II.

Franciscan Convent, Athens, _January_ 23, 1811.[236]

Amongst the remnants of the barbarous policy of the earlier ages, are the traces of bondage which yet exist in different countries; whose inhabitants, however divided in religion and manners, almost all agree in oppression.

The English have at last compassionated their negroes, and under a less bigoted government, may probably one day release their Catholic brethren; but the interposition of foreigners alone can emancipate the Greeks, who, otherwise, appear to have as small a chance of redemption from the Turks, as the Jews have from mankind in general.

Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough; at least the younger men of Europe devote much of their time to the study of the Greek writers and history, which would be more usefully spent in mastering their own. Of the moderns, we are perhaps more neglectful than they deserve; and while every man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out his youth, and often his age, in the study of the language and of the harangues of the Athenian demagogues in favour of freedom, the real or supposed descendants of these sturdy republicans are left to the actual tyranny of their masters, although a very slight effort is required to strike off their chains.

To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising again to their pristine superiority, would be ridiculous: as the rest of the world must resume its barbarism, after reasserting the sovereignty of Greece: but there seems to be no very great obstacle, except in the apathy of the Franks, to their becoming an useful dependency, or even a free state, with a proper guarantee;--under correction, however, be it spoken, for many and well-informed men doubt the practicability even of this.

The Greeks have never lost their hope, though they are now more divided in opinion on the subject of their probable deliverers. Religion recommends the Russians; but they have twice been deceived and abandoned by that power, and the dreadful lesson they received after the Muscovite desertion in the Morea has never been forgotten. The French they dislike; although the subjugation of the rest of Europe will, probably, be attended by the deliverance of continental Greece. The islanders look to the English for succour, as they have very lately possessed themselves of the Ionian republic, Corfu excepted.[237] But whoever appear with arms in their hands will be welcome; and when that day arrives, Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans; they cannot expect it from the Giaours.

But instead of considering what they have been, and speculating on what they may be, let us look at them as they are.

And here it is impossible to reconcile the contrariety of opinions: some, particularly the merchants, decrying the Greeks in the strongest language; others, generally travellers, turning periods in their eulogy, and publishing very curious speculations grafted on their former state, which can have no more effect on their present lot, than the existence of the Incas on the future fortunes of Peru.

One very ingenious person terms them the "natural allies of Englishmen;" another no less ingenious, will not allow them to be the allies of anybody, and denies their very descent from the ancients; a third, more ingenious than either, builds a Greek empire on a Russian foundation, and realises (on paper) all the chimeras of Catharine II. As to the question of their descent, what can it import whether the Mainotes[238] are the lineal Laconians or not? or the present Athenians as indigenous as the bees of Hymettus, or as the grasshoppers, to which they once likened themselves? What Englishman cares if he be of a Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Trojan blood? or who, except a Welshman, is afflicted with a desire of being descended from Caractacus?

The poor Greeks do not so much abound in the good things of this world, as to render even their claims to antiquity an object of envy; it is very cruel, then, in Mr. Thornton to disturb them in the possession of all that time has left them; viz. their pedigree, of which they are the more tenacious, as it is all they can call their own. It would be worth while to publish together, and compare, the works of Messrs. Thornton and De Pauw, Eton and Sonnini; paradox on one side, and prejudice on the other. Mr. Thornton conceives himself to have claims to public confidence from a fourteen years' residence at Pera; perhaps he may on the subject of the Turks, but this can give him no more insight into the real state of Greece and her inhabitants, than as many years spent in Wapping into that of the Western Highlands.

The Greeks of Constantinople live in Fanal;[239] and if Mr. Thornton did not oftener cross the Golden Horn than his brother merchants are accustomed to do, I should place no great reliance on his information. I actually heard one of these gentlemen boast of their little general intercourse with the city, and assert of himself, with an air of triumph, that he had been but four times at Constantinople in as many years.

As to Mr. Thornton's voyages in the Black Sea with Greek vessels, they gave him the same idea of Greece as a cruise to Berwick in a Scotch smack would of Johnny Groat's house. Upon what grounds then does he arrogate the right of condemning by wholesale a body of men of whom he can know little? It is rather a curious circumstance that Mr. Thornton, who so lavishly dispraises Pouqueville on every occasion of mentioning the Turks, has yet recourse to him as authority on the Greeks, and terms him an impartial observer. Now, Dr. Pouqueville is as little entitled to that appellation as Mr. Thornton to confer it on him.

The fact is, we are deplorably in want of information on the subject of the Greeks, and in particular their literature; nor is there any probability of our being better acquainted, till our intercourse becomes more intimate, or their independence confirmed. The relations of passing travellers are as little to be depended on as the invectives of angry factors; but till something more can be attained, we must be content with the little to be acquired from similar sources.[240]

However defective these may be, they are preferable to the parodoxes of men who have read superficially of the ancients, and seen nothing of the moderns, such as De Pauw; who, when he asserts that the British breed of horses is ruined by Newmarket, and that the Spartans[241] were cowards in the field,[242] betrays an equal knowledge of English horses and Spartan men. His "philosophical observations" have a much better claim to the title of "poetical." It could not be expected that he who so liberally condemns some of the most celebrated institutions of the ancient, should have mercy on the modern Greeks; and it fortunately happens, that the absurdity of his hypothesis on their forefathers refutes his sentence on themselves.

Let us trust, then, that, in spite of the prophecies of De Pauw, and the doubts of Mr. Thornton, there is a reasonable hope of the redemption of a race of men, who, whatever may be the errors of their religion and policy, have been amply punished by three centuries and a half of captivity.

III.[243]

Athens, Franciscan Convent, _March_ 17, 1811.

"I must have some talk with this learned Theban."[244]

Some time after my return from Constantinople to this city I received the thirty-first number of the _Edinburgh Review_[245] as a great favour, and certainly at this distance an acceptable one, from the captain of an English frigate off Salamis. In that number, Art. 3, containing the review of a French translation of Strabo,[246] there are introduced some remarks on the modern Greeks and their literature, with a short account of Coray, a co-translator in the French version. On those remarks I mean to ground a few observations; and the spot where I now write will, I hope, be sufficient excuse for introducing them in a work in some degree connected with the subject. Coray, the most celebrated of living Greeks, at least among the Franks, was born at Scio (in the _Review_, Smyrna is stated, I have reason to think, incorrectly), and besides the translation of Beccaria and other works mentioned by the Reviewer, has published a lexicon in Romaic and French, if I may trust the assurance of some Danish travellers lately arrived from Paris; but the latest we have seen here in French and Greek is that of Gregory Zolikogloou.[247] Coray has recently been involved in an unpleasant controversy with M. Gail,[248] a Parisian commentator and editor of some translations from the Greek poets, in consequence of the Institute having awarded him the prize for his version of Hippocrates' "[Greek: Peri\ y(da/tôn]," etc., to the disparagement, and consequently displeasure, of the said Gail. To his exertions, literary and patriotic, great praise is undoubtedly due; but a part of that praise ought not to be withheld from the two brothers Zosimado (merchants settled in Leghorn), who sent him to Paris and maintained him, for the express purpose of elucidating the ancient, and adding to the modern, researches of his countrymen. Coray, however, is not considered by his countrymen equal to some who lived in the two last centuries; more

## particularly Dorotheus of Mitylene,[249] whose Hellenic writings are so

much esteemed by the Greeks, that Meletius[250] terms him "[Greek: Meta\ to Thoukydi/dên kai\ Xenophô/nta a)/ristos E(llê/nôn]" (p. 224, _Ecclesiastical History_, iv.).

Panagiotes Kodrikas, the translator of Fontenelle, and Kamarases,[251] who translated Ocellus Lucanus on the Universe into French, Christodoulus,[252] and more particularly Psalida,[253] whom I have conversed with in Joannina, are also in high repute among their literati. The last-mentioned has published in Romaic and Latin a work on _True Happiness_, dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois,[254] who is stated by the Reviewer to be the only modern except Coray who has distinguished himself by a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the Polyzois Lampanitziotes of Yanina, who has published a number of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less than an itinerant vender of books; with the contents of which he had no concern beyond his name on the title page, placed there to secure his property in the publication; and he was, moreover, a man utterly destitute of scholastic acquirements. As the name, however, is not uncommon, some other Polyzois may have edited the Epistles of Aristænetus.

It is to be regretted that the system of continental blockade has closed the few channels through which the Greeks received their publications,

## particularly Venice and Trieste. Even the common grammars for children

are become too dear for the lower orders. Amongst their original works the Geography of Meletius, Archbishop of Athens, and a multitude of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets, are to be met with; their grammars and lexicons of two, three, and four languages are numerous and excellent. Their poetry is in rhyme. The most singular piece I have lately seen is a satire in dialogue between a Russian, English, and French traveller, and the Waywode of Wallachia (or Blackbey, as they term him), an archbishop, a merchant,[255] and Cogia Bachi (or primate), in succession; to all of whom under the Turks the writer attributes their present degeneracy. Their songs are sometimes pretty and pathetic, but their tunes generally unpleasing to the ear of a Frank; the best is the famous "[Greek: Deu/te, pai~des tô~n E(llê/nôn]," by the unfortunate Riga.[256] But from a catalogue of more than sixty authors, now before me, only fifteen can be found who have touched on any theme except theology.

I am intrusted with a commission by a Greek of Athens named Marmarotouri to make arrangements, if possible, for printing in London a translation of Barthelemi's _Anacharsis_ in Romaic, as he has no other opportunity, unless he dispatches the MS. to Vienna by the Black Sea and Danube.

The Reviewer mentions a school established at Hecatonesi,[257] and suppressed at the instigation of Sebastiani:[258] he means Cidonies, or, in Turkish, Haivali; a town on the continent, where that institution for a hundred students and three professors still exists. It is true that this establishment was disturbed by the Porte, under the ridiculous pretext that the Greeks were constructing a fortress instead of a college; but on investigation, and the payment of some purses to the Divan, it has been permitted to continue. The principal professor, named Ueniamin (i.e. Benjamin), is stated to be a man of talent, but a freethinker. He was born in Lesbos, studied in Italy, and is master of Hellenic, Latin, and some Frank languages: besides a smattering of the sciences.

Though it is not my intention to enter farther on this topic than may allude to the article in question, I cannot but observe that the Reviewer's lamentation over the fall of the Greeks appears singular, when he closes it with these words: "_The change is to be attributed to their misfortunes rather than to any 'physical degradation.'_" It may be true that the Greeks are not physically degenerated, and that Constantinople contained on the day when it changed masters as many men of six feet and upwards as in the hour of prosperity; but ancient history and modern politics instruct us that something more than physical perfection is necessary to preserve a state in vigour and independence; and the Greeks, in particular, are a melancholy example of the near connexion between moral degradation and national decay.

The Reviewer mentions a plan "_we believe_" by Potemkin[259] for the purification of the Romaic; and I have endeavoured in vain to procure any tidings or traces of its existence. There was an academy in St. Petersburg for the Greeks; but it was suppressed by Paul, and has not been revived by his successor.

There is a slip of the pen, and it can only be a slip of the pen, in p. 58, No. 31, of the _Edinburgh Review_, where these words occur: "We are told that when the capital of the East yielded to _Solyman_"--It may be presumed that this last word will, in a future edition, be altered to Mahomet II.[260] The "ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that period spoke a dialect, "which would not have disgraced the lips of an Athenian." I do not know how that might be, but am sorry to say that the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, are much altered; being far from choice either in their dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are barbarous to a proverb:--

"[Greek: Ô) A)thê~nai, prô/tê chô/ra], [Greek: Ti/ gaida/rous tre/pheis tô/ra];"[261]

In Gibbon, vol. x. p. 161, is the following sentence:--"The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the church and palace sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be asserted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the "ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Cæsar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Comnena[262] wrote, three centuries before: and those royal pages are not esteemed the best models of composition, although the princess [Greek: glô~ttan ei~)chen A)KRIBÔE A)ttikisou/san].[263] In the Fanal, and in Yanina, the best Greek is spoken: in the latter there is a flourishing school under the direction of Psalida.

There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making a tour of observation through Greece: he is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow-commoner of most colleges. I mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant among the Greeks.

