But coming young from lands and scenes romantic, [Passion,

Seem'd to him half commercial, half pedantic,
Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation:
Besides (alas! his taste-forgive and pity)
At first, he did not think the women pretty.

LXIX.

I say, at first-for he found out, at last,
But by degrees, that they were fairer far
Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast
Beneath the influence of the eastern star.
A further proof we should not judge in haste:
Yet inexperience could not be his bar
To taste :-The truth is, if men would confess,
That novelties please less than they impress.

LXX.

Though travell'd, I have never had the luck to Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger, To that impracticable place, Timbuctoo, Where Geography finds no one to oblige her With such a chart as may be safely stuck to

For Europe ploughs in Afric like bos piger. But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there, No doubt, I should be told that black is fair. LXXI.

It is. I will not swear that black is white; But I suspect, in fact, that white is black, And the whole matter rests upon eyesight. Ask a blind man, the best judge. You'll attack. Perhaps, this new position-but I'm right;

Or, if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en aback :He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark Within; and what seest thou? A dubious spark.

LXXII.

But I'm relapsing into metaphysics,

That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics. Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame:

And this reflection brings me to plain physics, And to the beauties of a foreign dame, Compared with those of our pure pearls of price, Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.

LXXIII.

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes.Not that there's not a quantity of those

Who have a due respect for their own wishes Like Russians running from hot baths to sncas

Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious: They warm into a scrape, but keep of course, As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

LXXIV.

But this has nought to do with their outsides. I said that Juan did not think them pretty

The Russians, as is well known, run out from there

which it seems does them no harm.

Is not to be put hastily together;

And as my object is morality

(Whatever people say), I don't know whether I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry,

But harrow up his feelings, till they wither; And hew out a huge monument of pathos, As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.*

LXXXVII.

Here the twelfth canto of our introduction
Ends. When the body of the book's begun,
You'll find it of a different construction [done:
From what some people say 'twill be, when
The plan at present's simply in concoction.

I can't oblige you, reader, to read on :
That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit [it.
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear

Remember, reader! you have had before The worst of tempests and the best of battles,

That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore, Besides the most sublime of-Heaven knows

what else:

An usurer could scarce expect much moreBut my best canto, save one on astronomy, Will turn upou 'political economy."

LXXXIX.

That is your present theme for popularity: Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake. It grows an act of patriotic charity

To show the people the best way to break. My plan (but I, if but for singularity, Reserve it) will be very sure to take. Meantime, read all the national-debt sinkers, And tell me what you think of our great thinkers.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville

('Tis an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees, by those who wander still

Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,

And beauteous even where beauties most abound,

The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a pla

woman.

IV.

And, after that serene and somewhat dull

Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd, for days More quiet, when our moon's no more at fuli, Because indifference begins to lull We may presume to criticize or praise;

Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint that 'tis time to give the younger place.

v.

I know that some would fain postpone this era, Reluctant, as all placemen, to resign

Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera, For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line;

The goodliest soil of body and of mind.

III.

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue;

I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best; An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue Is no great matter, so 'tis in request : 'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hueThe kindest may be taken as a test.

A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and I believe a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander is gone, and Athos remains. I trust ere long to look over a nation

of freemen

To irrigate the dryness of decline; And county meetings, and the Parliament, And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.

VI.

And is there not religion and reform, Peace, war, the taxes, and what's call'd the 'Nation'?

The struggle to be pilots in a storm?

The landed and the money'd speculation? The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm,

Instead of love, that mere hallucination/ Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure: Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

VII.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd,
Right honestly, he liked an honest hater!'*.
The only truth that yet has been confest
Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest :-
For my part, I am but a mere spectator;
And gaze where'er the palace of the hovel is,
Much in the mood of Goethe's Mephistopheles;

VIII.

But neither love nor hate in much excess;
Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer some-
It is because I cannot well do less, [times,
And now and then it also suits my rhymes.
I should be very willing to redress [crimes,

Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish
Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

IX.

Of all tales 'tis the saddest-and more sad
Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,
And still pursues the right;-to curb the bad
His only object; and gainst odds to fight,
His guerdon: 'tis his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;-
A sorrier still is the great moral taught,
By that real epic, unto all who have thought.
X.

