from Canto XIV

61

The Lady Adeline resolved to take
     Such measures as she thought might best impede
The further progress of this sad mistake.
     She thought with some simplicity indeed;
But innocence is bold even at the stake,
     And simple in the world, and doth not need
Nor use those palisades by dames erected,
Whose virtue lies in never being detected.

62

It was not that she fear’d the very worst:
     His Grace was an enduring, married man,
And was not likely all at once to burst
     Into a scene, and swell the clients’ clan
Of Doctors’ Commons; but she dreaded first
     The magic of her Grace’s talisman,
And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret)
With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

63

Her Grace too pass’d for being an Intrigante,
    And somewhat mchante in her amorous sphere;
One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt
    A lover with caprices soft and dear,
That like to make a quarrel, when they can’t
     Find one, each day of the delightful year;
Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow,
And—what is worst of all—won’t let you go;

64

The sort of thing to turn a young man’s head,
    Or make a Werter of him in the end.
No wonder then a purer soul should dread
     This sort of chaste liaison for a friend;
It were much better to be wed or dead,
    Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend.
‘Tis best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,
If that a “bonne fortune” be really “bonne.”

65

And first, in the o’erflowing of her heart,
     Which really knew or thought it knew no guile,
She called her husband now and then apart,
     And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile
Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art
     To wean Don Juan from the Siren’s wile;
And answer’d, like a Statesman or a Prophet,
In such guise that she could make nothing of it.

66

Firstly, he said, “he never interfered
     In any body’s business but the king’s”:
Next, that “he never judged from what appear’d,
     Without strong reason, of those sorts of things”:
Thirdly, that “Juan had more brain than beard,
     And was not to be held in leading strings”;
And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice,
“That good but rarely came from good advice.”

67

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth
     Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse
To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth,
    At least as far as biensance allows:
That time would temper Juan’s faults of youth;
     That young men rarely made monastic vows;
That opposition only more attaches—
But here a messenger brought in dispatches:

68

And being of the Council called “the Privy,”
     Lord Henry walk’d into his Cabinet,
To furnish matter for some future Livy
     To tell how he reduced the nation’s debt;
And if their full contents I do not give ye,
     It is because I do not know them yet,
But I shall add them in a brief appendix,
To come between mine epic and its index.

69

But ere he went, he added a slight hint,
     Another gentle common-place or two,
Such as are coined in conversation’s mint,
     And pass, for want of better, though not new:
Then broke his packet, to see what was in’t,
     And having casually glanced it through,
Retired; and, as he went out, calmly kissed her,
Less like a young wife than an aged sister.

70

He was a cold, good, honourable man,
     Proud of his birth, and proud of every thing;
A goodly spirit for a state divan,
     A figure fit to walk before a king;
Tall, stately, form’d to lead the courtly van
     On birth-days, glorious with a star and string;
The very model of a Chamberlain—
And such I mean to make him when I reign.