Don Juan: Canto The Eleventh
When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,'
And proved it--'twas no matter what he said:
They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,
Too subtle for the airiest human head;
And yet who can believe it? I would shatter
Gladly all matters down to stone or lead,
Or adamant, to find the world a spirit,
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.
What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the
Universe universal egotism,
That all's ideal--all ourselves: I 'll stake the
World (be it what you will) that that 's no schism.
Oh Doubt!--if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee;
But which I doubt extremely--thou sole prism
Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit!
Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.
For ever and anon comes Indigestion,
(Not the most 'dainty Ariel') and perplexes
Our soarings with another sort of question:
And that which after all my spirit vexes,
Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on,
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,
Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder,
The world, which at the worst's a glorious blunder--
If it be chance; or if it be according
To the old text, still better:--lest it should
Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording,
As several people think such hazards rude.
They're right; our days are too brief for affording
Space to dispute what no one ever could
Decide, and every body one day will
Know very clearly--or at least lie still.
And therefore will I leave off metaphysical
Discussion, which is neither here nor there:
If I agree that what is, is; then this I call
Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair;
The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical:
I don't know what the reason is- the air
Perhaps; but as I suffer from the shocks
Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.
The first attack at once proved the Divinity
(But that I never doubted, nor the Devil);
The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity;
The third, the usual Origin of Evil;
The fourth at once establish'd the whole Trinity
On so uncontrovertible a level,
That I devoutly wish'd the three were four,
On purpose to believe so much the more.
To our Theme.--The man who has stood on the Acropolis,
And look'd down over Attica; or he
Who has sail'd where picturesque Constantinople is,
Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis,
Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh,
May not think much of London's first appearance--
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?
Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill;
Sunset the time, the place the same declivity
Which looks along that vale of good and ill
Where London streets ferment in full activity;
While every thing around was calm and still,
Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he
Heard,--and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum
Of cities, that boil over with their scum:-
I say, Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation,
Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit,
And lost in wonder of so great a nation,
Gave way to 't, since he could not overcome it.
'And here,' he cried, 'is Freedom's chosen station;
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.
'Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay
But what they please; and if that things be dear,
'Tis only that they love to throw away
Their cash, to show how much they have a-year.
Here laws are all inviolate; none lay
Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear:
Here--' he was interrupted by a knife,
With,--'Damn your eyes! your money or your life!'
These freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads
In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter
Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads,
Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,
In which the heedless gentleman who gads
Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,
May find himself within that isle of riches
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.
Juan, who did not understand a word
Of English, save their shibboleth, 'God damn!'
And even that he had so rarely heard,
He sometimes thought 'twas only their 'Salam,'
Or 'God be with you!'--and 'tis not absurd
To think so: for half English as I am
(To my misfortune), never can I say
I heard them wish 'God with you,' save that way;--
Juan yet quickly understood their gesture,
And being somewhat choleric and sudden,
Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture,
And fired it into one assailant's pudding--
Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture,
And roar'd out, as he writhed his native mud in,
Unto his nearest follower or henchman,
'Oh Jack! I 'm floor'd by that 'ere bloody Frenchman!'
On which Jack and his train set off at speed,
And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance,
Came up, all marvelling at such a deed,
And offering, as usual, late assistance.
Juan, who saw the moon's late minion bleed
As if his veins would pour out his existence,
Stood calling out for bandages and lint,
And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint.
'Perhaps,' thought he, 'it is the country's wont
To welcome foreigners in this way: now
I recollect some innkeepers who don't
Differ, except in robbing with a bow,
In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front.
But what is to be done? I can't allow
The fellow to lie groaning on the road:
So take him up; I'll help you with the load.'
But ere they could perform this pious duty,
The dying man cried, 'Hold! I 've got my gruel!
Oh for a glass of max! We 've miss'd our booty;
Let me die where I am!' And as the fuel
Of life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty
The drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew ill
His breath,--he from his swelling throat untied
A kerchief, crying, 'Give Sal that!'--and died.
