[363] Letters, v., 387.
[364] Ibid., vi., 10.
[365] Ibid., vi., 93.
[366] Letters, vi., 129.
[367] Ibid., vi., 159.
[368] In the only public retort which Southey undertook, a Letter to the Courier, December 8, 1824, he could do little more than make charges of misrepresentation, and repeat his accusation that Byron was one “who played the monster in literature, and aimed his blows at women.” Southey unwittingly had engaged with too powerful an antagonist and only his want of a sense of humor kept him from appreciating the fact.
[369] Letters, v., 385.
[370] The recurrence in the Vision of many familiar devices of Don Juan reminds us that the Vision marks Byron’s resumption of the ottava rima, which he had left off on December 27, 1820, at the completion of Don Juan, Canto V., because of the request of the Countess Guiccioli that he discontinue the work. In the meantime he turned his attention to the drama, and Cain, The Two Foscari, and Sardanapalus were published in December, 1821. The Vision then was his only work in the octave stanza between December 27, 1820, and June, 1822, when he began Canto VI. of Don Juan.
[371] Byron had finished his translation of the first canto of the Morgante in February, 1820.
[372] The Vision of Judgment, 25.