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Note 3, page 111, stanza lxxx.

But sold by the impresario at no high rate.

This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company for some foreign theatre; embarked them at an Italian port, and carrying them to Algiers, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of "L'Italiana in Algeri," at Venice, in the beginning of 1817.

Note 4, page 114, stanza lxxxvi.

"From all the pope makes yearly 'twould perplex
"To find three perfect pipes of the third sex.

It is strange that it should be the Pope and the Sultan who are the chief encouragers of this branch of tradewomen being prohibited as singers at St. Peter's, and not deemed trust-worthy as guardians of the haram.

Note 5, page 122, stanza ciii.

While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.

The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is about two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to the road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix, who gained the battle, was killed in it; there fell on both sides twenty thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its site is described in the text.

DON JUAN.

CANTO V.

DON JUAN.

CANTO V.

I.

WHEN amatory poets sing their loves

In liquid lines mellifluously bland,

And praise their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may make you understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

II.

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain-simple-short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tacked,

Formed rather for instructing than delighting,

And with all passions in their turn attacked; Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,

This

poem will become a moral model.

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;

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 charmed the charming Mary Montagu.

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