Note 258 — CANTO THE FOURTH.
Reading edition
["Don Juan will be known, by and by, for what it is intended—a Satire on abuses in the present states of society, and not an eulogy of vice. It may be now and then voluptuous:—I can't help that. Ariosto is worse. Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2nd of R[oderick] R[andom][1793, pp. 119-127]) ten times worse; and Fielding no better."—Letter to Murray, December 25, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 155, 156.]