Enough: How Should 'The Tender Passion' E'Er Be Tough? Alas! By All Experience, Seldom Yet (I Merely Quote What I Have Heard From Many) Had Lovers Not Some Reason To Regret The Passion Which Made Solomon A Zany. I 've Also Seen Some Wives (Not To Forget The Marriage State, The Best Or Worst Of Any) Who Were The Very Paragons Of Wives, Yet Made The Misery Of At Least Two Lives. I 've Also Seen Some Female Friends ( 'T Is Odd, But True - As, If Expedient, I Could Prove) That Faithful Were Through Thick And Thin, Abroad, At Home, Far More Than Ever Yet Was Love - Who Did Not Quit Me When Oppression Trod Upon Me; Whom No Scandal Could Remove; Who Fought, And Fight, In Absence, Too, My Battles, Despite The Snake Society'S Loud Rattles. Whether Don Juan And Chaste Adeline Grew Friends In This Or Any Other Sense, Will Be Discuss'D Hereafter, I Opine: At Present I Am Glad Of A Pretence To Leave Them Hovering, As The Effect Is Fine, And Keeps The Atrocious Reader In Suspense; The Surest Way For Ladies And For Books To Bait Their Tender, Or Their Tenter, Hooks. Whether They Rode, Or Walk'D, Or Studied Spanish To Read Don Quixote In The Original, A Pleasure Before Which All Others Vanish; Whether Their Talk Was Of The Kind Call'D 'Small,' Or Serious, Are The Topics I Must Banish To The Next Canto; Where Perhaps I Shall Say Something To The Purpose, And Display Considerable Talent In My Way. Above All, I Beg All Men To Forbear Anticipating Aught About The Matter: They 'll Only Make Mistakes About The Fair, And Juan Too, Especially The Latter. And I Shall Take A Much More Serious Air Than I Have Yet Done, In This Epic Satire. It Is Not Clear That Adeline And Juan Will Fall; But If They Do, 'T Will Be Their Ruin. But Great Things Spring From Little: - Would You Think, That In Our Youth, As Dangerous A Passion As E'Er Brought Man And Woman To The Brink Of Ruin, Rose From Such A Slight Occasion, As Few Would Ever Dream Could Form The Link Of Such A Sentimental Situation? You 'll Never Guess, I 'll Bet You Millions, Milliards - It All Sprung From A Harmless Game At Billiards. 'T Is Strange, - But True; For Truth Is Always Strange; Stranger Than Fiction; If It Could Be Told, How Much Would Novels Gain By The Exchange! How Differently The World Would Men Behold! How Oft Would Vice And Virtue Places Change! The New World Would Be Nothing To The Old, If Some Columbus Of The Moral Seas Would Show Mankind Their Souls' Antipodes. What 'Antres Vast And Deserts Idle' Then Would Be Discover'D In The Human Soul! What Icebergs In The Hearts Of Mighty Men, With Self-Love In The Centre As Their Pole! What Anthropophagi Are Nine Of Ten Of Those Who Hold The Kingdoms In Control Were Things But Only Call'D By Their Right Name, Caesar Himself Would Be Ashamed Of Fame.