The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright,[264] the author of the beautiful poem _Horæ Ionicæ_, as qualified to give details of these nominal Romans and degenerate Greeks; and also of their language: but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian dialect of the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hellenic; for the Albanians speak a Romaic as notoriously corrupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. Yanina, (where, next to the Fanal, the Greek is purest,) although the capital of Ali Pacha's dominions, is not in Albania, but Epirus; and beyond Delvinachi in Albania Proper up to Argyrocastro and Tepaleen (beyond which I did not advance) they speak worse Greek than even the Athenians. I was attended for a year and a half by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mother tongue is Illyric, and I never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have seen, not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the army of Vely Pacha[265]) praised for their Greek, but often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms.

I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, amongst which some from the Bey of Corinth, written to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, and others by the dragoman of the Caimacam[266] of the Morea (which last governs in Vely Pacha's absence), are said to be favourable specimens of their epistolary style. I also received some at Constantinople from private persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true antique character.

The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue in its past and present state, to a paradox (page 59) on the great mischief the knowledge of his own language has done to Coray, who, it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient Greek, because he is perfect master of the modern! This observation follows a paragraph, recommending, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as "a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also to the classical scholar; in short, to every body except the only person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses; and by a parity of reasoning, our own language is conjectured to be probably more attainable by "foreigners" than by ourselves! Now, I am inclined to think, that a Dutch Tyro in our tongue (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly perplexed with "Sir Tristram,"[267] or any other given "Auchinleck MS." with or without a grammar or glossary; and to most apprehensions it seems evident that none but a native can acquire a competent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollett's Lismahago,[268] who maintains that the purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible; but if he does, the fault is in the man rather than in his mother tongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the native student.--Here the Reviewer proceeds to business on Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks.

Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberdeen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole,[269] and many others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen people. The few observations I have offered I should have left where I made them, had not the article in question, and above all the spot where I read it, induced me to advert to those pages, which the advantage of my present situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make the attempt.

I have endeavoured to waive the personal feelings which rise in despite of me in touching upon any part of the _Edinburgh Review_; not from a wish to conciliate the favour of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a disquisition of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE TURKS.

The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished, of late years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of sullen civility very comfortable to voyagers.

It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live amongst them twenty years without acquiring information, at least from themselves. As far as my own slight experience carried me, I have no complaint to make; but am indebted for many civilities (I might almost say for friendship), and much hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Vely Pacha of the Morea, and several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a _bon vivant_, and as social a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. During the carnival, when our English party were masquerading, both himself and his successor were more happy to "receive masks" than any dowager in Grosvenor-square.[270]

On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend and visitor, the Cadi[271] of Thebes, was carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in Christendom; while the worthy Waywode himself triumphed in his fall.

In all money transactions with the Moslems, I ever found the strictest honour, the highest disinterestedness. In transacting business with them, there are none of those dirty peculations, under the name of interest, difference of exchange, commission, etc., etc., uniformly found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera.

With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar value--a horse, or a shawl.

In the capital and at court the citizens and courtiers are formed in the same school with those of Christianity; but there does not exist a more honourable, friendly, and high-spirited character than the true Turkish provincial Aga, or Moslem country gentleman. It is not meant here to designate the governors of towns, but those Agas who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less extent, in Greece and Asia Minor.

The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rabble in countries with greater pretensions to civilisation. A Moslem, in walking the streets of our country-towns, would be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar situation in Turkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress.

The best accounts of the religion and different sects of Islamism may be found in D'Ohsson's[272] French; of their manners, etc., perhaps in Thornton's English. The Ottomans, with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal at least to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can at least say what they are _not_: they are _not_ treacherous, they are _not_ cowardly, they do _not_ burn heretics, they are _not_ assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to _their_ capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, and devout to their God without an inquisition. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Russians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question whether Europe would gain by the exchange. England would certainly be the loser.

With regard to that ignorance of which they are so generally, and sometimes justly accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in what useful points of knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the common arts of life? In their manufactures? Is a Turkish sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Spaniard? Are their Pachas worse educated than a Grandee? or an Effendi[273] than a Knight of St. Jago? I think not.

I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking whether my fellow-traveller and myself were in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now, this question from a boy of ten years old proved that his education had not been neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age knows the difference of the Divan from a College of Dervises; but I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded as he had been entirely by his Turkish tutors, had learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament, it were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his instructors did not confine his studies to the Koran.

In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended; and the poor are taught without the church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the system is not yet printed (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, and books printed on the late military institution of the Nizam Gedidd);[274] nor have I heard whether the Mufti and the Mollas have subscribed, or the Caimacan and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous youth of the turban should be taught not to "pray to God their way." The Greeks also--a kind of Eastern Irish papists--have a college of their own at Maynooth,--no, at Haivali; where the heterodox receive much the same kind of countenance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the English legislature. Who shall then affirm that the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and orthodox of all possible kingdoms? But though they allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to

## participate in their privileges: no, let them fight their battles, and

pay their haratch (taxes), be drubbed in this world, and damned in the next. And shall we then emancipate our Irish Helots? Mahomet forbid! We should then be bad Mussulmans, and worse Christians: at present we unite the best of both--jesuitical faith, and something not much inferior to Turkish toleration.

APPENDIX.

Amongst an enslaved people, obliged to have recourse to foreign presses even for their books of religion, it is less to be wondered at that we find so few publications on general subjects than that we find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to discover any nation with so great a proportion of books and their authors as the Greeks of the present century. "Aye," but say the generous advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, "ay, but these are mostly, if not all, ecclesiastical tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well! and pray what else can they write about? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government of his own country; or a Frenchman, who may abuse every government except his own, and who may range at will over every philosophical, religious, scientific, sceptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and cannot touch on science for want of instruction; if he doubts he is excommunicated and damned; therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern philosophy; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks! there are no such things. What then is left him, if he has a turn for scribbling? Religion and holy biography; and it is natural enough that those who have so little in this life should look to the next. It is no great wonder then, that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen should have touched on anything but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius' _Ecclesiastical History_.

