XIX.

_That Temple was more in the midst of the plain_-- or, _What of that shrine did yet remain_ _Lay to his left more in midst of the plain_.--[MS. G.]

[364] [From this all is beautiful to--"He saw not--he knew not--but nothing is there."--Gifford. For "pillar's base," compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza x. line 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 105.]

[ps] {471} _Is it the wind that through the stone._ or,----_o'er the heavy stone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[365] I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

[The lines in _Christabel_, Part the First, 43-52, 57, 58, are these--

"The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek-- There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."

" ... What sees she there? There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white."

Byron (_vide ante_, p. 443), in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself against a charge of plagiarism, by explaining that lines 521-532 of stanza xix. were written before he heard Walter Scott repeat _Christabel_ in the preceding June. Now, as Byron himself perceived, perhaps for the first time, when he had the MS. of _Christabel_ before him, the coincidence in language and style between the two passages is unquestionable; and, as he hoped and expected that Coleridge's fragment, when completed, would issue from the press, he was anxious to avoid even the semblance of pilfering, and went so far as to suggest that the passage should be cancelled. Neither in the private letter nor the published note does Byron attempt to deny or explain away the coincidence, but pleads that his lines were written before he had heard Coleridge's poem recited, and that he had not been guilty of a "wilful plagiarism." There is no difficulty in accepting his statement. Long before the summer of 1815 _Christabel_ "had a pretty general circulation in the literary world" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 261), and he may have heard without heeding this and other passages quoted by privileged readers; or, though never a line of _Christabel_ had sounded in his ears, he may (as Kölbing points out) have caught its lilt at second hand from the published works of Southey, or of Scott himself.

Compare _Thalaba the Destroyer_, v. 20 (1838, iv. 187)--

"What sound is borne on the wind? Is it the storm that shakes The thousand oaks of the forest?

* * * * *

Is it the river's roar Dashed down some rocky descent?" etc.

Or compare _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, I. xii. 5. _seq._ (1812, p. 24)--

"And now she sits in secret bower In old Lord David's western tower, And listens to a heavy sound, That moans the mossy turrets round. Is it the roar of Teviot's tide, That chafes against the scaur's red side? Is it the wind that swings the oaks? Is it the echo from the rocks?" etc.

Certain lines of Coleridge's did, no doubt, "find themselves" in the _Siege of Corinth_, having found their way to the younger poet's ear and fancy before the Lady of the vision was directly and formally introduced to his notice.]

[pt] {473}_There sate a lady young and bright_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[366] [Contemporary critics fell foul of these lines for various reasons. The _Critical Review_ (February, 1816, vol. iii. p. 151) remarks that "the following couplet [i.e. lines 531, 532] reminds us of the _persiflage_ of Lewis or the pathos of a vulgar ballad;" while the _Dublin Examiner_ (May, 1816, vol. i. p. 19) directs a double charge against the founders of the schism and their proselyte: "If the Cumberland _Lakers_ were not well known to be personages of the most pious and saintly temperament, we would really have serious apprehensions lest our noble Poet should come to any harm in consequence of the envy which the two following lines and a great many others through the poems, might excite by their successful rivalship of some of the finest effects of babyism that these Gentlemen can boast."]

[pu] _He would have made it_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pv] _She who would_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pw] {474} _The ocean spread before their view_.--[Copy.]

[367] ["And its _thrilling_ glance, etc."--Gifford.]

[368] [Warton (_Observations en the Fairy Queen_, 1807, ii. 131), commenting on Spenser's famous description of "Una and the Lion" (_Faëry Queene_, Book I. canto iii. stanzas 5, 6, 7), quotes the following passage from _Seven Champions of Christendom_: "Now, Sabra, I have by this sufficiently proved thy true virginitie: for it is the nature of a lion, be he never so furious, not to harme the unspotted virgin, but humbly to lay his bristled head upon a maiden's lap."

Byron, according to Leigh Hunt (_Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries_, 1828, i. 77), could not "see anything" in Spenser, and was not familiar with the _Fairy Queen_; but he may have had in mind Scott's allusion to Spenser's Una--

"Harpers have sung and poets told That he, in fury uncontrolled, The shaggy monarch of the wood, Before a virgin, fair and good, Hath pacified his savage mood."

_Marmion_, Canto II. stanza vii. line 3, _seq_.

(See Kölbing's note to _Siege of Corinth_, 1893, pp. 110-112.)]

[px] {476} _She laid her fingers on his hand_, _Its coldness thrilled through every bone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[py] _As he looked on her face_----.--[MS. G.]

[pz] ----_on her bosom's swell_.--[MS. G. erased. Copy.]

