'And do not link two virtuous souls for life
Into that moral centaur, man and wife?'
Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis)—particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages."—Letter to Murray, August 31, 1821, ibid., p. 351.]
Meanwhile as Homer sometimes sleeps, much more
The modern muse may be allowed to snore.—[MS.]
PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII.
The details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (i.e. the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie.[319] Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence.