The Don Juan Spinoffs of 1819

1.1. [Introductory]

[1] "In a few days, DON JUAN."¹ These words alone, neither preceded or followed by explanation, appearing in the advertising columns of our newspapers, were more novel in their form than the first appearance of the new comet; and in their import, certainly not less mysterious. The curiosity of the town was raised to the highest pitch to know the meaning of the enigmatical line. The ladies, as was natural, supposed them to be used as a signal for happiness, previously concerted between some fond pair, whom time and space had separated. Gentlemen hurried to the offices of the Times [Page 06] and Morning Chronicle, to beg of the editors some explanation: but, for the first time, these public oracles were compelled to declare their ignorance. The portentous words were by the booksellers, whose scent in such matters is rather keen, supposed to be what they significantly called, a 'fetch' of 'Don John's.' What other conjurers could divine, that they were merely an announcement of a work in the press to be published by "John Murray, of Albemarle Street," or speaking agreeably to his own cognomen, "Mr. Murray?"²

[2] Such, however, was the case; and Don John, as the booksellers call him, or Mr. Murray, as he calls himself, with a modesty which he reserves for trying occasions, issues Don Juan. But you do not ask with Mr. Hazlitt, "Has Mr. Murray turned Quaker, that he styles himself John Murray in the title page?" You do not select Mr. Hazlitt's quotation, and say, "Mark you this absolute John?" No. Don Juan appears without Mr. Murray's honest name to it. He publishes, but makes no sign. It would be doing injustice, however, to his rare and superlative merits, to permit him to veil his ex [Page 07]cellencies from the public eye, by any species of diffidence, that seeks concealment. Don Juan being a work of no ordinary kind, the favour Mr. Murray has conferred on the world by its publication, must not be overlooked.

[3] Don Juan is a Poem by Lord Byron, in which his Lordship's muse displays all his characteristic beauties and blemishes—soaring to the vastest heights, or creeping in the lowest depths—glancing with an eye of fantasy, at things past, at things present, and at things to come. Sometimes fixing her sight upon the shining radiance of the most effulgent glory, undazzled by its splendour, or directing her gaze to the microscopic observation of animated putrescence—grasping with one hand thunderbolts from Olympus, and groping with the other in a filthy jakes. The poem is constructed like the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream—of fine gold, silver, iron, and clay. It abounds in sublime thought and low humour, in dignified feeling and malignant passion, in elegant wit and obsolete conceit. It alternately presents us with the gaiety of the ball-room, and the gloom of the scaffold—leading us among the airy pleasantries of fashionable assemblage, and suddenly conducting us to haunts of depraved and disgusting sensuality. It has the characteristic beauties and deformi [Page 08]ties of most of the noble author's other works, wherein we have scarcely time to be refreshed and soothed by the odours of flowers and bursting blossoms, the pensive silence of still waters, and the contemplation of beautiful forms, before we are terrified and horror-stricken by the ferocious clamours of tumultuous crowds, and the agonies of innocent and expiring victims.

[4] There are few varieties in man or mankind, which the author of Don Juan has not attempted in his productions, from the cavalier of the camp, and the high-bred courtier of the palace, with his pouncet-box and lute, to the ruffian chief of a band of robbers or pirates, who, in one breath, stabs with his dagger, and fires with his pistol; or the brawny bully of a brothel, full of strange oaths and brutal obscenity. But this poem has another character—it keeps no terms with even the common feelings of civilized man. It turns decorum into jest, and bids defiance to the established decencies of life. It wars with virtue, as resolutely as with vice.

1.2. [Description of Canto I]

[5] A sketch of DON JUAN's history, as given by Lord Byron, with some extracts from the poem, will enable a discerning reader to decide, how far these observations are just, and if the character of the work is fairly appreciated. The motive too, for suppressing the publisher's [Page 09] name, will then appear pretty obvious. The noble author opens his poem with these words—

[6] Amongst the numerous acquaintance of Donna Inez, there was the Donna Julia, "charming, chaste, and twenty-three."

