Don Juan

every tongue;
When any dare a new light to present,
“If you are right, then everybody’s wrong”!
Suppose the converse of this precedent
So often urged, so loudly and so long;
“If you are wrong, then everybody’s right”!
Was ever everybody yet so quite?

VI

Therefore I would solicit free discussion
Upon all points⁠—no matter what, or whose⁠—
Because as Ages upon Ages push on,
The last is apt the former to accuse
Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion,
Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse:
What was a paradox becomes a truth or
A something like it⁠—witness Luther!

VII

The Sacraments have been reduced to two,
And Witches unto none, though somewhat late
Since burning agèd women (save a few⁠—
Not witches only b⁠—ches⁠—who create
Mischief in families, as some know or knew,
Should still be singed, but lightly, let me state,)
Has been declared an act of inurbanity,
Malgré Sir Matthew Hales’s great humanity.

VIII

Great Galileo was debarred the Sun,
Because he fixed it; and, to stop his talking,
How Earth could round the solar orbit run,
Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking:
The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun
To think his skull had not some need of caulking;
But now, it seems, he’s right⁠—his notion just:
No doubt a consolation to his dust.

IX

Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates⁠—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each, was deemed a Bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages:
This they must bear with and, perhaps, much more;
The wise man’s sure when he no more can share it, he
Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity.

X

If such doom waits each intellectual Giant,
We little people in our lesser way,
In Life’s small rubs should surely be more pliant,
And so for one will I⁠—as well I may⁠—
Would that I were less bilious⁠—but, oh, fie on ’t!
Just as I make my mind up every day,
To be a “totus, teres,” Stoic, Sage,
The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.

XI

Temperate I am⁠—yet never had a temper;
Modest I am⁠—yet with some slight assurance;
Changeable too⁠—yet somehow “Idem semper:”
Patient⁠—but not enamoured of endurance;
Cheerful⁠—but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper:
Mild⁠—but at times a sort of “Hercules furens:”
So that I almost think that the same skin
For one without⁠—has two or three within.

XII

Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth,
Left in a tender moonlight situation,
Such as enables Man to show his strength
Moral or physical: on this occasion
Whether his virtue triumphed⁠—or, at length,
His vice⁠—for he was of a kindling nation⁠—
Is more than I shall venture to describe;⁠—
Unless some Beauty with a kiss should bribe.

XIII

I leave the thing a problem, like all things:⁠—
The morning came⁠—and breakfast, tea and toast,
Of which most men partake, but no one sings.
The company whose birth, wealth, worth, has cost
My trembling Lyre already several strings,
Assembled with our hostess, and mine host;
The guests dropped in⁠—the last but one, Her Grace,
The latest, Juan, with his virgin face.

XIV

Which best it is to encounter⁠—Ghost, or none,
’Twere difficult to say⁠—but Juan looked
As if he had combated with more than one,
Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked
The light, that through the Gothic window shone:
Her Grace, too, had a sort of air rebuked⁠—
Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept
A vigil, or dreamt rather more than slept.

Endnotes

1. The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author of an Essai sur L’Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie (Sec. Ed. 3 tom. 1827), was, at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met and made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, Duc de Richelieu, who took part in the siege of Ismail. M. Léon de Crousaz-Crétet describes him as “ancien surintendant des théâtres sous l’Empereur Paul.”⁠—Le Duc de Richelieu, 1897, p. 83

   —⁠Editor

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2. For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis of Londonderry (1769⁠–⁠1822), see Letters, 1900, IV 108, 109, note 1.

   —⁠Editor

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3. Samuel Ferrand Waddington, born 1759, hop-grower and radical politician, first came into notice as the chairman of public meetings in favour of making peace with the French in 1793. He was the author, inter alia, of A Key to a Delicate Investigation, 1812, and An Address to the People of the United Kingdom, 1812. He was alive in 1822. James Watson (1766⁠–⁠1838), a radical agitator of the following of Thomas Spence, was engaged, in the autumn of 1816, in an abortive conspiracy to blow up cavalry barracks, barricade the streets, and seize the Bank and the Tower. He was tried for high treason before Lord Ellenborough, and acquitted.

   —⁠Editor

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4. Macbeth, act IV sc. 3, lines 7, 8.

   —⁠Editor

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5. I say by the law of the land⁠—the laws of humanity judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, let them here make the most of it. ↩

6. Mr. Joseph Carttar, of Deptford, coroner for the County of Kent, addressed the jury at some length. The following sentences are taken from the report of the inquest, contained in The Annual Biography and Obituary for the Year 1823, vol. VII p. 57:

   “As a public man, it is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can hold. In private life I believe the world will admit that a more amiable man could not be found.⁠ ⁠… If it should unfortunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder.⁠ ⁠… The Bible