XXXII.

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;
'Tis also subject to the double danger
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange

Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger; But Juan had been early taught to range,

The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger, So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack, Knew that he had a rider on his back.

XXXIII.

And now in this new field, with some applause,

He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail, And never craned, and made but few « faux pas,» And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail. He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws Of hunting-for the sagest youth is frail; Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then, And once o'er several country gentlemen. XXXIV.

But, on the whole, to general admiration

He acquitted both himself and horse: the 'squires Marvell'd at merit of another nation:

The boors cried « Dang it! who'd have thought it ?»Sires,

The Nestors of the sporting generation,

Swore praises, and recall'd their former fires;
The huntsman's self relented to a grin,
And rated him almost a whipper-in.

XXXV.

Such were his trophies ;-not of spear and shield,
But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes;
Yet I must own,-although in this I yield

To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes,-
He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,

Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes, And what not, though be rode beyond all price, Ask'd, next day, «if men ever hunted twice?» XXXVI.

He also had a quality uncommon

To early risers after a long chase,

Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon
December's drowsy day to his dull race,-
A quality agreeable to woman,

When her soft, liquid words run on apace,
Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner,-
He did not fall asleep just after dinner.
XXXVII.

But, light and airy, stood on the alert,

And shone in the best part of dialogue,
By humouring always what they might assert,
And listening to the topics most in vogue;
Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;
And smiling but in secret-cunning rogue!
He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer;
In short, there never was a better hearer.

XXXVIII.

And then he danced;-all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the eloquence
Of pantomime; -he danced, I say, right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense---

A thing in footing indispensable:

He danced without theatrical pretence,

Not like a ballet-master in the van

Of his drill d nymphs, but like a gentleman.

ΧΧΧΙΧ.

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,
And rather held in than put forth his vigour;
And then he had an ear for music's sound,

Which might defy a crotchet-critic's rigour.
Such classic pas-sans flaws-set off our hero,
He glanced like a personified bolero;

XL.

Or, like a flying hour before Aurora,

In Guido's famous fresco, which alone Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a Remnant were there of the old world's sole throne. The « tout ensemble » of his movements wore a Grace of the soft ideal, seldom shown, And ne'er to be described; for, to the dolour Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour. XLI.

No marvel then he was a favourite;

A full-grown Cupid, very much admired;
A little spoil'd, but by no means so quite;
At least he kept his vanity retired.
Such was his tact, he could alike delight

The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired. The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved « tracasserie,» Began to treat him with some small « agaçerie.»

XLII.

She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,
Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated
For several winters in the grand, grand monde.
I'd rather not say what might be related
Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;
Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:
Her late performance had been a dead set
At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,

XLIII.

This noble personage began to look

A little black upon this new flirtation; But such small licenses must lovers brook, Mere freedoms of the female corporation. Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke! T will but precipitate a situation Extremely disagreeable, but common To calculators when they count on woman.

XLIV.

The circle smiled, then whisper'd, and then sneer'd;
The Misses bridled, and the matrons frown'd;
Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear'd;
Some would not deem such women could be found;
Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard;

Some look'd perplex'd, and others look'd profound;
And several pitied with sincere regret
Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

XLV.

But what is odd, none ever named the duke,
Who, one might think, was something in the affair.
True, he was absent, and 't was rumour'd, took
But small concern about the when, or where,
Or what his consort did: if he could brook
Her gaieties, none had a right to stare:
Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt,
Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out.

XLVI.

But, oh that I should ever pen so sad a line!
Fired with an abstract love of virtue, she,
My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline,

Began to think the duchess' conduct free; Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line, And waxing chiller in her courtesy,

Look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,
For which most friends reserve their sensibility.
XLVII.

There's nought in this bad world like sympathy:
'T is so becoming to the soul and face;
Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,

And robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.
Without a friend, what were humanity,

To hunt our errors up with a good grace? Consoling us with—« Would you had thought twice! Ah! if you had but follow'd my advice! »

XLVIII.

Oh, Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough, Especially when we are ill at ease;

They are but bad pilots when the weather 's rough, Doctors less famous for their cures than fees. Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,

As they will do like leaves at the first breeze: When your affairs come round, one way or t' other, Go to the coffee-house, and take another. 2

XLIX.

But this is not my maxim: had it been,

Some heart-aches had been spared me; yet I care not— I would not be a tortoise in his screen

Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not. 'T is better on the whole to have felt and seen That which humanity may bear, or bear not: 'T will teach discernment to the sensitive, And not to pour their ocean in a sieve. L.

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, «I told you so,»

Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst « bonos mores,»
With a long memorandum of old stories.

LI.

The Lady Adeline's serene severity

Was not confined to feeling for her friend,
Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity,
Unless her habits should begin to mend ;
But Juan also shared in her austerity,
But mix'd with pity, pure as e'er was penn'd:

His inexperience moved her gentle ruth,
And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth.

