Note 17 — CHARACTERS OF PASSION AND IMAGINATION.

Lord Byron remarked of the Italian women, (and he could speak avec connaissance de fait,) that they are the only women in the world capable of impressions, at once very sudden and very durable; which, he adds, is to be found in no other nation. Mr. Moore observes afterwards, how completely an Italian woman, either from nature or her social position, is led to invert the usual course of frailty among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterwards.—Both these traits of national character are exemplified in Juliet—Moore's Life of Byron, vol. ii. pp. 303, 338. 4to edit.