV. Rich, noble, but an orphan; left an only Child to the care of guardians good and kind; But still her aspect had an air so lonely! Blood is not water; and where shall we find Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie By death, when we are left, aias, behind, To feel in friendless palaces, a home Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb? XLV. Early in years, and yet more infantine In figure, she had something of sublime In eyes, which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine: All youth-but with an aspect beyond time: Radiant and grave-as pitying man's decline; Mournful-but mournful of another's crime; She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door, And grieved for those who could return no more, XLVI. She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere, Of deeds and days, when they had filled the ear XLVII. She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, There was awe in the homage which she drew: XLVIII. Now it so happen'd, in the catalogue Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted, Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue, Beyond the charmers we've already cited: Her beauty also seem'd to form no clog Against her being mention'd as well fitted By many virtues to be worth the trouble Of single gentlemen, who would be double. XLIX. And this omission, like that of the bust This he express'd, half smiling and half serious; When Adeline replied, with some disgust, And with an air, to say the least, imperious, She marvell'd 'what he saw in such a baby, As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby!' L. Juan rejoined, she was a Catholic, And therefore fittest, as of his persuasion; Since he was sure his mother would fall sick, And the Pope thunder excommunication, If But here Adeline, who seem'd to pique Herself extremely on the inoculation Of others with her own opinions, stated As usual-the same reason which she late did. And wherefore not? A reasonable reason, Convinces all men, even a politician; LII. Why Adeline had this slight prejudice- With all the added charm of form and feature, For me appears a question far too nice, Since Adeline was liberal by nature? Perhaps she did not like the quiet way With which Aurora on those baubles look'd, Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked, LIV. It was not envy-Adeline had none; Her place was far beyond it, and her mind: It was not scorn-which could not light on one Whose greatest fault was leaving few to find: It was not jealousy, I think; but shun Following the ignes fatui of mankind : It was not-- But 'tis easier far, alas, To say what it was not than what it was. LV. Little Aurora deem'd she was the theme Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest, Which flow'd on for a moment in the beam Time sheds a moment o'er each sparkling crest. Had she known this, she would have calmly She had so much, or little, of the child. [smiledLVI. The dashing and proud air of Adeline Imposed not upon her; she saw her blaze Much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine, Then turn'd unto the stars for loftier rays. Juan was something she could not divine, Being no sibyl in the new world's ways; Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor, Because she did not pin her faith on feature. LVII. His fame, too-for he had that kind of fame Which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame, Half virtues and whole vices being combined: Faults which attract because they are not tame; Follies trick'd out so brightly that they blind: These seals upon her wax made no impression, Such was her coldness or her self-possession. LVIII. Juan knew nought of such a character High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée: Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere. The island girl, bred up by the lone sea, More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere, Was Nature's all: Aurora could not be, Nor would be, thus: the difference in them Was such as lies between a flower and gem. LIX. Having wound up with this sublime comparison, Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative, And, as my friend Scott says, I sound my warison;' Scott, the superlative of my comparative— Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen, Serf, lord, man, with such skill as none would share it, if There had not been one Shakspeare and Voltaire, Of one or both of whom he seems the heir. L.X. I say, in my slight way I may proceed I write the world, nor care if the world read; Thought that it might turn out so-now I know it; LXI. The conference or congress (for it ended Great things were now to be achieved at table, Of modern dinners, where more mystery lurks In soups or sauces, or a sole ragout, Than witches, b-ches, or physicians brew? Those truffles, too, are no bad accessories, Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish; The mind is lost in mighty contemplation Requires arithmetic beyond my forces. resources, As form a science and a nomenclature, LXX. The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled; In the feast, pecking less than I can tell. Can't, like ripe age, in gourmandise excel; But thinks less of good eating than the whisper (When seated next him) of some pretty lisper. I.XXI. Alas! I must leave undescribed the gibier, way: I must not introduce even a spare-rib here: LXXII. And fruits, and ice, and all that art refines Your stomach: ere you dine, the French will do; transplantation of cherries (which he first brought into Europe), and the nomenclature of some very good dishes; and I am not sure that (barring indigestion) he has not done more service to mankind by his cookery than by his conquests. A cherry-tree may weigh against a bloody laurel: besides, he has contrived to earn celebrity from both. Petits puits d'amour garnis des confitures, a classical and well-known dish for part of the flank of A dish à la Lucullus. This hero, who conquered the East, has left his more extended celebrity to the [a second course. |