[369] [Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 1, line 30--

"You see, her eyes are open, Aye, but their sense is shut."

Compare, too, _Christabel_, Conclusion to Part the First (lines 292, 293)--

"With open eyes (ah, woe is me!) Asleep, and dreaming fearfully."]

[qa] {477} _Like a picture, that magic had charmed from its frame_, _Lifeless but life-like, and ever the same_. or, _Like a picture come forth from its canvas and frame_.-- [MS. G. erased.]

[qb] _And seen_----.--[MS. G.] ----_its fleecy mail_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[370] [In the summer of 1803, Byron, then turned fifteen, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at first to return every night to Newstead; alleging that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, which he fancied "had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from their frames to haunt him." Moore thinks this passage may have been suggested by the recollection (_Life_, p. 27). Compare _Lara_, Canto I. stanza xi. line 1, _seq_. (_vide ante_, p. 331, note 1).]

[371] [Compare Southey's _Roderick_, Canto XXI. (ed. 1838, ix. 195)--

" ... and till the grave Open, the gate of mercy is not closed."]

[372] {478} I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it; but it is not original--at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.--[The following is the passage: "'Deluded prince!' said the Genius, addressing the Caliph ... 'This moment is the last, of grace, allowed thee: ... give back Nouronihar to her father, who still retains a few sparks of life: destroy thy tower, with all its abominations: drive Carathis from thy councils: be just to thy subjects: respect the ministers of the Prophet: compensate for thy impieties by an exemplary life; and, instead of squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy crimes on the sepulchres of thy ancestors. Thou beholdest the clouds that obscure the sun: at the instant he recovers his splendour, if thy heart be not changed, the time of mercy assigned thee will be past for ever.'"

"Vathek, depressed with fear, was on the point of prostrating himself at the feet of the shepherd ... but, his pride prevailing ... he said, 'Whoever thou art, withhold thy useless admonitions.... If what I have done be so criminal ... there remains not for me a moment of grace. I have traversed a sea of blood to acquire a power which will make thy equals tremble; deem not that I shall retire when in view of the port; or that I will relinquish her who is dearer to me than either my life or thy mercy. Let the sun appear! let him illumine my career! it matters not where it may end!' On uttering these words ... Vathek ... commanded that his horses should be forced back to the road.

"There was no difficulty in obeying these orders; for the attraction had ceased; the sun shone forth in all his glory, and the shepherd vanished with a lamentable scream" (ed. 1786, pp. 183-185).]

[qc] {479} _By rooted and unhallowed pride_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[373] [Leave out this couplet.--Gifford.]

[374] {480} [Compare--"While the still morn went out with sandals grey." _Lycidas_, line 187.]

[375] [Strike out--"And the Noon will look on a sultry day."--Gifford.]

[376] The horsetails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard.

["When the vizir appears in public, three _thoughs_, or horse-tails, fastened to a long staff, with a large gold ball at top, is borne before him."--_Moeurs des Ottomans_, par A. L. Castellan (Translated, 1821), iv. 7.

Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II., "Albanian War-Song," stanza 10, line 2; and _Bride of Abydos_, line 714 (_vide ante_, p. 189).]

[377] [Compare--"Send out moe horses, skirr the country round." _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 3, line 35.]

[378] [Omit--

"While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass."

--Gifford.]

[379] ["And crush the wall they have _shaken_ before."--Gifford.]

[380] [Compare _The Giaour_, line 734 (_vide ante_, p. 120)--"At solemn sound of 'Alla Hu!'" And _Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanza viii.]

[381] ["He who first _downs_ with the red cross may crave," etc. What vulgarism is this!--"He who _lowers_,--or _plucks down_," etc.--Gifford.]

[382] [The historian, George Finlay, who met and frequently conversed with Byron at Mesalonghi, with a view to illustrating "Lord Byron's _Siege of Corinth_," subjoins in a note the full text of "the summons sent by the grand vizier, and the answer." (See Finlay's _Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination_, 1856, p. 266, note 1; and, for the original authority, see Brue's _Journal de la Campagne_, ... _en_ 1715, Paris, 1871, p. 18.)]

[383] {482} ["Thus against the wall they _bent_, Thus the first were backward _sent_."

--Gifford.]

[qd] _With such volley yields like glass_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qe] _Like the mowers ridge_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[384] ["Such was the fall of the foremost train."--Gifford.]

[385] {483} [Compare _The Deformed Transformed_, Part I. sc. 2 ("Song of the Soldiers")--

"Our shout shall grow gladder, And death only be mute."]

[qf] _I have heard_----.--[MS. G.]

