XLVIII.

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.

XLIX.

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,

L.

At six, I said, he was a charming child,
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;
Although in infancy a little wild,

They tamed him down amongst them; to destroy His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd,

At least it seem'd so; and his mother's joy Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady, Her young philosopher was grown already,

LI.

I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,
But what I say is neither here nor there:
I knew his father well, and have some skill
In character but it would not be fair
From sire to son to augur good or ill:

He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair
But scandal's my aversion I protest

Against all evil speaking, even in jest.

That if I had an only son to put

To school (as God be praised that I have none)

"Tis not with Donna Inez would shut

Him up to learn his catechism alone, No no

I'd send him out betimes to college,

For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.

but I pass over that,

As well as all the Greek I since have lost:

I say that there's the place-but,,Verbum sat," I think I pick'd up too, as well as most,

I never married but, I think, I know
That sons should not be educated so.

Vol. IX.

C

LIV.

Young Juan now was sixteen years of age, -Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit; he seem'd Active, though not so sprightly, as a page; { And every body but his mother deem'd Him almost man; but she flew in a rage,

And bit her lips (for else she might have

If any said so, for to be precocious

scream'd),

Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.

LV.

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
Selected for discretion and devotion,
There was the Donna Julia, whom to call
Pretty were but to give a feeble notion
Of many charms in her as natural

As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean, Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid, (But this last simile is trite and stupid.):

LVI.

The darkness of her oriental eye

Accorded with her Moorish origin;

(Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by;
In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin.)
When proud Grenada fell, and, forced to fly,
Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin

Some went to Africa, some staid in Spain,
Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.

LVII.

She married (I forget the pedigree)

With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down His blood less noble than such blood should be; At such alliances his sires would frown,

In that point so precise in each degree

That they bred in and in, as might be shown, Marrying their cousins nay, their aunts, and

nieces,

Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.