DON JUAN. Difficile est proprie communia dicere. HOR. Epist. ad Pison. Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?-Yes, by St. Anne, and Ginger shall be hot i' the mouth, too!-SHAKSPEARE, Twelfth Night; or What you Will. DON JUAN. CANTO I. I. Ì WANT a hero :-an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one : Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan; We all have seen him in the pantomime Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time. II. Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, And fill'd their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now; Each in their turn, like Banquo's monarchs, stalk, Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow : France, too, had Buonaparte and Dumourier, Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier. Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette, Exceedingly remarkable at times, IV. Nelson was once Britannia's god of war, And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd; At which the naval people are concern'd; V. Brave men were living before Agamemnon,1 A good deal like him too, though quite the same none, Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one); VI. Most epic poets plunge in medias res" (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road), And then your hero tells, whene'er you please, What went before-by way of episode, While seated after dinner at his ease, Beside his mistress in some soft abode, Palace or garden, paradise or cavern, VII. That is the usual method, but not mine- Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning), Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, VIII. In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, So says the proverb-and I quite agree; |