But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero, Or any such like sovereign buffoons,[dg] To do with the transactions of my hero, More than such madmen's fellow man--the moon's? Sure my invention must be down at zero, And I grown one of many "Wooden Spoons" Of verse, (the name with which we Cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees). CXI. I feel this tediousness will never do-- T' is being _too_ epic, and I must cut down (In copying) this long canto into two; They'll never find it out, unless I own The fact, excepting some experienced few; And then as an improvement 't will be shown: I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is From Aristotle _passim_.--See ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗΣ[Greek: POIÊTIKÊS].[229] FOOTNOTES: [169] [November 30, 1819. Copied in 1820 (MS.D.). Moore (_Life_, 421) says that Byron was at work on the third canto when he stayed with him at Venice, in October, 1819. "One day, before dinner, [he] read me two or three hundred lines of it; beginning with the stanzas "Oh Wellington," etc., which, at the time, formed the opening of the third canto, but were afterwards reserved for the commencement of the ninth." The third canto, as it now stands, was completed by November 8, 1819; see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 375. The date on the MS. may refer to the first fair copy.] {144}[ch] _And fits her like a stocking or a glove_.--[MS. D.] [170] ["On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une."--_Réflexions_ ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii. Byron prefixed the maxim as a motto to his "Ode to a Lady whose Lover was killed by a Ball, which at the same time shivered a Portrait next his Heart."--_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 552.] {145}[171] [_Merchant of Venice_, act iv. sc. 1, line 254.] [ci] _Had Petrarch's passion led to Petrarch's wedding,_ _How many sonnets had ensued the bedding?_--[MS.] [172] [The Ballad of "Death and the Lady" was printed in a small volume, entitled _A Guide to Heaven_, 1736, 12mo. It is mentioned in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (chap. xvii.), _Works of Oliver Goldsmith_, 1854, i. 369. See _Old English Popular Music_, by William Chappell, F.S.A., 1893, ii. 170, 171.] {146}[173] [See _The Prophecy of Dante,_ Canto I. lines 172-174, _Poetical Works,_ 1901, iv. 253, note 1.] [174] Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first month. If she had not, what would John Milton have done?