LII.

These forty days' advantage of her years-
And hers were those which can face calculation,
Boldly referring to the list of peers,

And noble births, nor dread the enumeration

Gave her a right to have maternal fears

For a young gentleman's fit education,

Though she was far from that leap-year, whose leap, In female dates, strikes time all of a heap.

LIII.

This may be fix'd at somewhere before thirty-
Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew

The strictest in chronology and virtue

Advance beyond, while they could pass for new. Oh, time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew. Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower, If but to keep thy credit as a mower.

LIV.

But Adeline was far from that ripe age,
Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best:
"T was rather her experience made her sage,
For she had seen the world, and stood its test,
As I have said in-I forget what page;

My muse despises reference, as you have guess'd
By this time; but strike six from seven-and-twenty,
And you will find her sum of years in plenty.

LV.

At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,
She put all coronets into commotion:
At seventeen too the world was still enchanted
With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean:
At eighteen, though below her feet still panted
A hecatomb of suitors with devotion,
She had consented to create again

That Adam, call'd « the happiest of men.>>

LVI.

Since then she had sparkled through three glowing! winters,

Admired, adored; but also so correct,

That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters,
Without the apparel of being circumspect;
They could not even glean the slightest splinters
From off the marble, which had no defect.
She had also snatch'd a moment since her marriage
To bear a son and heir-and one miscarriage.

LVII.

Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her,
Those little glitterers of the London night;
But none of these possess'd a sting to wound ber—
She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight.
Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder,

But, whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right;
And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify
A woman, so she's good, what does it signify'
LVIII.

I hate a motive like a lingering bottle,

Which with the landlord makes too long a stand Leaving all claretless the unmoisten'd throttle. Especially with politics on hand;

I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle,

Who whirl the dust as Simooms whirl the sand

I hate it, as I hate an argument,

A laureate's ode, or servile peer's « content.»
LIX.

'Tis sad to hack into the roots of things,

They are so much intertwisted with the earth So that the branch a goodly verdure things. I reck not if an acorn gave it birth. To trace all actions to their secret springs Would make indeed some melancholy inirth But this is not at present my concern, And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern 3

LX.
With the kind view of saving an eclat,
Both to the duchess and diplomatist,
The Lady Adeline, as soon 's she saw
That Juan was unlikely to resist―
(For foreigners don't know that a faux pas
In England ranks quite on a different list
From those of other lands, unbless'd with juries,
Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is)—
LXI.

The Lady Adeline resolved to take

Such measures as she thought might best impede The further progress of this sad mistake.

She thought with some simplicity indeed;
But innocence is bold even at the stake,
And simple in the world, and doth not need
Nor use those palisades by dames erected,
Whose virtue lies in never being detected.
LXII.

It was not that she fear'd the very worst:
His grace was an enduring, married man,
And was not likely all at once to burst

Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan
Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded first
The magic of her grace's talisman,
And next a quarrel (as he seem'd to fret)
With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

LXIII.

Her grace too pass'd for being an intrigante,

And somewhat méchante in her amorous sphere; One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt A lover with caprices soft and dear, That like to make a quarrel, when they can't Find one, each day of the delightful year; Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow, And what is worst of all-won't let you go:

LXIV.

The sort of thing to turn a young man's head,
Or make a Werter of him in the end.
No wonder then a purer soul should dread
This sort of chaste liaison for a friend;
It were much better to be wed or dead,

Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend.
'T is best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,
If that a «bonne fortune» be really «bonne.»
LXV.

And first, in the o'erflowing of her heart,

Which really knew or thought it knew no guile, She call'd her husband now and then apart,

And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art

To wean Don Juan from the siren's wile;

And answer'd, like a statesman or a prophet,
In such guise that she could make nothing of it.
LXVI.

Firstly, he said, he never interfered

In any body's business but the king's :» Next, that << he never judged from what appear'd, Without strong reason, of those sorts of things :>> Thirdly, that « Juan had more brain than beard, And was not to be held in leading-strings;» And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice, « That good but rarely came from good advice.»

LXVII.

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth
Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse
To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth,
At least as far as bienséance allows:
That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;
That young men rarely made monastic vows;
That opposition only more attaches--
But here a messenger brought in dispatches:

LXVIII.

And being of the council call'd « the privy,»
Lord Henry walk'd into his cabinet,
To furnish matter for some future Livy

To tell how he reduced the nation's debt;
And if their full contents I do not give ye,
It is because I do not know them yet,
But I shall add them in a brief appendix,
To come between mine epic and its index.
LXIX.

But ere he went, he added a slight hint,

Another gentle common-place or two, Such as are coin'd in conversation's mint,

And pass, for want of better, though not new: Then broke his packet, to see what was in 't,

And having casually glanced it through, Retired; and, as he went out, calmly kiss'd her, Less like a young wife than an aged sister. LXX.