The cravat stain'd with bloody drops fell down
Before Don Juan's feet: he could not tell
Exactly why it was before him thrown,
Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell.
Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town,
A thorough varmint, and a real swell,
Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled,
His pockets first and then his body riddled.
Don Juan, having done the best he could
In all the circumstances of the case,
As soon as 'Crowner's quest' allow'd, pursued
His travels to the capital apace;--
Esteeming it a little hard he should
In twelve hours' time, and very little space,
Have been obliged to slay a freeborn native
In self-defence: this made him meditative.
He from the world had cut off a great man,
Who in his time had made heroic bustle.
Who in a row like Tom could lead the van,
Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle?
Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bow Street's ban)
On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle?
Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal (his blowing),
So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?
But Tom's no more--and so no more of Tom.
Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 't is
Not long before the most of them go home.
Hail! Thamis, Hail! Upon thy verge it is
That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum
In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss,
Through Kennington and all the other 'tons,'
Which makes us wish ourselves in town at once;--
Through Groves, so call'd as being void of trees
(Like lucus from no light); through prospects named
Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please,
Nor much to climb; through little boxes framed
Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease,
With 'To be let' upon their doors proclaim'd;
Through 'Rows' most modestly call'd 'Paradise,'
Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice;--
Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl
Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion;
Here taverns wooing to a pint of 'purl,'
There mails fast flying off like a delusion;
There barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl
In windows; here the lamplighter's infusion
Slowly distill'd into the glimmering glass
(For in those days we had not got to gas);--
Through this, and much, and more, is the approach
Of travellers to mighty Babylon:
Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach,
With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one.
I could say more, but do not choose to encroach
Upon the Guide-book's privilege. The sun
Had set some time, and night was on the ridge
Of twilight, as the party cross'd the bridge,--
That's rather fine. The gentle sound of Thamis--
Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream,
Though hardly heard through multifarious 'damme's'--
The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam,
The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where fame is
A spectral resident--whose pallid beam
In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile--
Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle.
The Druids' groves are gone- so much the better:
Stone-Henge is not--but what the devil is it?-
But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter,
That madmen may not bite you on a visit;
The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor;
The Mansion House too (though some people quiz it)
To me appears a stiff yet grand erection;
But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection.
The line of lights, too, up to Charing Cross,
Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation
Like gold as in comparison to dross,
Match'd with the Continent's illumination,
Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss.
The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation,
And when they grew so--on their new-found lantern,
Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.
A row of gentlemen along the streets
Suspended may illuminate mankind,
As also bonfires made of country seats;
But the old way is best for the purblind:
The other looks like phosphorus on sheets,
A sort of ignis fatuus to the mind,
Which, though't is certain to perplex and frighten,
Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.
But London's so well lit, that if Diogenes
Could recommence to hunt his honest man,
And found him not amidst the various progenies
Of this enormous city's spreading span,
'Twere not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his
Yet undiscover'd treasure. What I can,
I 've done to find the same throughout life's journey,
But see the world is only one attorney.
Over the stones still rattling up Pall Mall,
Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner
As thunder'd knockers broke the long seal'd spell
Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner
Admitted a small party as night fell,--
Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner,
Pursued his path, and drove past some hotels,
St. James's Palace and St. James's 'Hells.'
They reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door
A tide of well-clad waiters, and around
The mob stood, and as usual several score
Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound
In decent London when the daylight's o'er;
Commodious but immoral, they are found
Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.--
But Juan now is stepping from his carriage
Into one of the sweetest of hotels,
Especially for foreigners- and mostly
For those whom favour or whom fortune swells,
And cannot find a bill's small items costly.
There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells
(The den of many a diplomatic lost lie),
Until to some conspicuous square they pass,
And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.
Juan, whose was a delicate commission,
Private, though publicly important, bore
No title to point out with due precision
The exact affair on which he was sent o'er.
'Twas merely known, that on a secret mission
A foreigner of rank had graced our shore,
Young, handsome, and accomplish'd, who was said
(In whispers) to have turn'd his sovereign's head.
