[313] Ibid., II., 17–23.
[314] Ibid., XI., 10.
[315] Byron attributed the unpopularity of Don Juan with the ladies, and particularly with the Countess Guiccioli, to the fact that it is the “wish of all women to exalt the sentiment of the passions, and to keep up the illusion which is their empire” and that the poem “strips off this illusion, and laughs at that and most other things” (Letters, v., 321). It was the opposition of the Countess which induced him to promise to leave off the work at the fifth canto, a pledge which he fortunately disregarded after keeping it for several months.
[316] Childe Harold, II., 7.
[317] Don Juan, VI., 22. See also I., 215; III., 35.
[318] Ibid., V., 21.
[319] Ibid., XI., 82, 86.
[320] Ibid., II., 34.
[321] Don Juan, XII., 86.
[322] Poetry, VI., 79.