He was a cold, good, honourable man,

Proud of his birth, and proud of every thing; A goodly spirit for a state divan,

A figure fit to walk before a king;
Tall, stately, form'd to lead the courtly van

On birth-days, glorious with a star and string; The very model of a chamberlain

And such I mean to make him when I reign.

LXXI.

But there was something wanting on the whole-
I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell-
Which pretty women-the sweet souls!-call soul.
Certes it was not body; he was well
Proportion'd, as a poplar or a pole,

A handsome man, that human miracle;
And in each circumstance of love or war
Had still preserved his perpendicular.

LXXII.

Still there was something wanting, as I've said--
That undefinable «je ne sais quoi,»
Which, for what I know, may of yore have led
To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed;
Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy
Was much inferior to King Menelaus ;—
But thus it is some women will betray us.

LXXIII.

There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,
Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved

By turns the difference of the several sexes:
Neither can show quite how they would be loved.
The sensual for a short time but connects us-
The sentimental boasts to be unmoved;
But both together form a kind of centaur,
Upon whose back 't is better not to venture.

Adam exchanged his paradise for ploughing;
Eve made up millinery with fig-leaves-
The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing,
As far as I know, that the church receives:
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
That many of the ills o'er which man grieves,
And still more women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.
LXXIX.

And hence high life is oft a dreary void,

A rack of pleasures, where we must invent A something wherewithal to be annoy'd. Bards may sing what they please about content; Contented, when translated, means but cloy'd; And hence arise the woes of sentiment, Blue devils, and blue-stockings, and romances Reduced to practice, and perform'd like dances.

LXXX.

I do declare, upon an affidavit,

Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen; Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it, Would some believe that such a tale had been: But such intent I never had, nor have it;

Some truths are better kept behind a screen, Especially when they would look like lies; I therefore deal in generalities.

Our gentle Adeline had one defect

Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion; Her conduct had been perfectly correct,

As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.

A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd,

Because 't is frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one; But when the latter works its own undoing, Its inner crash is like an earthquake's ruin.

LXXXVI.

She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sysiphus, if once we move

Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble,-conjugal but cold.
LXXXVII.

There was no great disparity of years,

Though much in temper; but they never clash d: They moved like stars united in their spheres, Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd, Where mingled and yet separate appears

The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd Through the serene and placid glassy deep, Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.

LXXXVIII.

Now, when she once had ta'en an interest
In any thing, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best,

Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guess'd,
And gather'd as they ran, like growing water,
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impress'd.

LXXXIX.

But when it was, she had that lurking demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named—
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,

Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:-
And 't will perplex the casuists in morality,
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.
XC.

Had Bonaparte won at Waterloo,

It had been firmness; now 't is pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?

I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e'er be drawn by man's capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.

XCI.

She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:

She merely felt a common sympathy

(I will not say it was a false or true one)

In him, because she thought he was in danger-
Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger.

XCII.

She was, or thought she was, his friend-and this
Without the farce of friendship, or romance

Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss

Ladies who have studied friendship but in France, Or Germany, where people purely kiss.

To thus much Adeline would not advance; But of such friendship as man's may to man be, She was as capable as woman can be.

XCIII.

No doubt the secret influence of the sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,

An innocent predominance annex,

And tune the concord to a finer mood.

If free from passion, which all friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.
XCIV.

Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term

Is shown through nature's whole analogies: And how should the most fierce of all be firm?

Would you have endless lightning in the skies? Methinks love's very title says enough:

How should the tender passion» e'er be tough?

XCV.

Alas! by all experience, seldom yet

(I merely quote what I have heard from many) Had lovers not some reason to regret

The passion which made Solomon a Zany.
I've also seen some wives (not to forget

The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.
XCVI.

I've also seen some female friends ('t is odd,
But true-as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were, through thick and thin, abroad,
At home, far more than ever yet was love—
Who did not quit me when oppression trod
Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence too, my battles,
Despite the snake society's loud rattles.

XCVII.

Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine:

At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense;
The surest way for ladies and for books
To bait their tender or their tenter hooks.

XCVIII.

Whether they rode, or walk'd, or studied Spanish,
To read Don Quixote in the original,

A pleasure before which all others vanish;
Whether their talk was of the kind call'd « small,»>

Or serious, are the topics I must banish

To the next canto; where, perhaps, I shall
Say something to the purpose, and display
Considerable talent in my way.

XCIX.
Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter:
They'll only make mistakes about the fair,
And Juan too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done in this epic satire.

It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin.

C.

But great things spring from little-would you think,
That, in our youth, as dangerous a passion

As e'er brought man and woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion

As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards-
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.

CI.

Tis strange-but true; for truth is always strange,
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their soul's antipodes.