Some rumour also of some strange adventures
Had gone before him, and his wars and loves;
And as romantic heads are pretty painters,
And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves
Into the excursive, breaking the indentures
Of sober reason wheresoe'er it moves,
He found himself extremely in the fashion,
Which serves our thinking people for a passion.
I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite
The contrary; but then 'tis in the head;
Yet as the consequences are as bright
As if they acted with the heart instead,
What after all can signify the site
Of ladies' lucubrations? So they lead
In safety to the place for which you start,
What matters if the road be head or heart?
Juan presented in the proper place,
To proper placemen, every Russ credential;
And was received with all the due grimace
By those who govern in the mood potential,
Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face,
Thought (what in state affairs is most essential)
That they as easily might do the youngster,
As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.
They err'd, as aged men will do; but by
And by we'll talk of that; and if we don't,
'Twill be because our notion is not high
Of politicians and their double front,
Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie:--
Now what I love in women is, they won't
Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it
So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers. priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
The very shadow of true Truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy,
And prophecy--except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related.
Praised be all liars and all lies! Who now
Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy?
She rings the world's 'Te Deum,' and her brow
Blushes for those who will not:--but to sigh
Is idle; let us like most others bow,
Kiss hands, feet, any part of majesty,
After the good example of 'Green Erin,'
Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.
Don Juan was presented, and his dress
And mien excited general admiration--
I don't know which was more admired or less:
One monstrous diamond drew much observation,
Which Catherine in a moment of 'ivresse'
(In love or brandy's fervent fermentation)
Bestow'd upon him, as the public learn'd;
And, to say truth, it had been fairly earn'd.
Besides the ministers and underlings,
Who must be courteous to the accredited
Diplomatists of rather wavering kings,
Until their royal riddle's fully read,
The very clerks,--those somewhat dirty springs
Of office, or the house of office, fed
By foul corruption into streams,--even they
Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay:
And insolence no doubt is what they are
Employ'd for, since it is their daily labour,
In the dear offices of peace or war;
And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour,
When for a passport, or some other bar
To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore),
If he found not his spawn of taxborn riches,
But Juan was received with much 'empressement:'--
These phrases of refinement I must borrow
From our next neighbours' land, where, like a chessman,
There is a move set down for joy or sorrow
Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man
In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough,
More than on continents--as if the sea
(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free.
And yet the British 'Damme' 's rather Attic:
Your continental oaths are but incontinent,
And turn on things which no aristocratic
Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent
This subject quote; as it would be schismatic
In politesse, and have a sound affronting in't:--
But 'Damme' 's quite ethereal, though too daring--
Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing.
For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home;
For true or false politeness (and scarce that
Now) you may cross the blue deep and white foam-
The first the emblem (rarely though) of what
You leave behind, the next of much you come
To meet. However, 'tis no time to chat
On general topics: poems must confine
Themselves to unity, like this of mine.
In the great world,--which, being interpreted,
Meaneth the west or worst end of a city,
And about twice two thousand people bred
By no means to be very wise or witty,
But to sit up while others lie in bed,
And look down on the universe with pity,--
Juan, as an inveterate patrician,
Was well received by persons of condition.
He was a bachelor, which is a matter
Of import both to virgin and to bride,
The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter;
And (should she not hold fast by love or pride)
'Tis also of some moment to the latter:
A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side,
Requires decorum, and is apt to double
The horrid sin--and what's still worse, the trouble.
But Juan was a bachelor--of arts,
And parts, and hearts: he danced and sung, and had
An air as sentimental as Mozart's
Softest of melodies; and could be sad
Or cheerful, without any 'flaws or starts,'
Just at the proper time; and though a lad,
Had seen the world- which is a curious sight,
And very much unlike what people write.
Fair virgins blush'd upon him; wedded dames
Bloom'd also in less transitory hues;
For both commodities dwell by the Thames,
The painting and the painted; youth, ceruse,
Against his heart preferr'd their usual claims,
Such as no gentleman can quite refuse:
Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers
Inquired his income, and if he had brothers.
