And then this best and meekest 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 our 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 lawyer's 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 asked the doctors after his disease,
He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian,
And left his widow to her own exertion.
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 Doctor's 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 Arragon.) Then for accomplishments of chivalry,

In case our lord the king should go to war again,
IIe learned 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 anything 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 boddices; IIis 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,
Then only add them all in an appendix,
Which saves in fact the trouble of an index :

For there we have them all 66 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 insured, 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; 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 lifeI recommend as much to every wife.

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.

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 amongst 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.
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-assorted pair-
But scandal's my aversion--I protest
Against all evil speaking, even in jest.
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. 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 whatI never married-but, I think, I know

That sons should not be educated so,