Who has not seen it will be much to pity,

So says the proverb(1)—and I quite agree;
Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
Cadiz perhaps but that you soon may see:—
Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,
A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.
IX.

His father's name was José-Don, of course,
A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
Though the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;
A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,

Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,
Than José, who begot our hero, who
Begot-but that's to come-Well, to renew:

X.

His mother was a learned lady, famed

For every branch of every science known-
In every Christian language ever named,

With virtues equall'd by her wit alone,
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.
XI.

Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart
All Calderon and greater part of Lopé,
So that if any actor miss'd his part

She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were a useless art, (2)

And he himself obliged to shut up shop-he
Could never make a memory so fine as
That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez. (3)
XII.

Her favourite science was the mathematical, (4)
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,

Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity; (5)
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
A prodigy-her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling.
XIII.

She knew the Latin-that is, "the Lord's prayer,"
And Greek-the alphabet-I'm nearly sure;
She read some French romances here and there,
Although her mode of speaking was not pure;
For native Spanish she had no great care,
At least her conversation was obscure;
Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem,
As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'em.
XIV.

She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,
And said there was analogy between 'em;
She proved it somehow out of sacred song, ['em,

But I must leave the proofs to those who've seen But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong, ['em, And all may think which way their judgments lean "Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means ‘I The English always use to govern d—n.”

XV.

[am,'

Some women use their tongues-she look'd a lec

ture,

Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily, An all-in-all-sufficient self-director,

Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly, (6) The law's expounder, and the State's corrector, Whose suicide was almost an anomaly— One sad example more, that " All is vanity,”— (The jury brought their verdict in "Insanity.") XVI.

In short, she was a walking calculation, [vers, (7) Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their co

(2) Professor Feinagle, of Baden, who, in 1812, under the especial patronage of the “Blues,” delivered a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, on Mnemonics.-E.

(5) "In the characters of Donna Inez and Don José, it has been imagined that Lord Byron has sketched himself and his lady. It may be so; he had by that time got pretty well over the lacrymation of their parting." Galt.

(4)"Lady Byron has good ideas, but could never express them; wrote poetry also, but it was only good by accident. Her letters were always enigmatical, often unintelligible. She was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles, squared mathematically." Lord B.

(5) In the MS.

"Little she spoke-but what she spoke was Attic all, With words and deeds in perfect unanimity."—E.

if I should not live to see it. I have at least seen Romilly shivered, who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms -when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them-when he was bringing desolation on my household gods-did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event-a severe, domes tic, but an expected and common calamity-would lay bis carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of lunacy! Did he (who in his sexagenary ) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been, when wife, and child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar,-and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment-while I was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs! But he is in his grave," etc. -B. Letters, 7th June, 1819.

(7) Maria Edgeworth, author of Treatise on Practical Educalion, Letters for Literary Ladies, Castle Rackrent, Moral Tales, etc. etc. etc.-"In 1815," says Lord Byron, “I recollect to have met Miss Edgeworth in the fashionable world of London,

Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education, (1)

Or "Cœlebs' Wife" (2) set out in quest of lovers, Morality's prim personification,

In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; Te others' share let "female errors fall," For she had not even one-the worst of all. XVII.

Oh! she was perfect past all parallel

Of any modern female saint's comparison; So far above the cunning powers of hell,

Her guardian angel had given up his garrison; Even her minutest motions went as well

As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison: In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar! (3)

XVIII.

Perfect she was, but as perfection is
Insipid in this naughty world of ours,
Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss
Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,
Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss (4)
(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),
Don José, like a lineal son of Eve,
Went plucking various fruit without her leave.
XIX.

He was a mortal of the careless kind,

With no great love for learning, or the learn'd, Who chose to go where'er he had a mind,

And never dream'd his lady was concern'd;
The world, as usual, wickedly inclined

To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd,
Whisper'd he had a mistress, some said two,
But for domestic quarrels one will do.
XX.

Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,

A great opinion of her own good qualities ; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,

And such, indeed, she was in her moralities; (5) But then she had a devil of a spirit,

And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realitics, And let few opportunities escape

Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.

XXI.

This was an easy matter with a man

Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard;

in the assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry Davy, to which I was invited for the nonce. She was a nice little unassuming 'Jeannie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch say; and, if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed. she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if be could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing." B. Diary, 1821.

(1) Comparative View of the New Plan of Education, Teacher's Assistant, etc. elċ.