[The above forms a preface to an Appendix, headed "Remarks on the Romaic or Modern Greek Language, with Specimens and Translations," which was printed at the end of the volume, after the "Poems," in the first and successive editions of _Childe Harold_. It contains (1) a "List of Romaic Authors;" (2) the "Greek War-Song," [Greek: Deu~te, Pai~des tô~n E(llê/nôn]; (3) "Romaic Extracts," of which the first, "a Satire in dialogue" (_vide_ Note III. _supra_), is translated (see _Epigrams, etc._, vol. vi. of the present issue); (4) scene from [Greek: O Kaphene\s] (the Café), translated from the Italian of Goldoni by Spiridion Vlanti, with a "Translation;" (5) "Familiar Dialogues" in Romaic and English; (6) "Parallel Passages from St. John's Gospel;" (7) "The Inscriptions at Orchomenos from Meletius" (see _Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 224); (8) the "Prospectus of a Translation of Anacharsis into Romaic, by my Romaic master, Marmarotouri, who wished to publish it in England;" (9) "The Lord's Prayer in Romaic" and in Greek.

The Excursus, which is remarkable rather for the evidence which it affords of Byron's industry and zeal for acquiring knowledge, than for the value or interest of the subject-matter, has been omitted from the present issue. The "Remarks," etc., are included in the "Appendix" to _Lord Byron's Poetical Works_, 1891, pp. 792-797. (See, too, letter to Dallas, September 21, 1811: _Letters_, ii. 43.)]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[202] {166} ["Owls and serpents" are taken from _Isa._ xiii. 21, 22; "foxes" from _Lam._ v. 18, "Zion is desolate, the foxes walk upon it."]

[203] [For Herr Gropius, _vide post_, note 6.]

[204] [The Parthenon was converted into a church in the sixth century by Justinian, and dedicated to the _Divine Wisdom_. About 1460 the church was turned into a mosque. After the siege in 1687 the Turks erected a smaller mosque within the original enclosure. "The only relic of the mosque dedicated by Mohammed the Conqueror (1430-1481) is the base of the minaret ... at the south-west corner of the Cella" (_Handbook for Greece_, p. 319).]

[205] {168} ["Don Battista Lusieri, better known as Don Tita," was born at Naples. He followed Sir William Hamilton "to Constantinople, in 1799, whence he removed to Athens." "It may be said of Lusieri, as of Claude Lorraine, 'If he be not the _poet_, he is the historian of nature.'"--_Travels, etc_., by E. D. Clarke, 1810-1823, Part II. sect. ii. p. 469, note. See, too, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 455.]

[206] ["Mirandum in modum (canes venaticos diceres) ita odorabantur omnia et pervestigabant, ut, ubi quidque esset, aliqua ratione invenirent" (Cicero, _In Verrem_, Act. II. lib. iv. 13). Verres had two _finders_: Tlepolemus a worker in wax, and Hiero a painter. (See _Introduction to The Curse of Minerva: Poems_, 1898, i. 455.)]

[207] [M. Fauvel was born in Burgundy, circ. 1754. In 1787 he was attached to the suite of the Count Choiseul-Gouffier, French Ambassador at Constantinople, and is said to have prepared designs and illustrations for his patron's _Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce_, vol. i. 1787, vol. ii. 1809. He settled at Athens, and was made vice-consul by the French Government. In his old age, after more than forty years' service at Athens, he removed finally to Smyrna, where he was appointed consul-general.--_Biographic des Contemporains_ (Rabbe), 1834, art. "(N.) Fauvel."]

[208] {169} In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna.[§1] To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the Ægean deep:" but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's[§2] shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell:--

"Here in the dead of night, by Lonna's steep,[§3] The seaman's cry was heard along the deep."

This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there

"The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque."

See Hodgson's _Lady Jane Grey_, etc.[§4][1809, p. 214].

But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances.

[§1] [This must have taken place in 1811, after Hobhouse returned to England.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 373, note.]

[§2] [William Falconer (1732-1769), second mate of a vessel in the Levant trade, was wrecked between Alexandria and Venice. Only three of the crew survived. His poem, _The Shipwreck_, was published in 1762. It was dedicated to the Duke of York, and through his intervention he was "rated as a midshipman in the Royal Navy." Either as author or naval officer, he came to be on intimate terms with John Murray the first, who thought highly of his abilities, and offered him (October 16, 1768) a partnership in his new bookselling business in Fleet Street. In September, 1769, he embarked for India as purser of the _Aurora_ frigate, which touched at the Cape, but never reached her destination. See _Memoir_, by J. S. Clarke; _The Shipwreck_, 1804, pp. viii.-xlvi.]

[§3] _Yes, at the dead of night_, etc.--_Pleasures of Hope_, lines 149, 150.

[§4] [The quotation is from Hodgson's "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country," _vide ante_, Canto I., p. 20, note.]

[209] {171} ["It was, however, during our stay in the place, to be lamented that a war, more than civil, was raging on the subject of Lord Elgin's pursuits in Greece, and had enlisted all the French settlers and the principal Greeks on one side or the other of the controversy. The factions of Athens were renewed."--_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 243.]

[210] This word, in the cant language, signifies thieving.--Fielding's _History of Jonathan Wild_, i. 3, note.

[211] This Sr. Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels: but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri.--A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a moment's pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it.--[_Note to Third Edition._]

[According to Bryant's _Dict. of Painters_, and other biographical dictionaries, Karl Wilhelm Gropius (whom Lamartine, in his _Voyage en Orient_, identifies with the Gropius "injustement accusé par lord Byron dans ses notes mordantes sur Athènes") was born at Brunswick, in 1793, travelled in Italy and Greece, making numerous landscape and architectural sketches, and finally settled at Berlin in 1827, where he opened a diorama, modelled on that of Daguerre, "in connection with a permanent exhibition of painting.... He was considered the first wit in Berlin, where he died in 1870." In 1812, when Byron wrote his note to the third edition of _Childe Harold_, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.]