Redressing injury, revenging wrong,

To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong,

From foreign yoke to free the helpless native: Alas! must noblest views, like an old song,

Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thick and thin sought!

And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?

XI.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away:

A single laugh demolish'd the right arm Of his own country :-seldom, since that day, Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,

The world gave ground before her bright array; And therefore have his volumes done such That all their glory, as a composition, [harm, Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.

XII.

I'm at my old lunes'-digression, and forget
The Lady Adeline Amundeville;
The fair most fatal Juan ever met,

Although she was not evil, nor meant ill;
But Destiny and Passion spread the net

(Fate is a good excuse for our own will), And caught them;-what do they not catch methinks?

But I'm not Edipus, and Life's a Sphinx.

'Sir, I like a good hater.'-See the Life of Dr Johnson,

XIII.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare

To venture a solution: Davus sum l' And now I will proceed upon the pair.

Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum, Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that's fair; Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb:

The last's a miracle, and such was reckon'd; And since that time there has not been a second.

XIV.

Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation,
And wedded unto one she had loved well-

A man known in the councils of the nation,
Cool, and quite English, imperturbable,
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion,

Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against either, and both seem'd secureShe in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

XV.

It chanced some diplomatical relations,
Arising out of business, often brough
Himself and Juan, in their mutual stations,
Into close contact. Though reserved, nor
caught

By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience,
And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought,
And formed a basis of esteem, which ends
In making men what courtesy calls friends.

XVI.

And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as

Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow

In judging men, when once his judgment was Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe, Had all the pertinacity pride has,

Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided, Because its own good pleasure hath decided.

XVII.

His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions, Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but

more

His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before.

[tians, His feelings had not those strange fits, like terOf common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at-the mere ague still Of men's regard, the fever or the chill.

XVIII.

'Tis not in mortals to command success, [it;' But do you more, Sempronius-don't deserve And, take my word, you won't have any less. Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it;

⚫ [Davus sum, non dipus.-TER.]

As in freemasonry a higher brother. Upon his talent Henry had no doubts;

XIX.

Lord Henry, also, liked to be superior,

As most men do, the little or the great: The very lowest find out an inferior,

:

[ing.

At least they think so, to exert their state Upon for there are very few things wearier Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight, Which mortals generously would divide, By bidding others carry while they ride.

His manners show'd him sprung from a high mother:

And all men like to show their hospitality To him whose breeding matches with his quality.

XXV.

At Blank-Blank Square-for we will break no squares,

By naming streets: since men are so censorious, And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares, Reaping allusions private and inglorious, Where none were dreamt of, unto love's affairs, Which were, or are, or are to be, notorious, That therefore do I previously declare, Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.

XXVI.

Also there bin * another pious reason

For making squares and streets anonymous; Which is, that there is scarce a single season Which doth not shake some very splend house [sonWith some slight heart-quake of domestic trea A topic scandal doth delight to rouse : Unless I knew the very chastest squares. Such I might stumble over unawares,

XXVII.

'Tis true, I might have chosen Piccadilly, A place where peccadillos are unknown; But I have motives, whether wise or silly,

For letting that pure sanctuary alone. Therefore I name not square, street, place, unti Find one where nothing naughty can be shown, A vestal shrine of innocence of heart: Such are

but I have lost the London Chart.

XXVIII.

At Henry's mansion, then, in Blank-Blank Square,

Was Juan a recherché, welcome guest, As many other noble scions were;

And some who had but talent for their crest; Or wealth, which is a passport everywhere;

Or even mere fashion, which indeed's the best Recommendation; and to be well drest Will very often supersede the rest.

XXIX.

And since there's safety in a multitude
Of counsellors,' as Solomon hath said,
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave
mood;-

Indeed, we see the daily proof display'd,
In senates, at the bar, in wordy feud,

Where'er collective wisdom can parade, Which is the only course, that we can guess, Of Britain's present wealth and happiness.

With everything that pretty him,
My lady sweet, arise.-SHAKSFEARE,