“Mobility” is not the tendency to yield to every impression, to change with every impulse, but the capability of being moved by many and various impressions, of responding to an ever-renewed succession of impulses. Byron is defending the enthusiastic temperament from the charge of inconstancy and insincerity.] ↩
The first edition of Cocker’s Arithmetic was published in 1677. There are many allusions to Cocker in Arthur Murphy’s Apprentice (1756), whence, perhaps, the saying, “according to Cocker.” —Editor ↩
“[Et Horatii] Curiosa felicitas.”
—Petronius Arbiter, Salyricôn, cap. CXVIII
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
Pope on Addison, “Prologue to the Satires,” lines 201, 202
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.”
—Editor ↩
Bion, “Epitaphium Adonidis,” line 28. —Editor ↩
“… genetrix hominum, divômque voluptas, Alma Venus!”
Lucret., De Rerum Nat., lib. I lines 1, 2
—Editor ↩
Job 4:13. —Editor ↩
See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer—
“Karl—Karl—was willst du mit mir?”
[For Johann Georg Schrepfer (1730(?)–1774), see J. S. B. Schlegel’s Tagebuch, etc., 1806, and Schwärmer und Schwindler, von Dr. Eugen Sierke, 1874, pp. 298–332.] ↩
Inferno, Canto III line 9. —Editor ↩
When once discovered it don’t like to come near it.
—[MS.]
A beardless chin—.
—[MS.]
End of Canto 16. B. My. 6, 1823. [—MS.] —Editor ↩
May 8, 1823.—MS. More than one “Seventeenth Canto,” or so-called continuation of Don Juan, has been published. Some of these “Sequels” pretend to be genuine, while others are undisguisedly imitations or parodies. For an account of these spurious and altogether worthless continuations, see “Bibliography,” vol. VII. There was, however, a foundation for the myth. Before Byron left Italy he had begun (May 8, 1823) a seventeenth canto, and when he sailed for Greece he took the new stanzas with him. Trelawny found “fifteen stanzas of the seventeenth canto of Don Juan” in Byron’s room at Missolonghi (Recollections, etc., 1858, p. 237). The MS., together with other papers, was handed over to John Cam Hobhouse, and is now in the possession of his daughter, the Lady Dorchester. The copyright was purchased by the late John Murray. The fourteen (not fifteen) stanzas are now printed and published for the first time. —Editor ↩
The Italians, at least in some parts of Italy, call bastards and foundlings the mules—why, I cannot see, unless they mean to infer that the offspring of matrimony are asses. ↩
For Brougham’s Fabian tactics with regard to duelling, vide post, Canto XIII stanza LXXXIV line 1, note 1040. —Editor ↩
Vide post, Canto XIII stanza LXXXIV line 1, note 1040. —Editor ↩
For “Captain Bobadill, a Paul’s man,” see Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour, act IV sc. 5, et passim. —Editor ↩
The N. Eng. Dict., quotes a passage in Phil. Trans., IV 286 (1669), as the latest instance of “courtisan” for “courtier.” —Editor ↩
Possibly George Manners (1778–1853), editor of The Satirist, whose appointment to a foreign consulate Brougham sharply criticized in the House of Commons, July 9, 1817 (Parl. Deb., vol. XXXVI pp. 1320, 1321); and Daniel Mackinnon (1791–1836), the nephew of Henry Mackinnon, who fell at Ciudad Rodrigo. Byron met “Dan” Mackinnon at Lisbon in 1809, and (Gronow, Reminiscences, 1889, II 259, 260) was amused by his “various funny stories.” —Editor ↩
Byron’s town-house, in 1815–1816, No. 13, Piccadilly, belonged to the Duchess of Devonshire. When he went abroad in April, 1816, the rent was still unpaid. The duchess, through her agent, distrained, but was unable to recover the debt. See Byron’s “Letter to Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire,” November 3, 1817, Letters, 1900, IV 178. ↩
“To the Publisher. Take of these varieties which is thought best. I have no choice.”
—Editor ↩
If the Turkish words are correctly given, “the oath” may be an imprecation on “your mother’s” chastity. —Editor ↩
To wit, the Deity’s: this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms.—What would have been said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage? ↩
Note. By particular licence, “positively for the last time, by desire,” etc., to be pronounced “tydger.” Such is what Gifford calls “the necessity of rhyming.” —[MS. erased] ↩
Colophon
Don Juan
was published in 1824 by
Lord Byron.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2006 by
Jonathan Ingram, David Cortesi, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
Don Juan et Haïdée,
a painting completed in 1839 by
Marcel Saunier.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and