[212] {173} [George Castriota (1404-1467) (Scanderbeg, or Scander Bey), the youngest son of an Albanian chieftain, was sent with his four brothers as hostage to the Sultan Amurath II. After his father's death in 1432 he carried on a protracted warfare with the Turks, and finally established the independence of Albania. "His personal strength and address were such as to make his prowess in the field resemble that of a knight of romance." He died at Lissa, in the Gulf of Venice, and when the island was taken by Mohammed II., the Turks are said to have dug up his bones and hung them round their necks, either as charms against wounds or "amulets to transfer his courage to themselves." (Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_; Gorton's _Biog. Dict._, art. "Scanderbeg.")]

[213] {174} [William Martin Leake (1777-1860), traveller and numismatist, published (_inter alia_) _Researches in Greece_, in 1814. He was "officially resident" in Albania, February, 1809-March, 1810.]

[214] [_A Journey through Albania during the Years 1809-10_, London, 1812.]

[215] {175} [The inhabitants of Albania, of the Shkipetar race, consist of two distinct branches: the Gueghs, who belong to the north, and are for the most part Catholics; and the Tosks of the south, who are generally Mussulmans (Finlay's _History of Greece_, i. 35).]

[gg] _I laughed so much as to induce a violent perspiration to which ... I attribute my present individuality_.--[D.]

[216] {176} [The mayor of the village; in Greek, [Greek: proestos].]

[217] [The father of the Consulina Teodora Macri, and grandfather of the "Maid of Athens."]

[218] [_Tristram Shandy_, 1775, iv. 44.]

[219] [See _Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, 1824, p.64.]

[220] {177} [Compare _The Waltz_, line 125--"O say, shall dull _Romaika's_ heavy sound." _Poems_, 1898, i. 492.]

[221] {186} [François Mercy de Lorraine, who fought against the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, was mortally wounded at the battle of Nordlingen, August 3, 1645.]

[222] {187} [Byron and Hobhouse visited Marathon, January 25, 1810. The unconsidered trifle of the "plain" must have been offered to Byron during his second residence at Athens, in 1811.]

[223] ["Expende Annibalem--quot libras," etc. (Juvenal, x. 147), is the motto of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, which was written April 10, 1814.--_Journal_, 1814; _Life_, p. 325.]

[224] [Compare letter to Hodgson, September 25, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 45.]

[225] [Miss Owenson (Sydney, Lady Morgan), 1783-1859, published her _Woman, or Ida of Athens_, in 4 vols., in 1812. Writing to Murray, February 20, 1818, Byron alludes to the "cruel work" which an article (attributed to Croker but, probably, written by Hookham Frere) had made with her _France_ in the _Quarterly Review_ (vol. xvii. p. 260); and in a note to _The Two Foscari_, act iii. sc. 1, he points out that his description of Venice as an "Ocean-Rome" had been anticipated by Lady Morgan in her "fearless and excellent work upon Italy." The play was completed July 9, 1821, but the work containing the phrase, "Rome of the Ocean," had not been received till August 16 (see, too, his letter to Murray, August 23, 1821). His conviction of the excellence of Lady Morgan's work was, perhaps strengthened by her outspoken eulogium.]

[226] {188} [For the Disdar's extortions, see _Travels in Albania_, i. 244.]

[227] ["The poor ...when once abroad, Grow sick, and damn the climate like a lord." Pope, _Imit. of Horace_, Ep. 1, lines 159, 160.]

[228] [_Works and Days_, v. 493, _et seq.; Hesiod. Carm._, C. Goettlingius (1843), p. 215.]

[229] Nonsense; humbug.

[230] {189} [Hobhouse pronounced it to be the Fountain of Ares, the Paraporti Spring, "which serves to swell the scanty waters of the Dirce." The Dirce flows on the west; the Ismenus, which forms the fountain, to the east of Thebes. "The water was tepid, as I found by bathing in it" (_Travels in Albania_, i. 233; _Handbook for Greece_, p. 703).]

[231] [_Travels in Greece_, ch. lxvii.]

[232] [Gell's _Itinerary of Greece_ (1810), Preface, p. xi.]

[233] {190} [For M. Roque, see _Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem: Oeuvres Chateaubriand_, Paris, 1837, ii. 258-266.]

[234] {191} [William Eton published (1798-1809) _A Survey of the Turkish Empire_, in which he advocated the cause of Greek independence. Sonnini de Manoncourt (1751-1812), another ardent phil-Hellenist, published his _Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie_ in 1801.]

[235] [Cornelius de Pauw (1739-1799), Dutch historian, published, in 1787, _Recherches philosophiques sur les Grecs_. Byron reflects upon his paradoxes and superficiality in Note II., _infra_. Thomas Thornton published, in 1807, a work entitled _Present State of Turkey_ (see Note II., _infra_).]

[236] {192} [The MSS. of _Hints from Horace_ and _The Curse of Minerva_ are dated, "Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12 and March 17, 1811." Proof B of _Hints from Horace_ is dated, "Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 12, 1811." Writing to Hodgson, November 14, 1810, he says, "I am living alone in the Franciscan monastery with one 'fri_ar_' (a Capuchin of course) and one 'fri_er_' (a bandy-legged Turkish cook)" (_Letters_, 1898, i. 307).]

[237] {193} [The Ionian Islands, with the exception of Corfù and Paxos, fell into the hands of the English in 1809, 1810. Paxos was captured in 1814, but Corfù, which had been blockaded by Napoleon, was not surrendered till the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815.]

[238] [The Mainotes or Mainates, who take their name from Maina, near Cape Tænaron, were the Highlanders of the Morea, "remarkable for their love of violence and plunder, but also for their frankness and independence." "Pedants have termed the Mainates descendants of the ancient Spartans," but "they must be either descended from the Helots, or from the Perioikoi.... To an older genealogy they can have no pretension."--Finlay's History of Greece, 1877, v. 113; vi. 26.]

[239] {194} [The Fanal, or Phanár, is to the left, Pera to the right, of the Golden Horn. "The water of the Golden Horn, which flows between the city and the suburbs, is a line of separation seldom transgressed by the Frank residents."--_Travels in Albania_, ii. 208.]