The milliners who furnish 'drapery Misses'
Throughout the season, upon speculation
Of payment ere the honey-moon's last kisses
Have waned into a crescent's coruscation,
Thought such an opportunity as this is,
Of a rich foreigner's initiation,
Not to be overlook'd--and gave such credit,
That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid it.
The Blues, that tender tribe who sigh o'er sonnets,
And with the pages of the last Review
Line the interior of their heads or bonnets,
Advanced in all their azure's highest hue:
They talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its
Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two;
And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?
Juan, who was a little superficial,
And not in literature a great Drawcansir,
Examined by this learned and especial
Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer:
His duties warlike, loving or official,
His steady application as a dancer,
Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene,
Which now he found was blue instead of green.
However, he replied at hazard, with
A modest confidence and calm assurance,
Which lent his learned lucubrations pith,
And pass'd for arguments of good endurance.
That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith
(Who at sixteen translated 'Hercules Furens'
Into as furious English), with her best look,
Set down his sayings in her common-place book.
Juan knew several languages--as well
He might--and brought them up with skill, in time
To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle,
Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.
There wanted but this requisite to swell
His qualities (with them) into sublime:
Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish,
Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.
However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all
The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,
At great assemblies or in parties small,
He saw ten thousand living authors pass,
That being about their average numeral;
Also the eighty 'greatest living poets,'
As every paltry magazine can show its.
In twice five years the 'greatest living poet,'
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 't is an imaginary thing.
Even I--albeit I 'm sure I did not know it,
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king--
Was reckon'd a considerable time,
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.
But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain:
'La Belle Alliance' of dunces down at zero,
Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again:
But I will fall at least as fell my hero;
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.
Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after; but now grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble
With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble
Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol--by the hilts?
Then there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He'll find it rather difficult some day
To turn out both, or either, it may be.
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway;
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;
And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian 'Savage Landor'
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.
John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain--or none will know
The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders
His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low
Their chances; they're too numerous, like the thirty
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.
This is the literary lower empire,
Where the praetorian bands take up the matter;--
A 'dreadful trade,' like his who 'gathers samphire,'
The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter,
With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire.
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire,
I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries,
And show them what an intellectual war is.
I think I know a trick or two, would turn
Their flanks;--but it is hardly worth my while
With such small gear to give myself concern:
Indeed I 've not the necessary bile;
My natural temper's really aught but stern,
And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile;
And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy,
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.
My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past
With some small profit through that field so sterile,
Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last,
Left it before he had been treated very ill;
And henceforth found himself more gaily class'd
Amongst the higher spirits of the day,
The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.
His morns he pass'd in business- which, dissected,
Was like all business a laborious nothing
That leads to lassitude, the most infected
And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing,
And on our sofas makes us lie dejected,
And talk in tender horrors of our loathing
All kinds of toil, save for our country's good--
Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should.
His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons,
Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour
In riding round those vegetable puncheons
Call'd 'Parks,' where there is neither fruit nor flower
Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings;
But after all it is the only 'bower'
(In Moore's phrase), where the fashionable fair
Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.
Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd
Like harness'd meteors; then along the floor
Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl'd;
Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,
Which opens to the thousand happy few
An earthly paradise of 'Or Molu.'
There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink
With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz,
The only dance which teaches girls to think,
Makes one in love even with its very faults.
Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink,
And long the latest of arrivals halts,
'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb,
And gain an inch of staircase at a time.
Thrice happy he who, after a survey
Of the good company, can win a corner,
A door that's in or boudoir out of the way,
Where he may fix himself like small 'Jack Horner,'
And let the Babel round run as it may,
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,
Or an approver, or a mere spectator,
Yawning a little as the night grows later.
But this won't do, save by and by; and he
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,
Must steer with care through all that glittering sea
Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where
He deems it is his proper place to be;
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill
Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.
Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views
Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride,
Let him take care that that which he pursues
Is not at once too palpably descried.
Full many an eager gentleman oft rues
His haste: impatience is a blundering guide,
Amongst a people famous for reflection,
Who like to play the fool with circumspection.
