o Paris in 1670, secretly married "_Marie Mignot, fille
d'une blanchisseuse_;" and there are other tales of other loves, e.g.
Ninon de Lenclos.]

[257] [According to the biographers, Mazeppa's intrigue took place after
he had been banished from the court of Warsaw, and had retired to his
estate in Volhynia. The _pane_ [Lord] Falbowsky, the old husband of the
young wife, was a neighbouring magnate. It was a case of "love in
idlenesse."--_Vide ante_, "The Introduction to _Mazeppa_," p. 201.]

[258] This comparison of a "_salt_ mine" may, perhaps, be permitted to a
Pole, as the wealth of the country consists greatly in the salt mines.

[259] {213}[It is improbable that Byron, when he wrote these lines, was
thinking of Theresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. He met her for the first
time "in the autumn of 1818, three days after her marriage," but it was
not till April, 1819, that he made her acquaintance. (See _Life_, p.
393, and _Letters_, 1900, iv. 289.) The copy of _Mazeppa_ sent home to
Murray is in the Countess Guiccioli's handwriting, but the assertion
(see Byron's _Works_, 1832, xi. 178), that "it is impossible not to
suspect that the Poet had some circumstances of his own personal
history, when he portrayed the fair Polish _Theresa_, her faithful
lover, and the jealous rage of the old Count Palatine," is open to
question. It was Marianna Segati who had "large, black, Oriental eyes,
with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among
_Europeans_ ... forehead remarkably good" (see lines 208-220); not
Theresa Guiccioli, who was a "blonde," with a "brilliant complexion and
blue eyes." (See Letters to Moore, November 17, 1816; and to Murray, May
6, 1819: _Letters_, 1900, iv. 8, 289, note 1.) Moreover, the "Maid of
Athens" was called Theresa. Dr. D. Englaender, in his exhaustive
monologue, _Lord Byron's Mazeppa_, pp. 48, sq., insists on the identity
of the Theresa of the poem with the Countess Guiccioli, but from this
contention the late Professor Koelbing (see _Englische Studien_, 1898,
vol. xxiv. pp 448-458) dissents.]

[bs] {214}_Until it proves a joy to die_.--[MS. erased.]

[260] {215}[For the use of "electric" as a metaphor, compare _Parisina_,
line 480, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 524, note i.]

[bt] {216}

--_but not_
_For that which we had both forgot_.--[MS. erased.]

[261] {217}[Compare--

"We loved, Sir, used to meet:
How sad, and bad, and mad it was!