58 [Canto V. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, and finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published, as has been already mentioned, late in 1821, along with Cantos III. and IV.; and here the Poet meant to stop-for what reason, the subjoined extracts from his letters will show : February 16. 1821. "The fifth is so far from being the last of Don Juan, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to take him the tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and to make him finish as Anacharsis Cloots, in the French Revolution. To how many cantos this may extend, I know not, nor whether (even if I live) I shall complete it; but this was my notion. I meant to have made him a Cavalier Servente in Italy, and a cause for a divorce in England, and a sentimental "Werther-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gâté and blasé as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest: the Spanish tradition says hell; but it is probably only an allegory of the other state. You are now in possession of my notions on the subject." July 6. 1821. "At the particular request of the Contessa Guiccioli I have promised not to continue Don Juan. You will therefore look upon these three Cantos as the last of the poem. She had read the two first in the French translation, and never ceased beseeching me to write no more of it. The reason of this is not at first obvious to a superficial observer of FOREIGN manners; but it arises from the wish of all women to exalt the sentiment of the passions, and to keep up the illusion which is their empire. Now, Don Juan strips off this illusion, and laughs at that and most other things. I never knew a woman who did not protect Rousseau, nor one who did not dislike De Grammont, Gil Blas, and all the comedy of the passions, when brought out naturally. But 'king's blood must keep word,' as Serjeant Bothwell says." September 4, 1821. "I read over the Juans, which are excellent. Your squad are quite wrong; and so you will find, by and by. I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the plan for several cantos, and different countries and climes. You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you, which will explain why I agreed to discontinue it." In Madame Guiccioli's note, here referred to, she had said, "Remember, my Byron, the promise you have made me. Never shall I be able to tell you the satisfaction I feel from it; so great are the sentiments of pleasure and confidence with which the sacrifice you have made has inspired me."— E.] DON JUAN. CANTO THE FIFTH. I. WHEN amatory poets sing their loves And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, II. I therefore do denounce all amorous writing, will become a moral model. (I) [See "Hobhouse's Historical Notes to the Fourth Canto of Childe III. The European with the Asian shore Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream (1) Here and there studded with a seventy-four; Sophia's cupola with golden gleam ; (2) The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar; The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream, Far less describe, present the very view Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu. (3) IV. I have a passion for the name of " Mary," (*) (1) Nxeœvoso peoso. This expression of Homer has been much criticised. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Ægean intersected with islands. (2) ["Lady Mary Wortley errs strangely when she says, St. Paul's would cut a strange figure by St. Sophia.' I have been in both, surveyed them inside and out attentively. St. Sophia's is undoubtedly the most interesting, from its immense antiquity, and the circumstance of all the Greek emperors, from Justinian, having been crowned there, and several mur. dered at the altar, besides the Turkish sultans who attended it regularly. But it is not to be mentioned in the same page with St. Paul's (I speak like a Cockney).' '—B. Letters, 1810.] (3) ["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as you ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison; but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."LADY M. W. MONTAGU.] (4) [See antè, Vol. VII. pp. 43. 291.] All feelings change, mr the vibe is 1 v. T The wind swept down the Ecame, and the wave 'Twas a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning, In all, who o'er the great deep take their ways: They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't; Because if drown'd, they can't- if spared, they won't. (1) The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bos. phorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate. [In less than an hour, we were on the top of the mountain, and repaired to the Tekeh, or Dervishes' chapel, where we were shewn, in the adjoin ing garden, a flower-bed more than fifty feet long, rimmed round with stone, and having a sepulchral turban at each end, which preserves a superstition attached to the spot long before the time of the Turks, or of the Byzantine Christians; and which, after having been called the tomb of Amycus, and the bed of Hercules, is now known as the Giant's Grave. - HOBHOUSE.] (2) [MS. —“ Which lash the Bosphorus, and lashing lave."] (3) [MS." For then the Parcæ are most busy spinning |