But, if you can contrive, get next at supper;
Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle:--
Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper
In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,
Which sits for ever upon memory's crupper,
The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue! Ill
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.
But these precautionary hints can touch
Only the common run, who must pursue,
And watch, and ward; whose plans a word too much
Or little overturns; and not the few
Or many (for the number's sometimes such)
Whom a good mien, especially if new,
Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense,
Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.
Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome,
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,
Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom,
Before he can escape from so much danger
As will environ a conspicuous man. Some
Talk about poetry, and 'rack and manger,'
And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble;--
I wish they knew the life of a young noble.
They are young, but know not youth--it is anticipated;
Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;
Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated;
Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew;
Both senates see their nightly votes participated
Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew;
And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored,
The family vault receives another lord.
'Where is the world?' cries Young, at eighty--'Where
The world in which a man was born? 'Alas!
Where is the world of eight years past? 'Twas there--
I look for it--'tis gone, a globe of glass!
Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.
Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows.
Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell:
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those
Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?
Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents?
And where--oh, where the devil are the rents?
Where's Brummel? Dish'd. Where's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled.
Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George the Third?
Where is his will? (That's not so soon unriddled.)
And where is 'Fum' the Fourth, our 'royal bird?'
Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled
Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard:
'Caw me, caw thee'--for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.
Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?
The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat,
Married, unmarried, and remarried (this is
An evolution oft performed of late).
Where are the Dublin shouts--and London hisses?
Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where
My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.
Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,--
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels
Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies
Of fashion,--say what streams now fill those channels?
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.
Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes,
Have taken up at length with younger brothers:
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks:
Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers;
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:
In short, the list of alterations bothers.
There's little strange in this, but something strange is
The unusual quickness of these common changes.
Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven
I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to
The humblest individual under heaven,
Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even
Change grows too changeable, without being new:
Nought's permanent among the human race,
Except the Whigs not getting into place.
I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter,
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider,
If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my 'blue Peter,'
And sail for a new theme:--I have seen--and shook
To see it--the king hiss'd, and then caress'd;
But don't pretend to settle which was best.
I have seen the Landholders without a rap--
I have seen Joanna Southcote--I have seen--
The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap--
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen--
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap--
I have seen a Congress doing all that's mean--
I have seen some nations like o'erloaded asses
Kick off their burthens, meaning the high classes.
I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and
Interminable--not eternal--speakers--
I have seen the funds at war with house and land--
I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers--
I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand
By slaves on horseback--I have seen malt liquors
Exchanged for 'thin potations' by John Bull--
I have seen john half detect himself a fool.--
But 'carpe diem,' Juan, 'carpe, carpe!'
To-morrow sees another race as gay
And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy.
'Life 's a poor player,'--then 'play out the play,
Ye villains!' above all keep a sharp eye
Much less on what you do than what you say:
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.
But how shall I relate in other cantos
Of what befell our hero in the land,
Which 'tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as
A moral country? But I hold my hand--
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;
But 'tis as well at once to understand,
You are not a moral people, and you know it
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.
What Juan saw and underwent shall be
My topic, with of course the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy;
And recollect the work is only fiction,
And that I sing of neither mine nor me,
Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt
This--when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out.
Whether he married with the third or fourth
Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess,
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties)
He took to regularly peopling Earth,
Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is,--
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages,--
Is yet within the unread events of time.
Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back
Against the same given quantity of rhyme,
For being as much the subject of attack
As ever yet was any work sublime,
By those who love to say that white is black.
So much the better!- I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.