[386] [Compare _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 2, line 55--

"If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal."]

[387] {484} ["There stood a man," etc.--Gifford.]

[388] ["_Lurked_"--a bad word--say "_was hid_."--Gifford.]

[389] ["Outnumbered his hairs," etc.--Gifford.]

[390] ["Sons that were unborn, when _he_ dipped."--Gifford.]

[391] {485} [Bravo!--this is better than King Priam's fifty sons.--Gifford.]

[392] In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.

[393] [There can be no such thing; but the whole of this is poor, and spun out.--Gifford. The solecism, if such it be, was repeated in _Marino Faliero_, act iii. sc. I, line 38.]

[394] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxix. lines 5-8 (_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 125)--

"Dark Sappho! could not Verse immortal save?... If life eternal may await the lyre."]

[395] ["Hark to the Alia Hu!" etc.--Gifford.]

[396] {486} [Gifford has erased lines 839-847.]

[qg] _Though the life of thy giving would last for ever_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[qh] _Where's Francesca?--my promised bride!_--[MS. G. Copy.]

[qi] {488} Here follows in _MS. G._--

_Twice and once he roll'd a space_, _Then lead-like lay upon his face_.

[qj] _Sigh, nor sign, nor parting word_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[397] [The Spanish "renegado" and the Anglicized "renegade" were favourite terms of reprobation with politicians and others at the beginning of the century. When Southey's _Wat Tyler_ was reprinted in 1817, William Smith, the Member for Norwich, denounced the Laureate as a "renegado," an attack which Coleridge did his best to parry by contributing articles to the _Courier_ on "Apostasy and Renegadoism" (Letter to Murray, March 26, 1817, _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 306). Byron himself, in _Don Juan_ ("Dedication," stanza i. line 5), hails Southey as "My Epic Renegade!" Compare, too, stanza xiv. of "_Lines addressed to a Noble Lord_ (His Lordship will know why), By one of the small Fry of the Lakes" (i.e. Miss Barker, the "Bhow Begum" of Southey's _Doctor_)--

"And our Ponds shall better please thee, Than those now dishonoured seas, With their shores and Cyclades Stocked with Pachas, Seraskiers, Slaves and turbaned Buccaneers; Sensual Mussulmans atrocious, Renegadoes more ferocious," etc.]

[qk] {489} _These in rage, in triumph those_.--[MS. G. Copy erased.]

[ql] _Then again in fury mixing_.--[MS. G.]

[398] ["Dealing _death_ with every blow."--Gifford.]

[399] {490} [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto XIII. stanza lxi. lines 1, _seq._--

"But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned, The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child, With her Son in her blessed arms, looked round ... But even the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship wake some thoughts divine."]

[qm] / _chequered_ \ ----_beneath the_ { } _stone_.--[MS. G. erased.] \ _inlaid_ /

[qn] _But now half-blotted_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qo] _But War must make the most of means_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[400] {492} ["Oh, but it made a glorious show!!!" Gifford erases the line, and adds these marks of exclamation.]

[qp] ----_the sacrament wine_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qq] _Which the Christians partook at the break of the day_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[401] {493} [Compare _Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. 1 (s.f.)--

"_Myr._ Art thou ready? _Sard._ As the torch in thy grasp. (_Myrrha fires the pile._) _Myr._ 'Tis fired! I come."]

[402] [A critic in the _Eclectic Review_ (vol. v. N.S., 1816, p. 273), commenting on the "obvious carelessness" of these lines, remarks, "We know not how 'all that of dead remained' could _expire_ in that wild roar." To apply the word "expire" to inanimate objects is, no doubt, an archaism, but Byron might have quoted Dryden as an authority, "The ponderous ball expires."]

[qr] _The hills as by an earthquake bent_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[403] {494} [Strike out from "Up to the sky," etc., to "All blackened there and reeking lay." Despicable stuff.--Gifford.]

[qs] _Who can see or who shall say?_--[MS. G. erased.]

[404] [Lines 1043-1047 are not in the Copy or MS. G., but were included in the text of the First Edition.]

[405] [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cii. line 1, _seq._--

"Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done Their work on them by turns, and thinned them to Such things a mother had not known her son Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew."

Compare, too, _The Island_, Canto I. section ix. lines 13, 14.]

[qt] {495} _And crashed each mass of stone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qu] _And left their food the unburied dead_.--[Copy.] _And left their food the untasted dead_.--[MS. G.] _And howling left_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[406] [Omit the next six lines.--Gifford.]

[407] ["I have heard hyænas and jackalls in the ruins of Asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry Mussulmans."--_Journal_, November 23, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 340.]