[240] {195} A word, _en passant_, with Mr. Thornton and Dr. Pouqueville, who have been guilty between them of sadly clipping the Sultan's Turkish.[§1]

Dr. Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of "_Suleyman Yeyen_" i.e. quoth the Doctor, "_Suleyman the eater of corrosive sublimate_." "Aha," thinks Mr. Thornton (angry with the Doctor for the fiftieth time), "have I caught you?"[§2]--Then, in a note, twice the thickness of the Doctor's anecdote, he questions the Doctor's proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity in his own.--"For," observes Mr. Thornton (after inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb), "it means nothing more than '_Suleyman the eater_,' and quite cashiers the supplementary '_sublimate_.'" Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr. Thornton, when he next resides "fourteen years in the factory," will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will discover that "_Suleyma'n yeyen_," put together discreetly, mean the "_Swallower of sublimate_" without any "Suleyman" in the case: "_Suleyma_" signifying "_corrosive sublimate_" and not being a proper name on this occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough with the addition of _n_. After Mr. Thornton's frequent hints of profound Orientalism, he might have found this out before he sang such pæans over Dr. Pouqueville.

After this, I think "Travellers _versus_ Factors" shall be our motto, though the above Mr. Thornton has condemned "hoc genus omne," for mistake and misrepresentation. "Ne Sutor ultra crepidam," "No merchant beyond his bales." N.B. For the benefit of Mr. Thornton, "Sutor" is not a proper name.

[§1][For Pouqueville's story of the "thériakis" or opium-eaters, see _Voyage en Morée_, 1805, ii. 126.]

[§2][Thornton's _Present State of Turkey_, ii. 173.]

[241] _Recherches Philosophiques sur les Grecs_, 1787, i. 155.

[242] {196} [De Pauw (_Rech. Phil. sur les Grecs_, 1788, ii. 293), in repeating Plato's statement (_Laches_, 191), that the Lacedæmonians at Platæa first fled from the Persians, and then, when the Persians were broken, turned upon them and won the battle, misapplies to them the term [Greek: thrasy/deiloi] (Arist., _Eth. Nic._, iii. 9.7)--men, that is, who affect the hero, but play the poltroon.]

[243] [Attached as a note to line 562 _of Hints from Horace_ (MS. M.).]

[244] ["I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban." Shakespeare, _King Lear_, act iii. sc. 4, line 150.]

[245] [For April, 1810: vol. xvi. pp. 55, _sq_.]

[246] [Diamant or Adamantius Coray (1748-1833), scholar and phil-Hellenist, declared his views on the future of the Greeks in the preface to a translation of Beccaria Bonesani's treatise, _Dei Delitti e delle Pene_ (1764), which was published in Paris in 1802. He began to publish his _Bibliothèque Hellénique_, in 17 vols., in 1805. He was of Chian parentage, but was born at Smyrna. [Greek: Koraê Au)tobiographia], Athens, 1891.]

[247] I have in my possession an excellent lexicon "[Greek: tri/glôsson]" which I received in exchange from S. G----, Esq., for a small gem: my antiquarian friends have never forgotten it or forgiven me.

[[Greek: Lexiko tri/glôsson tê~s Gallikê~s, I)talikê~s, kai\ 'Rômaikê~s diale/ktou, k.t.l.], 3 vols., Vienna, 1790. By Georgie Vendoti (Bentotes, or Bendotes) of Joanina. The book was in Hobhouse's possession in 1854.]

[248] In Gail's pamphlet against Coray, he talks of "throwing the insolent Hellenist out of the windows." On this a French critic exclaims, "Ah, my God! throw an Hellenist out of the window! what sacrilege!" It certainly would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics: but I have quoted the passage merely to prove the similarity of style among the controversialists of all polished countries; London or Edinburgh could hardly parallel this Parisian ebullition.

[Jean Baptiste Gail (1755-1829), Professor of Greek in the Collége de France, published, in 1810, a quarto volume entitled, _Réclamations de J. B. Gail, ... et observations sur l'opinion en virtu de laquelle le juri--propose de décerner un prix à M. Coray, à l'exclusion de la chasse de Xénophon, du Thucydide, etc., grec-latin-français, etc._]

[249] {198} Dorotheus of Mitylene (fl. sixteenth century), Archbishop of Monembasia (Anglicè "Malmsey"), on the south-east coast of Laconia, was the author of a _Universal History_ ([Greek: Biblion I(storiko/n, k.t.l.]), edited by A. Tzigaras, Venice, 1637, 4to.

[250] Meletius of Janina (1661-1714) was Archbishop of Athens, 1703-14. His principal work is _Ancient and Modern Geography_, Venice, 1728, fol. He also wrote an Ecclesiastical History, in four vols., Vienna, 1783-95.

[251] Panagios (Panagiotes) Kodrikas, Professor of Greek at Paris, published at Vienna, in 1794, a Greek translation of Fontenelle's _Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes_. John Camarases, a Constantinopolitan, translated into French the apocryphal treatise, _De Universi Natura_, attributed to Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who is said to have flourished in Lucania in the fifth century B.C.

[252] Christodoulos, an Acarnanian, published a work, [Greek: Peri\ Philoso/phou, Philosophi/as, Physiô~n, Metaphysikô~n, k.t.l.], at Vienna, in 1786.

[253] Athanasius Psalidas published, at Vienna, in 1791, a sceptical work entitled, _True Felicity_ ([Greek: A)lêthê\s Eu)daimoni/a]). "Very learned, and full of quotations, but written in false taste."--_MS. M._ He was a schoolmaster at Janina, where Byron and Hobhouse made his acquaintance--"the only person," says Hobhouse, "I ever saw who had what might be called a library, and that a very small one" (_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 508).

[254] Hobhouse mentions a patriotic poet named Polyzois, "the new Tyrtæus," and gives, as a specimen of his work, "a war-song of the Greeks in Egypt, fighting in the cause of Freedom."--_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 507; ii. 6, 7.

[255] {199} [By Blackbey is meant Bey of Vlack, i.e. Wallachia. (See a _Translation_ of this "satire in dialogue"--"Remarks on the Romaic," etc., _Poetical Works_, 1891, p. 793.)]

[256] [Constantine Rhigas (born 1753), the author of the original of Byron's "Sons of the Greeks, arise," was handed over to the Turks by the Austrians, and shot at Belgrade in 1793, by the orders of Ali Pacha.]

