With sauces Genevoises and haunch of venison;
Wines too which might again have slain young Ammon,
A man like whom I hope we shan’t see many soon.
They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on,
Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison;
And then there was champagne with foaming whirls,
As white as Cleopatra’s melted pearls.
66
Then there was God knows what à l’allemande,
A l’espagnole, timbale, and salpicon,
With things I can’t withstand or understand,
Though swallowed with much zest upon the whole,
And entremets to piddle with at hand,
Gently to lull down the subsiding soul,
While great Lucullus’ robe triumphal muffles
(There’s fame) young partridge fillets, decked with truffles.
67
What are the fillets on the victor’s brow
To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the arch
Which nodded to the nation’s spoils below?
Where the triumphal chariots’ haughty march?
Gone to where victories must like dinners go.
Further I shall not follow the research.
But oh ye modern heroes with your cartridges,
When will your names lend lustre even to partridges?
68
Those truffles too are no bad accessories,
Followed by petits puits d’amour, a dish
Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,
So everyone may dress it to his wish
According to the best of dictionaries,
Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish.
But even sans confitures, it no less true is,
There’s pretty picking in those petits puits.
69
The mind is lost in mighty contemplation
Of intellect expended on two courses;
And indigestion’s grand multiplication
Requires arithmetic beyond my forces.
Who would suppose from Adam’s simple ration
That cookery could have called forth such resources
As form a science and a nomenclature
From out the commonest demands of nature?
70
The glasses jingled and the palates tingled.
The diners of celebrity dined well;
The ladies with more moderation mingled
In the feast, pecking less than I can tell,
Also the younger men too, for a springald
Can’t like ripe age in gormandize excel,
But thinks less of good eating than the whisper
(When seated next him) of some pretty lisper.
71
Alas, I must leave undescribed the gibier,
The salmi, the consommé, the purée,
All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber
Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull way.
I must not introduce even a spare rib here;
Bubble and squeak would spoil my liquid lay.
But I have dined and must forego, alas,
The chaste description even of a bécasse
72
And fruits and ice and all that art refines
From nature for the service of the goût –
Taste or the gout, pronounce it as inclines
Your stomach. Ere you dine, the French will do,
But after, there are sometimes certain signs
Which prove plain English truer of the two.
Hast ever had the gout? I have not had it,
But I may have, and you too, reader, dread it.
73
The simple olives, best allies of wine,
Must I pass over in my bill of fare?
I must, although a favourite plat of mine
In Spain and Lucca, Athens, everywhere.
On them and bread ’twas oft my luck to dine,
The grass my tablecloth in open air
On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes,
Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.
74
Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh and fowl
And vegetables, all in masquerade,
The guests were placed according to their roll,
But various as the various meats displayed.
Don Juan sate – next an à l’espagnole –
No damsel, but a dish, as hath been said,
But so far like a lady that ’twas drest
Superbly and contained a world of zest.
75
By some odd chance too he was placed between
Aurora and the Lady Adeline,
A situation difficult, I ween,
For man therein with eyes and heart to dine.
Also the conference which we have seen
Was not such as to encourage him to shine,
For Adeline, addressing few words to him,
With two transcendent eyes seemed to look through him.
76
I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears;
This much is sure, that out of earshot things
Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears,
Of which I can’t tell whence their knowledge springs,
Like that same mystic music of the spheres,
Which no one hears so loudly though it rings.
’Tis wonderful how oft the sex have heard
Long dialogues which passed without a word!
77
Aurora sate with that indifference
Which piques a preux chevalier, as it ought;
Of all offences that’s the worst offence,
Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought.
Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence,
Was not exactly pleased to be so caught,
Like a good ship entangled among ice,
And after so much excellent advice.
78
To his gay nothings, nothing was replied
Or something which was nothing, as urbanity
Required. Aurora scarcely looked aside
Nor even smiled enough for any vanity.
The devil was in the girl! Could it be pride
Or modesty or absence or inanity?
Heaven knows! But Adeline’s malicious eyes
Sparkled with her successful prophecies
79
And looked as much as if to say, ‘I said it’,
A kind of triumph I’ll not recommend,
Because it sometimes, as I’ve seen or read it,
Both in the case of lover and of friend,
Will pique a gentleman for his own credit
To bring what was a jest to a serious end;
For all men prophesy what is or was
And hate those who won’t let them come to pass.
80
Juan was drawn thus into some attentions,
Slight but select and just enough to express
To females of perspicuous comprehensions
That he would rather make them more than less.
Aurora at the last (so history mentions,
Though probably much less a fact than guess)
So far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison
As once or twice to smile, if not to listen.
81
From answering, she began to question. This
With her was rare; and Adeline, who as yet
Thought her predictions went not much amiss,
Began to dread she’d thaw to a coquette.
So very difficult, they say, it is
To keep extremes from meeting when once set
In motion, but she here too much refined.
Aurora’s spirit was not of that kind.
82
But Juan had a sort of winning way,
A proud humility, if such there be,
Which showed such deference to what females say,
As if each charming word w
ere a decree.
His tact too tempered him from grave to gay
And taught him when to be reserved or free.
He had the art of drawing people out
Without their seeing what he was about.
83
Aurora, who in her indifference
Confounded him in common with the crowd
Of flutterers, though she deemed he had more sense
Than whispering foplings or than witlings loud,
Commenced (from such slight things will great commence)
To feel that flattery which attracts the proud
Rather by deference than compliment
And wins even by a delicate dissent.
