494.

"In her first passions woman loves her lover,
In all the others all she loves is love,
Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over,
And fits her loosely--like an easy glove," etc.

_Don Juan_, canto iii. st. iii.

There is no note on _this_ passage; but on the concluding lines of the
_very next_ stanza,

"Although, no doubt, her first of love affairs
Is that to which her heart is wholly granted;
Yet there are some, they say, who have had _none_,
But those who have ne'er end with only _one_,

we have the following editorial comment:--"These two lines are a
versification of a saying of Montaigne." (!!!) The saying is _not_
by Montaigne, but by La Rochefoucauld:--

"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."--_Max._ 73.

Byron borrows the same idea again:--

"Writing grows a habit, like a woman's gallantry. There are
women who have had no intrigue, but few who have had but one
only; so there are millions of men who have never written a