[7] His Lordship, with becoming gravity, intimates that his poem is epic, and is meant to be divided into twelve books. He affirms that he [Page 16] has an advantage above preceding poets, because his story is actually true, and that himself

[8] The first Canto concludes with certain monitory stanzas requiring the reader to take the author's word for the moral of his poem, and requesting the public, whose approbation he desires, to recollect his epical pretensions to the laurel, he says,—

1.3. [Description of Canto II]

[9] In the second Canto, his Lordship commences a course of reflections on the folly of undue restraint upon youth; these are concluded with the following lines:—

[10] After Juan's adventure with Donna Julia, his mother, having so great success with her son's education, set up a Sunday school, and sent Juan, with a tutor named Pedrillo, and a suitable establishment, on board the vessel bound from Cadiz, whose graceful ladies are glowingly described with the usual magic of Lord Byron's pencil, when he depicts female loveliness. The ‘Libertine's’ voyage is boisterous and dangerous. The vessel loses her rudder, and springs a terrible leak. Her masts are cut away, and she is a mere log, tossing on the billows of a tempestuous sea. In this fearful state, the crew become desperate, and lose their subordination. This part of the poem is long, and exhibits a concentration of all the striking peculiarities of the poet. The sailors gave up all for lost, and seized upon the rum-casks; whereon his Lordship says,—

[11] In this confusion, Juan preserves equanimity of temper, and resists the demands of the sailors for liquor. [Page 18]

[12] The various preparations for leaving the ship and getting into the boats, are related with such precision, and so naturally, that the reader almost fancies he has before him one of the descriptions of honest Daniel De Foe. Those who know that author's writings intimately—and it is feared few have read more than Robinson Crusoe—will be aware, that this is no small praise of his Lordship; and those who do [Page 19] not, and who admire the noble Lord's works, will not dislike being informed, that De Foe's narratives are masterpieces of truth and simplicity, unequalled by any writer who preceded, and unexcelled by the best authors who have followed him.

[13] It was the twilight of a sunless day. Two boats, which could not contain half the people on board, were hastily manned and overloaded. An unsuccessful attempt was made to construct a raft. The ship gave a heel, and she went down head foremost in a dreadful sea.

[14] Juan contrived to save himself and Pedrillo, with eight-and-twenty men, in the long-boat. The cutter swamped. The survivors in the long-boat were crowded in a space which left scarce room for motion. This circumstance gives Lord Byron occasion to observe, that the desire of life prolongs it; and, in the course of his illustrations on this tendency to long life, in persons of easy curcumstances, his Lordship observes—of course most befittingly to his subject—

[15] The reckless crew not husbanding their provision, had exhausted it all by the third day—on the fifth day they killed Juan's spaniel—on the sixth day they ate his hide—

[16] Juan abstained from these unnatural banquets, contenting himself with chewing a piece of bamboo and some lead. A shower of rain fell—

[17] There is an affecting relation of the sufferings of two fathers, who witnessed the death of their famishing children. At length a rainbow appears.

[18] Haidee's mode of teaching Juan her language, the modern Greek, occupies several stanzas of description so charming, that Moore might envy his Lordship their grace and nature. It seems that,—

[19] There is an undissembled bitterness of feeling in the last stanza, that seems to come from the author's heart. It may be conceived that he wrote the sixth line with something of that maniacal countenance and gritting of the teeth, which a man has when he splits the table with his clenched fist, in the rage of hate and disappointed revenge. But in the last two lines there is an expression of deeply settled melancholy—the tearless grief of one who desires something to be kind to, but who cannot stoop to woo it: who perceives itself alone in the world, and would rather remain so, than manifest a desire to be otherwise. It is the agony of a proud spirit, wounded, but not broken.

[20] Juan, of course, is well taken care of, and becomes enamoured of his deliverer. The story of their loves is told at length; and is, perhaps, the most beautiful portion of the poem.

[21] Throughout this poem, his Lordship's muse excels in scenes of fondness and endearment. Towards the close of the second Canto, the endearments of Juan and Haidee are told elaborately, and with singular truth and pathos. The fair Greek watching over Juan while he sleeps, produces two delightful stanzas. [Page 28]

[22] Amongst the stanzas descriptive of the affair between Juan and Haidee, there are two on female love, of exquisite truth.

[23] It is not possible to avoid a sigh of sorrow for him, who with such clear perceptions of truth, sets the fitness of things at nought, and with bacchic recklessness cries—

[24] This is the story of Poem, so far as it proceeds. The second Canto, which concludes the publication, ends with the Author observing, in the 216th stanza—

1.4. [On Murray as Publisher]

[25] Not the least extraordinary circumstance connected with the history of this singular poem, is, that the Publisher to the Board of Longitude, and of the Quarterly Review—the Bookseller to the Admiralty, and strenuous supporter of orthodoxy and the Bible Society, is the publisher of Don Juan. If the writer of this had any personal acquaintance with Mr. Murray, he would address him somewhat in these terms:—

[26] But what will, or rather what must, the great moralist and quarterly Reviewer, Mr. Gifford, say, in print, of this new publication from his friend Murray's shop. Neither the partialities of friendship, nor participation in the preparation of the manuscript for the press, can soften that severity of castigation that assuredly awaits the publisher in the Quarterly. Perhaps in some such strain as the following, it will review Don Juan in the next number.

