XXXIII.

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.

XXXIV.

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 decease,
He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.

XXXV.

Yet Jose was an honourable man,

well;

That I must say, who knew him very
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.

XXXVI.

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 harm 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.

XXXVII.

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.

XXXVIII.

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, He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a fortress-or a nunnery.

XXXIX.

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.

XL.

The languages, especially the dead,

The sciences, and most of all th' 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.

XLI.

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;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Eneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

XLII.

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."

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,
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, Till 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 make 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 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.

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 pair-
But 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) 'T is 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 't is 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,

If

And bit her lips (for else she might have scream'd) any said so; for to be precocious

Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.

LV.

Amongst 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
many charms in her as natural

Of

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).

LVI.

The darkness of her oriental eye

Accorded with her Moorish origin
(Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by;
In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin).
When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,
Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin
Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain,
Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.

LVII.

She married (I forget the pedigree)

With an hidalgo, who transmitted down
His blood less noble than such blood should be;
At such alliances his sires would frown,

In that point so precise in each degree

That they bred in and in, as might be shown, Marrying their cousins-nay, their aunts and nieces, Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.