84
And then he had good looks; that point was carried
Nem. con. amongst the women, which I grieve
To say leads oft to crim. con. with the married,
A case which to the Furies we may leave,
Since with digressions we too long have tarried.
Now though we know of old that looks deceive
And always have done, somehow these good looks
Make more impression than the best of books.
85
Aurora, who looked more on books than faces,
Was very young, although so very sage,
Admiring more Minerva than the Graces,
Especially upon a printed page.
But Virtue’s self with all her tightest laces
Has not the natural stays of strict old age,
And Socrates, that model of all duty,
Owned to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty.
86
And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic,
But innocently so, as Socrates.
And really if the sage sublime and Attic
At seventy years had phantasies like these,
Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic
Has shown, I know not why they should displease
In virgins; always in a modest way,
Observe, for that with me’s a sine quā.
87
Also observe that like the great Lord Coke
(See Littleton) whene’er I have exprest
Opinions two, which at first sight may look
Twin opposites, the second is the best.
Perhaps I have a third too in a nook
Or none at all, which seems a sorry jest.
But if a writer should be quite consistent,
How could he possibly show things existent?
88
If people contradict themselves, can I
Help contradicting them and everybody,
Even my veracious self? But that’s a lie;
I never did so, never will. How should I?
He who doubts all things nothing can deny.
Truth’s fountains may be clear, her streams are muddy
And cut through such canals of contradiction
That she must often navigate o’er fiction.
89
Apologue, fable, poesy, and parable
Are false, but may be rendered also true
By those who sow them in a land that’s arable.
’Tis wonderful what fable will not do!
’Tis said it makes reality more bearable.
But what’s reality? Who has its clue?
Philosophy? No, she too much rejects.
Religion? Yes, but which of all her sects?
90
Some millions must be wrong, that’s pretty clear;
Perhaps it may turn out that all were right.
God help us! Since we have need on our career
To keep our holy beacons always bright,
’Tis time that some new prophet should appear,
Or old indulge man with a second sight.
Opinions wear out in some thousand years
Without a small refreshment from the spheres.
91
But here again why will I thus entangle
Myself with metaphysics? None can hate
So much as I do any kind of wrangle,
And yet such is my folly or my fate,
I always knock my head against some angle
About the present, past, or future state.
Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian,
For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian.
92
But though I am a temperate theologian
And also meek as a metaphysician,
Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan,
As Eldon on a lunatic commission,
In politics my duty is to show John
Bull something of the lower world’s condition.
It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla
To see men let these scoundrel sovereigns break law.
93
But politics and policy and piety
Are topics which I sometimes introduce,
Not only for the sake of their variety,
But as subservient to a moral use,
Because my business is to dress society
And stuff with sage that very verdant goose.
And now that we may furnish with some matter all
Tastes we are going to try the supernatural.
94
And now I will give up all argument
And positively henceforth no temptation
Shall ‘fool me to the top up of my bent’.
Yes, I’ll begin a thorough reformation.
Indeed I never knew what people meant
By deeming that my Muse’s conversation
Was dangerous. I think she is as harmless
As some who labour more and yet may charm less.
95
Grim reader, did you ever see a ghost?
No, but you have heard – I understand – be dumb!
And don’t regret the time you may have lost,
For you have got that pleasure still to come.
And do not think I mean to sneer at most
Of these things or by ridicule benumb
That source of the sublime and the mysterious.
For certain reasons, my belief is serious.
96
Serious? You laugh. You may; that will I not,
My smiles must be sincere or not at all.
I say I do believe a haunted spot
Exists – and where? That shall I not recall,
Because I’d rather it should be forgot.
‘Shadows the soul of Richard’ may appal.
In short, upon that subject I’ve some qualms very
Like those of the philosopher of Malmsbury.
97
The night (I sing by night, sometimes an owl
And now and then a nightingale) is dim,
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva’s fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn.
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl;
I wish to heaven they would not look so grim.
The dying embers dwindle in the grate.
I think too that I have sate up too late,
98
And therefore though ’tis by no means my way
To rhyme at noon, when I have other things
To think of, if I ever think, I say
I feel some chilly midnight shudderings
And prudently postpone until midday
Treating a topic which, alas, but brings
Shadows; but you must be in my condition
Before you learn to call this superstition.
99
Between two worlds life hovers like a star
’Twixt night and morn upon the horizon’s verge.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar
Our bubbles. As the old burst, new emerge,
Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some pas
sing waves.
Canto XVI
1
The antique Persians taught three useful things:
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings,
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.
2
The cause of this effect or this defect –
‘For this effect defective comes by cause’ –
Is what I have not leisure to inspect,
But this I must say in my own applause:
Of all the Muses that I recollect,
Whate’er may be her follies or her flaws
In some things, mine’s beyond all contradiction,
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.
3
And as she treats all things and ne’er retreats
From anything, this epic will contain
A wilderness of the most rare conceits,
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
’Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets,
Yet mixed so slightly that you can’t complain,
But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
De rebus cunctis et quibūsdam aliis.
4
But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost.
What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?
’Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.
5
Some people would impose now with authority
Turpin’s or Monmouth Geoffrey’s Chronicle,
Men whose historical superiority
Is always greatest at a miracle.
But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because ’tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with quia impossibile.
6
And therefore mortals, cavil not at all.
Believe. If ’tis improbable, you must,
And if it is impossible, you shall.
’Tis always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely, to recall
Those holier mysteries, which the wise and just
Receive as gospel and which grow more rooted,
As all truths must, the more they are disputed.
7
I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears.
And what is strangest upon this strange head
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