from Canto XV

31

Next to the making matches for herself,
    And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,
Arranging them like books on the same shelf,
     There’s nothing women love to dabble in
More (like a stock-holder in growing pelf)
     Than match-making in general: ‘tis no sin
Certes, but a preventative, and therefore
That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore.

32

But never yet (except of course a miss
     Unwed, or mistress never to be wed,
Or wed already, who object to this
     Was there chaste dame who had not in her head
Some drama of the marriage unities,
     Observed as strictly both at board and bed,
As those of Aristotle, though sometimes
They turn out melodrames or pantomimes.

33

They generally have some only son,
     Some heir to a large property, some friend
Of an old family, some gay Sir John,
     Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might end
A line, and leave posterity undone,
     Unless a marriage was applied to mend
The prospect and their morals: and besides,
They have at hand a blooming glut of brides.

34

From these they will be careful to select,
     For this an heiress, and for that a beauty;
For one a songstress who hath no defect,
     For t’other one who promises much duty;
For this a lady no one can reject,
     Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty;
A second for her excellent connexions;
A third, because there can be no objections.

35

When Rapp the Harmonist embargoed marriage
     In his harmonious settlement—(which flourishes
Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage,
    Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes,
Without those sad expenses which disparage
     What Nature naturally most encourages)—
Why call’d he “Harmony” a state sans wedlock?
Now here I have got the preacher at a dead lock.

36

Because he either meant to sneer at harmony
     Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly.
But whether reverend Rapp learn’d this in Germany
     Or no, ‘tis said his sect is rich and godly,
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any
     Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.
My objection’s to his title, not his ritual,
Although I wonder how it grew habitual.

37

But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons,
    Who favour, malgr Malthus, generation—
Professors of that genial art, and patrons
     Of all the modest part of propagation,
Which after all at such a desperate rate runs,
     That half its produce tends to emigration,
That sad result of passions and potatoes—
Two weeds which pose our economic Catos.

38

Had Adeline read Malthus? I can’t tell;
     I wish she had: his book’s the eleventh commandment,
Which says, “thou shalt not marry,” unless well:
     This he (as far as I can understand) meant:
‘Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell,
     Nor canvass what “so eminent a hand” meant;
But certes it conducts to lives ascetic,
Or turning marriage into arithmetic.

39

But Adeline, who probably presumed
     That Juan had enough of maintenance,
Or separate maintenance, in case ‘twas doom’d—
     As on the whole it is an even chance
That bridegrooms, after they are fairly groom’d,
     May retrograde a little in the dance
Of marriage—(which might form a painter’s fame,
Like Holbein’s “Dance of Death”—but ‘tis the same);—

40

But Adeline determined Juan’s wedding
     In her own mind, and that’s enough for woman.
But then, with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading,
    Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman,
And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding.
     She deemed his merits something more than common:
All these were unobjectionable matches,
And might go on, if well wound up, like watches.