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'd-
But 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.

XXV.

A little curly-headed good-for-nothing,

And mischief-making monkey from his birth;
His parents ne'er agreed, except in doting
Upon the most unquiet imp on earth:

Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in
Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth
To school, or had him soundly whipp'd at home,
To teach him manners for the time to come.

XXVI.

Don Jose and the Donna Inez led

For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead; 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.

XXVII.

For Inez called some druggists and physicians,
And tried to prove her loving lord was mad,
But as he had some lucid intermissions,
She next decided he was only bad;
Yet when they asked 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 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,
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 us,
Is philosophic in our former friends;
'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 'tis 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 all: And science profits by this resurrection

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.

XXXII.

Their friends had tried at reconciliation, Then their relations, who made matters worse! ('Twere hard to tell upon a like occasion

To whom it may be best to have recourseI can't say much for friend or yet relation :) The lawyers did their utmost for divorce, But scarce a fee was paid on either side, Before, unluckily, Don Jose died.

XXXIII.

He died: and most unluckily, because
According to all hints I could collect
From counsel learned in those kind 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 Jose 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;
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 good 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 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 boddices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for 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 has a decent poem,

I don't think Sappho's ode a good example,
Although [3] 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?