Form: abababcc1.After an affair with Catherine the Great of Russia, Juan is despatched by her on a secret mission to England. In Canto the Eleventh he reaches London.Bishop Berkeley: the Irish philosopher (1685-1753), notorious for his denial that our ideas of an external world can properly be said to exist outside the mind in a material substance.18."dainty Ariel": see The Tempest, V, i, 95.55.Shooter's Hill: on the Dover road, eight miles south of London, commanding a fine view of the city.109.the moon's late minion: see Falstaff on thieves in I Henry IV, I, ii, 23-28.123.max: gin (an example of the current underworld slang known as "flash").133.kiddy ... real swell ... flash: more thieves' slang. A kiddy was a petty thief who showed off his success by a flashy ostentation of clothes and language.139."Crowner's 'quest": coroner's inquest. See the first gravedigger in Hamlet, V, i, 21.145.With the help of a Regency slang dictionary the "flash" of this stanza has been translated as follows: ken: a house that harbours thieves\; spellken: the playhouse\; queer a flat: confound a gull\; high toby-spice: robbery on horseback\; flash the muzzle: swagger openly\; blowing: pickpocket's trull\; nutty: pleased with the opposite sex.162.lucus from no light: in Latin "lucus" can mean both a thick wood (or grove) and light, i.e., both darkness and light.171."purl": "a medicated malt liquor" (Moore).198.Mansion House: official residence of the Lord Mayor.207.new-found lantern. During the French Revolution the lantern or street lamp was used as an improvised gallows.232."Hells": gaming-house s.236.Paphians: attendants of Venus (Paphos in Cyprus was the site of an ancient temple to Aphrodite).239.Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage. The Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) of Thomas Robert Malthus was one of the most controversia l works of the age. He saw war and famine as nature's means of preventing population from outrunning the supply of goods, but also advocated continence and fewer marriages as a means of birth control among the poor. Hence he was about as useful a supporter of marriage as a "Paphian" whore.276.govern in the mood potential: i.e., govern as placemen or office-holde rs, not as Parliamentar y members of the government ("mood potential" being a grammatical pun).303.the good example of "Green Erin." George IV visited Ireland in 1820 and was given an extravagant welcome.337.rather Attic: having the purity of classical Greek.385."drapery Misses." "It means a pretty, a highborn, a fashionable young female, well instructed by her friends, and furnished by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by the husband" (Byron's note).402.Drawcansir: the name of a braggart in Villiers' The Rehearsal (1671).407.Hippocrene: see note on I, ccv.414."Hercules Furens": a play by the Roman dramatist, Seneca.427.Banquo's glass: see Macbeth, IV, i, 112-24.441.Faliero. Byron's play Marino Faliero was not intended for the stage and failed when it was performed against his wish at Drury Lane in April and May, 1821.442.Cain. Byron's Cain (1821), which he called a "mystery" play, was much criticized for its "blasphemies ."Leipsic ... Mont Saint Jean ... La Belle Alliance. Leipsig and Waterloo (a farmhouse called Mont St. Jean was on the battlefield) were two of Napoleon's most crucial defeats. "La Belle Alliance was the farmhouse in which Blü\;cher and Wellington met and saluted each other as victors after the tide of battle had turned at Waterloo" (W. W. Pratt's note).448.turncoat Southey: see note on Dedication, i.turnkey Lowe. "Sir Hudson Lowe was governor of St. Helena during Napoleon's exile" (W. W. Pratt's note).454.the very Reverend Rowley Powley: the Rev. George Croly (1780-1860), a minor but prolific poet, fond of imitating Byron's work and known as "Cambyses" Croly for his bombastic manner.456."by the hilts": see I Henry IV, iv, 233.457.The victim of this attack is Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), author of The Fall of Jerusalem (hence "the howling Hebrews") and a Quarterly reviewer disliked by Byron. Some of Byron's allusions are obscure, but for Sporus see Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 305-33 and note, and for "Cambyses' roaring Romans" see note on stanza lvii above (Coly wrote a play called Catiline). The Asiatic and Athenian goddess "Cybele's priests" were eunuchs.465.my gentle Euphues: Bryan Waller Procter, "Barry Comwall" (1787-1874), author of Diego de Montilla, a poem which Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review