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 learned 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 ail 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 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.

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 Æneids, 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 had 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 carly 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,

See Longinus, sec. 10,

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 all together,
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 ensured,
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 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 last 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

Fact. There is, or was, such an edition, with all the obnoxious epigrams of Martial placed by theiaselves at the end.

Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady, Her young philosopher was grown already.

L1.

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),

'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 everybody 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 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
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).

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.

LVIII.

This heathenish cross restored the breed again, Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh; For from a root the ugliest in old Spain

Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh:
The sons no more were short, the daughters plain
But there's a rumour, which I fain would hush,
'Tis said that Donna Julia's grandmamma
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.
LIX.

However this might be, the race went on
Improving still through every generation,
Until it centred in an only son,

Who left an only daughter: my narration
May have suggested that this single one
Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion
I shall have much to speak about), and she
Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

LX.

Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes)

Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire, And love than either; and there would arise, A something in them which was not desire, But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.

LXI.

Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow

Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting at times to a transparent glow,

As if her veins ran lightning: she, in sooth Possess'd an air and grace by no means common; Her stature tall-I hate a dumpy woman.

LXII.

Wedded she was some years, and to a man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE,
'Twere better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,
Especially in countries near the sun,

And now I think on't, 'mi vien in mente,
Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.

LXIII.

'Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,
And all the fault of that indecent sun,
Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,
But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
That howsoever people fast and pray,

The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone :
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.
LXIV.

Happy the nations of the moral North!

Where all is virtue, and the winter season