[257] {200} [The Hecatonnesi are a cluster of islands in the Gulf of Adramyttium, over against the harbour and town of Aivali or Aivalik. Cidonies may stand for [Greek: ê(po/lis kydôni\s], the quince-shaped city. "At Haivali or Kidognis, opposite to Mytilene, there is a sort of university for a hundred students and three professors, now superintended by a Greek of Mytilene, who teaches not only the Hellenic, but Latin, French, and Italian."--_Travels in Albania_, _etc._, i. 509, 510.]

[258] [François Horace Bastien, Conte Sebastiani (1772-1851), was ambassador to the _Sublime Porte_, May, 1806-June, 1807.]

[259] [Gregor Alexandrovitch Potemkin (1736-1791), the favourite of the Empress Catherine II.]

[260] {201} In a former number of the _Edinburgh Review_, 1808, it is observed: "Lord Byron passed some of his early years in Scotland, where he might have learned that _pibroch_ does not mean a _bagpipe_, any more than _duet_ means a _fiddle_." Query,--Was it in Scotland that the young gentlemen of the _Edinburgh Review_ _learned_ that _Solyman_ means _Mahomet II._ any more than _criticism_ means _infallibility_?--but thus it is,

"Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis." Persius, _Sat._ iv. 42.

The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great _similarity_ of the two words, and the _total absence of error_ from the former pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the _Edinburgh Review_ much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The _gentlemen_, having enjoyed many a _triumph_ on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a slight _ovation_ for the present.

[At the end of the review of _Childe Harold_, February, 1812 (xix., 476), the editor inserted a ponderous retort to this harmless and good-natured "chaff:" "To those strictures of the noble author we feel no inclination to trouble our readers with any reply ... we shall merely observe that if we viewed with astonishment the immeasurable fury with which the minor poet received the innocent pleasantry and moderate castigation of our remarks on his first publication, we now feel nothing but pity for the strange irritability of temperament which can still cherish a private resentment for such a cause, or wish to perpetuate memory of personalities as outrageous as to have been injurious only to their authors."]

[261] ["O Athens, first of all lands, why in these latter days dost thou nourish asses?"]

[262] [Anna Comnena (1083-1148), daughter of Alexis I., wrote the _Alexiad_, a history of her father's reign.]

[263] [Zonaras (_Annales_, B 240), lib. viii. cap. 26, A 4. Venice, 1729.]

[264] [See _English Bards, etc._, line 877: _Poems_, 1898, i. 366, _note 1._]

[265] {203} [For Vely Pacha, the son of Ali Pacha, Vizier of the Morea, see _Letters_, 1898, i. 248, note 1.]

[266] [The Caimacam was the deputy or lieutenant of the grand Vizier.]

[267] [Scott published "_Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance of the Thirteenth Century_, by Thomas of Ercildoun," in 1804.]

[268] [Captain Lismahago, a paradoxical and pedantic Scotchman, the favoured suitor of Miss Tabitha Bramble, in Smollett's _Expedition of Humphry Clinker_.]

[269] {204} [Sir William Drummond (1780?-1828) published, _inter alia_, _A Review of the Government of Athens and Sparta_, in 1795; and _Herculanensia, an Archæological and Philological Dissertation containing a Manuscript found at Herculaneum_, in conjunction with the Rev. Robert Walpole (see letter to Harness, December 8, 1811. See _Letters_, 1898, ii. 79, note 3).

For Aberdeen and Hamilton, see _English Bards, etc._, line 509: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 336, note 2, and _Childe Harold_, Canto II. supplementary stanzas, _ibid._, ii. 108.

Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. (1769-1822), published _Travels in Various Countries_, 1810-1823 (_vide ante_, p. 172, note 7).

For Leake, _vide ante_, p. 174, note 1.

For Gell, see _English Bards, etc._, line 1034, note 1: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 379.

The Rev. Robert Walpole (1781-1856), in addition to his share in _Herculanensia_, completed the sixth volume of Clarke's _Travels_, which appeared in 1823.]

[270] {205} [Compare English Bards, etc., line 655, note 2: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 349.]

[271] [The judge of a town or village--the Spanish _alcalde_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cadi."]

[272] {206} [Mouradja D'Ohsson (1740-1804), an Armenian by birth, spent many years at Constantinople as Swedish envoy. He published at Paris (1787-90, two vols. fol.) his _Tableau général de l'empire Othoman_, a work still regarded as the chief authority on the subject.]

[273] ["Effendi," derived from the Greek [Greek: au)the/ntês], through the Romaic [Greek: a)phe/ntês], an "absolute master," is a title borne by distinguished civilians.

The Spanish order of St. James of Compostella was founded circ. A.D. 1170.]

[274] {207} [The "Nizam Gedidd," or new ordinance, which aimed at remodelling the Turkish army on a quasi-European system, was promulgated by Selim III in 1808.

A "mufti" is an expounder, a "molla" or "mollah" a superior judge, of the sacred Moslem law. The "tefterdars" or "defterdars" were provincial registrars and treasurers under the supreme defterdar, or Chancellor of the Exchequer.]

* * * * *

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO THE THIRD.

"Afin que cette application vous forcât à penser à autre chose. Il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps."--_Lettres du Roi de Prusse et de M. D'Alembert_.[275] [_Lettre_ cxlvi. Sept. 7, 1776.]

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD CANTO.

The Third Canto of _Childe Harold_ was begun early in May, and finished at Ouchy, near Lausanne, on the 27th of June, 1816. Byron made a fair copy of the first draft of his poem, which had been scrawled on loose sheets, and engaged the services of "Claire" (Jane Clairmont) to make a second transcription. Her task was completed on the 4th of July. The fair copy and Claire's transcription remained in Byron's keeping until the end of August or the beginning of September, when he consigned the transcription to "his friend Mr. Shelley," and the fair copy to Scrope Davies, with instructions to deliver them to Murray (see Letters to Murray, October 5, 9, 15, 1816). Shelley landed at Portsmouth, September 8, and on the 11th of September he discharged his commission.