(2) Miss Hannah More's Calebs in Search of a Wife; comprehending Observations on Domestic Manners, etc.—a sermon

And even the wisest, do the best they can,

Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might "brain them with their lady's fan; " (6)

And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. XXII.

'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed

With persons of no sort of education,
Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred,
Grow tired of scientific conversation :

I don't choose to say much upon this head,
I'm a plain man, and in a single station,
But-Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
XXIII.

Don José and his lady quarrell'd-why,
Not any of the many could divine,
Though several thousand people chose to try,

'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine; I loathe that low vice-curiosity:

But if there's any thing in which I shine, 'T is in arranging all my friends' affairs, Not having, of my own, domestic cares. XXIV.

And so I interfered, and with the best

Intentions, but their treatment was not kind; I think the foolish people were possess'd, For neither of them could I ever find, Although their porter afterwards confess'dBut that's no matter, and the worst's behind, For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs, A pail of housemaid's water unawares.

Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead; (1)
They lived respectably as man and wife,
Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred,

And gave no outward signs of inward strife,
Until at length the smother'd fire broke out,
And put the business past all kind of doubt. (2)
XXVII.

For Inez call'd some druggists, and physicians, And tried to prove her loving lord was mad, (3) But as he had some lucid intermissions,

She next decided he was only bad; Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions, No sort of explanation could be had, Save that her duty both to man and God Required this conduct-which seem'd very odd.

XXVIII.

She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,
And open'd certain trunks of books and letters,
All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;
And then she had all Seville for abettors,
Besides her good old grandmother (who doted);
The hearers of her case became repeaters,
Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,
Some for amusement, others for old grudges.

XXIX.

And then this best and meekest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes,

(1) In the MS.

was,

"Wishing each other damn'd, divorced, or dead.”—E. (2) "Lady Byron had left London at the latter end of January, on a visit to her father's house in Leicestershire, and Lord Byron in a short time after, to follow her. They had parted in the utmost kindness, she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road, and, immediately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory, her father wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. At the time when he had to stand this unexpected shock, his pecuniary embarrassments, which had beer fast gathering around him during the whole of the past year, had arrived at their utmost." Moore.

(3) “I was surprised one day by a doctor (Dr. Baillie.) and a lawyer (Dr. Lushington) almost forcing themselves at the same time into my room. I did not know till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent: but what should I have thought, if I had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity! I have no doubt that my answers to these emissaries were not very rational or consistent, for my imagination was heated with other things. But Dr. Baillie could not con

The facts are:-left London for Kirkby Mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the 15th of January, 1816. Lord Byron had signified to me in writing (Jan. 6th) his absolute desire that I should leave London on the earliest day that I could conveniently fix. It was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the 15th. Previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind, that Lord Byron was under the influence of insanity. This opinion was derived in a great measure from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. It was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. With the concurrence of his family. I had consulted Dr. Baillie as a friend Jan. 8th) respecting this supposed malady. On acquainting him with the state of the case, and with Lord Byron's desire that I should leave London, Dr. Baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derange

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!"
XXX.

No doubt this patience, when the world is damning
Is philosophic in our former friends; [us.
'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 't is not my fault if others hurt you.
XXXI.

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 And science profits by this resurrection— [all: Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection. XXXII.

Their friends (4) had tried at reconciliation, (5) Then their relations,(6) who made matters worse. scientiously make me out a çertificate for Bedlam; and perhaps the lawyer gave a more favourable report to his employers. I do not, however, tax Lady Byron with this transaction; probably she was not privy to it. She was the tool of others. Her mother always detested me, and had not even the decency to conceal it in her house."+ Lord. B.

(4) Mr. Rogers, Mr. Hobhouse, etc. etc.-E. (8) In the MS.

First, their friends tried at reconciliation."-E. (6) The Right Honourable R. Wilmot Hor:on, etc. The following is from a fragment of a novel written by Lord Byron in 1817:-"A few hours afterwards, we were very good friends; and a few days after she set out for Aragon, with my son, on a visit to her father and mother. I did not accompany her immediately, having been in Aragon before, but was to join the family in their Moorish château within a few weeks. During her journey, I received a very affectionate letter from Donna Josepha, apprising me of the welfare of herself and my son. On her arrival at the château, I received another, still more affeetionate, pressing me, in very fond and rather foolish terms, to join her immediately. As I was preparing to set out from Sement; for Dr. Baillie, not having had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. He enjoined that, in correspondence with Lord Byron, I should avoid all but light and soothing topics. Under these impressions, I left London, determined to follow the advice given by Dr. Baillie."-Lady Byron, My mother always treated Lord B. with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. Never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him." Lady Byron.-E.