[27] There are two stanzas in the Poem, that must not be passed over, because they have been published by Mr. Murray, in direct opposition to his friends of the Courier and Quarterly, in open contempt of Bills of Indictment, and Crown-Office Prosecutions, and in utter defiance of Grand Juries, and the King's Attorney-General. They are a— [Page 35]

PARODY ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

[28] There cannot possibly be any impropriety in reprinting this from a work which is the property of Mr. Murray, publisher to the Admiralty, and Board of Longitude, and of the Quarterly Review, and the Government Navy List. It is impossible to do wrong in repub [Page 36] lishing it after Mr. Murray, as to whose long deliberation, and the manifold advice he received from friends respecting the poem, Mr. Gifford himself can testify; for he was consulted, amongst others who were deemed worthy the honour to be admitted of counsel on the occasion. The work itself proves more than ordinary care in the publisher, for there are several entire stanzas omitted, and it is not credible that Mr. Murray would let this Parody stand, unless he knew he had the sanction of powerful men.⁵

[29] It was reserved for the hardihood of Mr. Murray to usher the poem to the world; and he has done it in despite of every thing which the knot of personages around him affect to hold sacred. No other bookseller who could have read the poem, and pondered upon it—as he has done; and caused it to be read by men of craft and acumen—as he has done; or by men of well-constituted minds—as he might have done; no other man but he who has Government support and Government writers to back him, dare publish Don Juan as it now stands. Mr. Murray is too ‘respectable’ to fear attack, or even insinuation for the immoral tendency of the Poem. He and his quarto book of 227 pages, with only 16 lines in a page, and a magnificent circumference of margin, and a guinea [Page 38] and a half in price, may defy the Society for Suppression of Vice, and

[30] With what face can the Attorney-General hereafter rise in a Court of Justice—before an enlightened auditory, and by Information to the Court, on behalf of the King, charge a Defendant, with publishing Impiety, if this Government publisher go free of prosectuion for a work, which, in the eyes of Crown lawyers, must be leprous all over. The last two lines of one stanza⁶ alludes to the 'Unutterable Name,' with a prophane levity, unsurpassed by any other two lines in the English language. Dare the King's Minsters who are members of the 'Vice Society,' with the society itself at their back, prosecute Mr. Murray?—they dare not! they are old hawks, to be sure, and may fly for a while at feeble sparrows: but he is a bird of too strong a beak and pinion for their attack. Even the Attorney-General dare not try a fall with Don John, who sings the Regent's favourite, 'Glorious Apollo.'

[31] The octavo edition of Don Juan may perhaps [Page 39] greet us in the shop windows with 'JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,' in as bold a type at the foot of the title-page as his printer's name now stands on the quarto. For as the ostrich, seeking hide itself from travellers in the desert, runs its head into the dirt, Mr. Murray, who has done so too, will discover that he has had no better success than this silly bird. Hence, the octavo edition may also contain an apologetical or explanatory preface—the quarto has none. The pen of that glozing Anit-Jacobin, Mr. Gifford, who takes Mr. Murray's cash, and perhaps his kicks, would leap from the inkstand into its owner's hand, to do a seasonable service to his patron. Mr. Croker will no doubt defend the Admiralty publisher in the Courier. His other friend, Mr. Southey, who has been converted by Methodism and the Sackbut into a rhyming preacher and a Poet-Laureate, and who writes Anti-Reform articles in the Quarterly, will come from the Lakes, and receive the offender's speech and confession, and prune it, and dress it, and give it to the world with a particular account of the culprit's behaviour, and a copy of verses on the melancholy occasion. Mr. Murray published Mr. Southey's defence of Wat Tyler—the Laureate can return the fa [Page 40] vour to his bookseller, by defending Don Juan.

[32] Lord Byron's Dedication of Don Juan to Lord Castlereagh, was suppressed by Mr. Murray, from delicacy to Ministers.⁷

[33] Q. Why did not Mr. Murray suppress Lord Byron's Parody on the Ten Commandments?

[34] A. Because it contains nothing in ridicule of Ministers, and therefore nothing that they could suppose, would be to the displeasure of Almighty God.