Note 589 — POEMS 1816-1823.
Reading edition
I wrote this sonnet (after tearing the first) on being repeatedly urged to do so by the Countess G. [It was at the house of the Marquis Cavalli, uncle to the countess, that Byron appeared in the part of a fully-recognized "Cicisbeo."—See letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 393.]