thought to resemble Don Juan, but with "no profligacy" and "no mocking of virtue and honour." Euphues is the hero of an Elizabethan prose romance by John Lyly and gave his name to the "Euphuistic" style. But Byron seems to be confusung his terms and thinking of Procter's poem as a sort of "euphemistic " Don Juan.471.Boeotian. The Athenians thought the people of Boeotia boorish and dull.473.Keats may have been deeply affected by the slashing review of Endymion in the Quarterly Review of April 1818, but that it was instrumental in his death is an exploded legend. Byron seems to have acquired the notion from Shelley, who used it in the Preface to Adonais as well as in the poem itself.487-88.the thirty mock tyrants: the thirty pretenders to the throne in the reign of Gallienus in the third century.490.praetorian bands: the Roman emperor's guard, whose political power in the days of the empire's decline gave them control over the succession to the throne, which might even be offered to the highest bidder.495.Janizaries: the Turkish standing army and sultan's guard.516.Centaur-Ness us garb. The blood-poison ed garment of Nessus the Centaur was sent to Hercules by his wife for its supposed power of winning back his love. Instead the agony of wearing it led to Hercules' death on a pyre.533.Chalk mimics painting. Chalk drawings on the floor were characterist ic of Regency ballrooms on special occasions.536."Or Molu": gilded bronze.590."rack and manger." The modern equivalent is "rack and ruin."601."Where is the World," cries Young, "at eighty?" Edward Young (1683-1765), author of the once famous Night Thoughts, wrote this phrase at eighty in a poem called Resignation. 611.Grattan, Curran, Sheridan. Henry Grattan, John Philpot Curran, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (the dramatist) were Whig M.P.'s and Irishmen, who died in 1820, 1817, and 1816.613-14.The unhappy Queen ... the Daughter. Queen Caroline, tried for unfidelity in 1820, died in 1821\; her daughter, Princess Charlotte, had died in childbirth in 1817.617.Brummell ... Long Pole Wellesley: George "Beau" Brummell, bankrupt Regency fashion-plat e, now in exile from his creditors, and William Pole Tylney Long Wellesley (Wellington' s nephew), fashionable wastrel on the verge of bankruptcy.618.Whitbread? Romilly? Samuel Whitbread, Whig M.P., committed suicide in 1815 and Sir Samuel Romilly, who had earned Byron's enmity by being his wife's legal adviser, in 1818.619.Where is his will? George III's unsigned will was the cause of much dispute.620."Fum" the Fourth, our "royal bird." George IV's popular nickname was "Hum," an apartment of the Brighton Pavilion contained an ornament called "Fum, the Chinese Bird of Royalty," and Moore had written a satire called "Fum and Hum, the Two Birds of Royalty."621.to Scotland. George IV visited Scotland in 1822.623.Caw: claw or scratch.631.Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as usual. Byron saw William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759-1834) as an apostate from his early liberalism. Since Grenville's father had first supported and then broken with the elder Pitt, such changes seemed to run in the family.633.Lady Carolines and Franceses. Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Frances Webster, now estranged from their husbands, were two of the women in Byron's life between 1812 and 1814.658.Duke: presumably the Duke of Wellington.661."blue Peter": the naval flag which signalizes immediate sailing.666.Joanna Southcote: the ignorant founder of a fanatical sect, who (suffering from dropsy) announced that she was about to give birth to a second Shiloh (see Genesis 40:10).668.sad affair of the late Queen: see note on stanza lxxvi above.670.Congress doing all that's mean. The allied sovereigns, disturbed by the popular uprising in Spain, met in Verona in 1822.675.the funds at war: the National Debt and the Sinking Fund which unsuccessful ly attempted to reduce it.677.I have seen the people ridden o'er. Byron apparently refers to the dispersal of a Reform gathering in St. Peter's Fields outside Manchester by troops on horseback on August 16, 1819 (the so-called Peterloo Massacre).679."thin potations": a means by which brewers might escape the malt tax\; see II Henry IV, IV, iii, 133-36.681.carpe diem: enjoy the present day (see Horace, Odes, I, xi, 8).684."Life's a poor player"--the n "play out the play": see Macbeth, V, v, 24, and I Henry IV, II, iv, 539.693.Atalantis: see Pope's Rape of the Lock, III, 165 and note.
