Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

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 their Eneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,

For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

28

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?

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 omnission,
And pitying sore his mutilated case,

They only add them all in an appendix, 4
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, Instead of standing staring altogether,

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 1 know but Don Juan's mother Kept this herself, and gave her son another.

XLVII.

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 insured,

[ocr errors]

So well not one of the aforesaid paints

As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions, Which make the reader envy his transgressions.

« ZurückWeiter »