[qv] _Where Echo rolled in horror still_.--[MS. G.]

[qw] _The frightened jackal's shrill sharp cry_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[408] I believe I have taken a poetical licence to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies. [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 6; and _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 2.]

[qx] _Mixed and mournful as the sound_.--[MS. G.]

[409] [Leave out this couplet.--Gifford.]

[410] [With lines 1058-1079, compare Southey's _Roderick_ (Canto XVIII., ed. 1838, ix. 169)--

"Far and wide the thundering shout, Rolling among reduplicating rocks, Pealed o'er the hills, and up the mountain vales. The wild ass starting in the forest glade Ran to the covert; the affrighted wolf Skulked through the thicket to a closer brake; The sluggish bear, awakened in his den, Roused up and answered with a sullen growl, Low-breathed and long; and at the uproar scared, The brooding eagle from her nest took wing."

A sentence in a letter to Moore, dated January 10, 1815 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 168), "_I_ have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but S....y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding, and _he_ has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing," implies that Byron had read and admired Southey's _Roderick_--an inference which is curiously confirmed by a memorandum in Murray's handwriting: "When Southey's poem, _Don Roderick_ (_sic_), was published, Lord Byron sent in the middle of the night to ask John Murray if he had heard any opinion of it, for he thought it one of the finest poems he had ever read." The resemblance between the two passages, which is pointed out by Professor Kölbing, is too close to be wholly unconscious, but Byron's expansion of Southey's lines hardly amounts to a plagiarism.]

PARISINA.

INTRODUCTION TO _PARISINA_.

_Parisina_, which had been begun before the _Siege of Corinth_, was transcribed by Lady Byron, and sent to the publisher at the beginning of December, 1815. Murray confessed that he had been alarmed by some hints which Byron had dropped as to the plot of the narrative, but was reassured when he traced "the delicate hand that transcribed it." He could not say enough of this "Pearl" of great price. "It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful--do you know I would almost say moral" (_Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 353). Ward, to whom the MS. of _Parisina_ was shown, and Isaac D'Israeli, who heard it read aloud by Murray, were enthusiastic as to its merits; and Gifford, who had mingled censure with praise in his critical appreciation of the _Siege_, declared that the author "had never surpassed _Parisina_."

The last and shortest of the six narrative poems composed and published in the four years (the first years of manhood and of fame, the only years of manhood passed at home in England) which elapsed between the appearance of the first two cantos of _Childe Harold_ and the third, _Parisina_ has, perhaps, never yet received its due. At the time of its appearance it shared the odium which was provoked by the publication of _Fare Thee Well_ and _A Sketch_, and before there was time to reconsider the new volume on its own merits, the new canto of _Childe Harold_, followed almost immediately by the _Prisoner of Chillon_ and its brilliant and noticeable companion poems, usurped the attention of friend and foe. Contemporary critics (with the exception of the _Monthly_ and _Critical_ Reviews) fell foul of the subject-matter of the poem--the guilty passion of a bastard son for his father's wife. "It was too disgusting to be rendered pleasing by any display of genius" (_European Magazine_); "The story of _Parisina_ includes adultery not to be named" (_Literary Panorama_); while the _Eclectic_, on grounds of taste rather than of morals, gave judgment that "the subject of the tale was purely unpleasing"--"the impression left simply painful."

Byron, no doubt, for better or worse, was in advance of his age, in the pursuit of art for art's sake, and in his indifference, not to morality--the _dénouement_ of the story is severely moral--but to the moral edification of his readers. The tale was chosen because it is a tale of love and guilt and woe, and the poet, unconcerned with any other issue, sets the tale to an enchanting melody. It does not occur to him to condone or to reprobate the loves of Hugo and Parisina, and in detailing the issue leaves the actors to their fate. It was this aloofness from ethical considerations which perturbed and irritated the "canters," as Byron called them--the children and champions of the anti-revolution. The modern reader, without being attracted or repelled by the _motif_ of the story, will take pleasure in the sustained energy and sure beauty of the poetic strain. Byron may have gone to the "nakedness of history" for his facts, but he clothed them in singing robes of a delicate and shining texture.

to

SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, ESQ.

the following poem

Is Inscribed,

by one who has long admired his talents

and valued his friendship.

_January_ 22, 1816.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's "Antiquities of the House of Brunswick." I am aware, that in modern times, the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of _Azo_ is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical.--[B.]

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. [A.D. 1425] Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of a maid, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution.[411] He was unfortunate, if they were guilty: if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent."--Gibbon's _Miscellaneous Works_, vol. iii. p. 470.--[Ed. 1837, p. 830.]

PARISINA.[412]