Don Juan

Canto the Seventeenth

{608}[813] [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.]

{609}[814] 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.