Don Juan

In London, permission for the erection of a memorial tablet to George Gordon Lord Byron, English poet, was refused by Bishop Ryle, Dean of Westminster. Wrote the Bishop to the London Times: "Byron, partly by his own openly dissolute life and partly by the influence of licentious verse, earned a world-wide reputation for immorality. Among English-speaking people, Westminster Abbey primarily stands to witness for Jesus Christ.

"A man who outraged the laws of our Divine Lord and whose treatment of women violated Christian principles of Purity and Honor should not be commemorated in Westminster Abbey."

Among the more notable of Lord Byron's intimates were Mrs. Spencer Smith, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Oxford, Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster, Claire Clairmont, Marianna Se-gati, Margarita Cogni, Countess Teresa Guiccioli.

In his own words, recently rediscovered by the British press, Byron would impiously say:

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,

Sermons and soda-water the day after -

And, rebuffed, he would declaim:

Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate; And whatsoever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate.