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Discretion, and were not so peaceable

       As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),

       He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.

       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.

       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.

       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,

       He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,

       And how to scale a fortress—or a nunnery.

       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.

       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.

       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,

       And for their AEneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,

       Were forced to make an odd sort! of apology,

       For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.

       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 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.'

       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?

       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,

       Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;

       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,

       Instead of standing staring all together,

       Like garden gods—and not so decent either.

       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.

       Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,

       And homilies, and lives of all the saints;

       To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,

       He did not take such studies for restraints;

       But how faith is acquired, and then ensured,

       So well not one of the aforesaid paints

       As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,

       Which make the reader envy his transgressions.

       This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan—

       I can't but say that his mamma was right,

       If such an education was the true one.

       She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;

       Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,

       You might be sure she was a perfect fright;

       She did this during even her husband's life—

       I recommend as much to every wife.

       Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace;

       At six a charming child, and at eleven

       With all the promise of as fine a face

       As e'er to man's maturer growth was given:

       He studied steadily, and grew apace,

       And seem'd, at least, in the right road to heaven,

       For half his days were pass'd at church, the other

       Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.

      

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