n no apple but what was sour as a crab"
(letter to F. Hodgson, Falmouth, June 25, 1809, _Letters_, 1898, i.
230). If this _Confessio Amantis_, with which compare the "Stanzas to a
Lady, on leaving England," is to be accepted as _bona fide_, he leaves
England heart-whole, but for the bitter memory of Mary Chaworth.]

[ao] {30} Here follows in the MS., erased:--

_Methinks it would my bosom glad_,
_To change my proud estate_,
_And be again a laughing lad_
_With one beloved playmate_.
_Since youth I scarce have pass'd an hour_
_Without disgust or pain_,
_Except sometimes in Lady's bower_,
_Or when the bowl I drain_.

[40] ["I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the 'Good Night.' I
have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes,
mankind; and Argus we know to be a fable" (letter to Dallas, September
23, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 44).

Byron was recalling an incident which had befallen him some time
previously (see letter to Moore, January 19, 1815): "When I thought he
was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and
never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds
of bones which I offered him." See, too, for another thrust at Argus,
_Don Juan_, Canto III. stanza xxiii. But he should have remembered that
this particular Argus "was half a _wolf_ by the she side." His portrait
is preserved at Newstead (see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 280, _Edition
de Luxe_).

For the expression of a different sentiment, compare _The Inscription on
the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog_ (first published in Hobhouse's
_Imit. and Transl_., 1809), and the prefatory inscription on Boatswain's
grave in the gardens of Newstead, dated November 16, 1808 (_Life_, p.
73).]

[41] {31} [Cintra's "needle-like peaks," to the north-west of Lisbon,
are visible from the mouth of the Tagus.]

[42] [Compare Ovid, _Amores_, i. 15, and Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, iv. 22.
Small particles of gold are still to be found in the sands of the Tagus,
but the quantity is, and perhaps always was, inconsiderable.]

[ap] ----_where thronging rustics reap_.--[MS. erased.]

[aq] {32} _What God hath done_--[MS. D.]

[ar] _Those Lusian brutes and earth from worst of wretches
purge_.--[MS.]

[43] ["_Lisboa_ is the Portuguese word, consequently the very best.
Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I have _Hellas_ and _Eros_ not very long
before, there would be something like an