On the other hand, in Medwin's Conversations, Lord Byron says: "Dining one day at sir Ralph's (who was a good sort of man, and of whom you may form some idea when I tell you that a leg of mutton was always served at his table that he might cut the same joke upon it), I broke a tooth, and was in great pain, which I could not avoid showing. It will do you good,' said Lady Nocl, I ani glad of it!' I gave her a look!"—E.

("T were 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, (1)
But scarce a fee was paid on either side
Before unluckily, Don José died.

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

XXXV.

Yet José 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:

I

ville I received a third-this was from her father, Don José dí Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest manner, to dissolve my marriage. I answered him with equal politeness, that I would do no such thing. A fourth letter arrived-it was from Donna Josepha, in which she informed me that her father's letter was written by her particular desire. I requested the reason, by return of post: she replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with the matter, it was unnecessary to give any-but that she was an injured and excellent woman. then inquired why she had written to me the two preceding affectionate letters, requesting me to come to Aragon. She answered, that was because she believed me out of my sensesthat, being unfit to take care of myself, I had only to set out on this journey alone, and, making my way without difficulty to Don José di Cardozo's, I should there have found the tenderest of wives and a strait waistcoat. I had nothing to reply to this piece of affection, but a reiteration of my request for some lights upon the subject. I was answered, that they would only be related to the inquisition. In the mean time, our domestic discrepancy had become a public topic of discussion; and the world, which always decides justly, not only in Aragon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to blame, but that all Spain could produce nobody so blameable. My case was supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, and several which could not, be committed; and little less than an auto-da-fé was anticipated as the result. But let no man say that we are abandoned by our friends in adversity-it was just the reverse. Mine thronged around me to condemn, advise, and console me with their disapprobation. They told me all that was, would, or could be said on the subject. They shook their heads-they exhorted me-deplored me, with tears in their eyes, and-went to dinner."-E.

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 (7)
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 Aragon.) Then for accomplishments of chivalry,

In case our lord the king should go to war again,

laid in

earth."-E.

"And we may own-since he is now but (5) In a letter from Venice, Sept. 19, 1818 (when he was writing, Canto I.), Lord Byron says, "I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me. Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold opportunity offers."

Again, in Marino Faliero

"I had one only fount of quiet left,

And that they poison'd! My pure household gods
Were shiver'd en my hearth, and o'er their shrine
Sate grinning ribaldry and sneering scorn,'
"-E.

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 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 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 bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,

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; (3) 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, (5)
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,

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 (2) tells us there is no hymn Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample;

children. My sister's mother had only one half-sister by that second marriage (herself, too, an only child), and my father had only me (an only child) by his second marriage with my mother. Such a complication of only children, all tending to one family, is singular, and looks like fatality almost. But the fiercest animals have the rarest number in their litters, as lions, tigers, and even elephants, which are mild in comparison." B. Diary, 1821.

(1) In the MS.

64

"Defending still their Iliads and Odysseys."-E. (2) See Longinus, Section 10. un Ev Te Teρt auth πάθος φαίνηται, παθῶν δὲ σύνοδος.” (The Ode alluded to is the famous φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν, κ. τ. λ.

"Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth that fondly sits by thee,
And bears and sees thee all the while
Softly speak and sweetly smile," etc.-E.

(3) "To hear the clamour raised against Juvenal, it might be supposed, by one unacquainted with the times, that he was the only indelicate writer of his age and country. Yet Horace and Persius wrote with equal grossness: yet the rigid stoicism, of Seneca did not deter him from the use of expressions which Juvenal, perhaps, would have rejected; yet the courtly Pliny

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.

poured out gratuitous indecencies in his frigid hendecasy|-| lables, which he attempts to justify by the example of a writer to whose freedom the licentiousness of Juvenal is purity! 1 seems as if there was something of pique in the singular severity with which he is censured. His pure and sublime morality operates as a tacit reproach on the generality of mankind, who seek to indemnify themselves by questioning the sanctity which they cannot but respect; and find a secret pleasure in persuading one another that this dreaded satirist', was, at heart, no inveterate enemy to the licentiousness which he so vehemently reprehends. When I find that his views are to render depravity loathsome, that every thing which can alarm and disgust is directed at her in his terrible page, I forget the grossness of the execution in the excellence of the design." Gifford.