"I was thrilled with delight yesterday," writes Murray (September 12), "by the announcement of Mr. Shelley with the MS. of _Childe Harold_. I had no sooner got the quiet possession of it than, trembling with auspicious hope, ... I carried it ... to Mr. Gifford.... He says that what you have heretofore published is nothing to this effort.... Never, since my intimacy with Mr. Gifford, did I see him so heartily pleased, or give one fiftieth part of the praise, with one thousandth part of the warmth."

The correction of the press was undertaken by Gifford, not without some remonstrance on the part of Shelley, who maintained that "the revision of the proofs, and the retention or alteration of certain particular passages had been entrusted to his discretion" (Letter to Murray, October 30, 1816).

When, if ever, Mr. Davies, of "inaccurate memory" (Letter to Murray, December 4, 1816), discharged his trust is a matter of uncertainty. The "original MS." (Byron's "fair copy") is not forthcoming, and it is improbable that Murray, who had stipulated (September 20) "for all the original MSS., copies, and scraps," ever received it. The "scraps" were sent (October 5) in the first instance to Geneva, and, after many wanderings, ultimately fell into the possession of Mrs. Leigh, from whom they were purchased by the late Mr. Murray.

The July number of the _Quarterly Review_ (No. XXX.) was still in the press, and, possibly, for this reason it was not till October 29 that Murray inserted the following advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle:_ "Lord Byron's New Poems. On the 23^d of November will be published The Prisoners (_sic_) of Chillon, a Tale and other Poems. A Third Canto of Childe Harold...." But a rival was in the field. The next day (October 30), in the same print, another advertisement appeared: "_The R. H. Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land...._ Printed for J. Johnston, Cheapside.... Of whom may be had, by the same author, a new ed. (the third) of _Farewell to England: with three other poems...._" It was, no doubt, the success of his first venture which had stimulated the "Cheapside impostor," as Byron called him, to forgery on a larger scale.

The controversy did not end there. A second advertisement (_Morning Chronicle_, November 15) of "Lord Byron's Pilgrimage," etc., stating that "the copyright of the work was consigned" to the Publisher "exclusively by the Noble Author himself, and for which he gives 500 guineas," precedes Murray's second announcement of _The Prisoners of Chillon_, and the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, in which he informs "the public that the poems lately advertised are not written by Lord Byron. The only bookseller at present authorised to print Lord Byron's poems is Mr. Murray...." Further precautions were deemed necessary. An injunction in Chancery was applied for by Byron's agents and representatives (see, for a report of the case in the _Morning Chronicle_, November 28, 1816, _Letters_, vol. iv., Letter to Murray, December 9, 1816, note), and granted by the Chancellor, Lord Eldon. Strangely enough, Sir Samuel Romilly, whom Byron did not love, was counsel for the plaintiff.

In spite of the injunction, a volume entitled "_Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land_, a Poem in Two Cantos. To which is attached a fragment, _The Tempest_," was issued in 1817. It is a dull and, apparently, serious production, suggested by, but hardly an imitation of, _Childe Harold_. The notes are descriptive of the scenery, customs, and antiquities of Palestine. _The Tempest_, on the other hand, is a parody, and by no means a bad parody, of Byron at his worst; e.g.--

"There was a sternness in his eye, Which chilled the soul--one knew not why-- But when returning vigour came, And kindled the dark glare to flame, So fierce it flashed, one well might swear, A thousand souls were centred there."

It is possible that this _Pilgrimage_ was the genuine composition of some poetaster who failed to get his poems published under his own name, or it may have been the deliberate forgery of John Agg, or Hewson Clarke, or C. F. Lawler, the _pseudo_ Peter Pindar--"Druids" who were in Johnston's pay, and were prepared to compose pilgrimages to any land, holy or unholy, which would bring grist to their employer's mill. (See the _Advertisements_ at the end of _Lord Byron's Pilgrimage, etc._)

The Third Canto was published, not as announced, on the 23rd, but on the 18th of November. Murray's "auspicious hope" of success was amply fulfilled. He "wrote to Lord Byron on the 13th of December, 1816, informing him that at a dinner at the Albion Tavern, he had sold to the assembled booksellers 7000 of his Third Canto of _Childe Harold_...." The reviews were for the most part laudatory. Sir Walter Scott's finely-tempered eulogium (_Quart. Rev_., No. xxxi., October, 1816 [published February 11, 1817]), and Jeffrey's balanced and cautious appreciation (_Edin. Rev_., No. liv., December, 1816 [published February 14, 1817]) have been reprinted in their collected works. Both writers conclude with an aspiration--Jeffrey, that

"This puissant spirit Yet shall reascend, Self-raised, and repossess its native seat!"

Scott, in the "tenderest strain" of Virgilian melody--

"I decus, i nostrum, melioribus utere fatis!"

NOTE ON MSS. OF THE THIRD CANTO.

[The following memorandum, in Byron's handwriting, is prefixed to the Transcription:--

"This copy is to be printed from--subject to comparison with the original MS. (from which this is a transcription) in such parts as it may chance to be difficult to decypher in the following. The notes in this copy are more complete and extended than in the former--and there is also _one stanza more_ inserted and added to this, viz. the 33d. B. Byron. July 10th, 1816. Diodati, near y^e Lake of Geneva."

The "original MS." to which the memorandum refers is not forthcoming (_vide ante_, p. 212), but the "scraps" (MS.) are now in Mr. Murray's possession. Stanzas i.-iii., and the lines beginning, "The castled Crag of Drachenfels," are missing.

Claire's Transcription (C.) occupies the first 119 pages of a substantial quarto volume. Stanzas xxxiii. and xcix.-cv. and several of the notes are in Byron's handwriting. The same volume contains _Sonnet on Chillon_, in Byron's handwriting; a transcription of the _Prisoners_ (_sic_) _of Chillon_ (so, too, the advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle_, October 29, 1816); _Sonnet_, "Rousseau," etc., in Byron's handwriting, and transcriptions of _Stanzas to_----, "Though the day of my destiny's over;" _Darkness_; _Churchill's Grave_; _The Dream_; _The Incantation_ (_Manfred_, act ii. sc. 1); and _Prometheus_.]

CANTO THE THIRD.