CXVIII.

The child of Love![355] though born in bitterness, And nurtured in Convulsion! Of thy sire These were the elements,--and thine no less. As yet such are around thee,--but thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher! Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea And from the mountains where I now respire, Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, As--with a sigh--I deem thou might'st have been to me![la]

FOOTNOTES:

[275] {209} [D'Alembert (Jean-le-Rond, philosopher, mathematician, and belletrist, 1717-1783) had recently lost his friend, Mlle. (Claire Françoise) L'Espinasse, who died May 23, 1776. Frederick prescribes _quelque problème bien difficile à résoudre_ as a remedy for vain regrets (_Oeuvres de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse_, 1790, xiv. 64, 65).]

[276] {215} ["If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reigns of John and Henry.... It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reasons I gave it to my daughter."--Letter to Murray, Ravenna, October 8, 1820.

The Honourable Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815; was married July 8, 1835, to William King Noel (1805-1893), eighth Baron King, created Earl of Lovelace, 1838; and died November 27, 1852. There were three children of the marriage--Viscount Ockham (d. 1862), the present Earl of Lovelace, and the Lady Anna Isabella Noel, who was married to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Esq., in 1869.

"The Countess of Lovelace," wrote a contributor to the _Examiner_, December 4, 1852, "was thoroughly original, and the poet's temperament was all that was hers in common with her father. Her genius, for genius she possessed, was not poetic, but metaphysical and mathematical, her mind having been in the constant practice of investigation, and with rigour and exactness." Of her devotion to science, and her original powers as a mathematician, her translation and explanatory notes of F. L. Menabrea's _Notices sur le machine Analytique de Mr. Babbage_, 1842, a defence of the famous "calculating machine," remain as evidence.

"Those who view mathematical science not merely as a vast body of abstract and immutable truths, ... but as possessing a yet deeper interest for the human race, when it is remembered that this science constitutes the language through which alone we can adequately express the great facts of the natural world ... those who thus think on mathematical truth as the instrument through which the weak mind of man can most effectually read his Creator's works, will regard with especial interest all that can tend to facilitate the translation of its principles into explicit practical forms." So, for the moment turning away from algebraic formulæ and abstruse calculations, wrote Ada, Lady Lovelace, in her twenty-eighth year. See "Translator's Notes," signed A. A. L., to _A Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq._, London, 1843.

It would seem, however, that she "wore her learning lightly as a flower." "Her manners [_Examiner_], her tastes, her accomplishments, in many of which, music especially, she was proficient, were feminine in the nicest sense of the word." Unlike her father in features, or in the bent of her mind, she inherited his mental vigour and intensity of purpose. Like him, she died in her thirty-seventh year, and at her own request her coffin was placed by his in the vault at Hucknall Torkard. (See, too, _Athenæum_, December 4, 1852, and _Gent. Mag._, January, 1853.)]

[gh] {216} _could grieve my gazing eye._--[C. erased.]

[277] Compare _Henry V._, act iii. sc. 1, line 1--"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

[278] {217} [Compare _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (now attributed to Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Massinger), act ii. sc. 1, lines 73, _seq._--

"Oh, never Shall we two exercise like twins of Honour Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses Like proud seas under us."

"Out of this somewhat forced simile," says the editor (John Wright) of Lord Byron's _Poetical Works_, issued in 1832, "by a judicious transposition of the comparison, and by the substitution of the more definite _waves_ for _seas_, Lord Byron's clear and noble thought has been produced." But the literary artifice, if such there be, is subordinate to the emotion of the writer. It is in movement, progress, flight, that the sufferer experiences a relief from the poignancy of his anguish.]

[gi] _And the rent canvass tattering_----.--[C.]

[279] ["The metaphor is derived from a torrent-bed, which, when dried up, serves for a sandy or shingly path."--Note by H. F. Tozer, _Childe Harold_, 1885, p. 257. Or, perhaps, the imagery has been suggested by the action of a flood, which ploughs a channel for itself through fruitful soil, and, when the waters are spent, leaves behind it "a sterile track," which does, indeed, permit the traveller to survey the desolation, but serves no other purpose of use or beauty.]

[gj] {218} _I would essay of all I sang to sing_.--[MS.]

[280] [Compare Manfred, act ii. sc. 1, lines 51, 52--

"Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? It doth; but actions are our epoch."]

[gk] {219} _Still unimpaired though worn_----.--[MS. erased.]

[281] [It is the poet's fond belief that he can find the true reality in "the things that are not seen."

"Out of these create he can Forms more real than living man-- Nurslings of Immortality."

"Life is but thought," and by the power of the imagination he thinks to "gain a being more intense," to add a cubit to his spiritual stature. Byron professes the same faith in _The Dream_ (stanza i. lines 19-22), which also belongs to the summer of 1816--

"The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh."

At this stage of his poetic growth, in part converted by Shelley, in part by Wordsworth as preached by Shelley, Byron, so to speak, "got religion," went over for a while to the Church of the mystics. There was, too, a compulsion from within. Life had gone wrong with him, and, driven from memory and reflection, he looks for redemption in the new earth which Imagination and Nature held in store.]

[gl] _A brighter being that we thus endow_ _With form our fancies_----.--[MS.]

[gm] {220} _A dizzy world_----.--[MS. erased.]

[282] [Compare _The Dream_, viii. 6, _seq_.--

"Pain was mixed In all which was served up to him, until * * * * * He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment."]

[gn] _To bear unbent what Time cannot abate_.--[MS.]

[283] [Of himself as distinct from Harold he will say no more. On the tale or spell of his own tragedy is set the seal of silence; but of Harold, the idealized Byron, he once more takes up the parable. In stanzas viii.-xv. he puts the reader in possession of some natural changes, and unfolds the development of thought and feeling which had befallen the Pilgrim since last they had journeyed together. The youthful Harold had sounded the depth of joy and woe. Man delighted him not--no, nor woman neither. For a time, however, he had cured himself of this trick of sadness. He had drunk new life from the fountain of natural beauty and antique lore, and had returned to take his part in the world, inly armed against dangers and temptations. And in the world he had found beauty, and fame had found him. What wonder that he had done as others use, and then discovered that he could not fare as others fared? Henceforth there remained no comfort but in nature, no refuge but in exile!]

[go] {221}

_He of the breast that strove no more to feel,_ _Scarred with the wounds_----.--[MS.]

[gp] {222} _Secure in curbing coldness_----.--[MS.]

[gq] _Shines through the wonder-works--of God and Nature's hand_.--[MS.]

[gr] _Who can behold the flower at noon, nor seek_ _To pluck it? who can stedfastly behold_.--[MS.]

[gs] _Nor feel how Wisdom ceases to be cold_.--[MS. erased.]

[284] [The Temple of Fame is on the summit of a mountain; "Clouds overcome it;" but to the uplifted eye the mists dispel, and behold the goddess pointing to her star--the star of glory!]

[gt] {223} _Yet with a steadier step than in his earlier time_.--[MS. erased.]

[285] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 50-58--

"From my youth upwards My spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; * * * * * My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh."

Compare, too, with stanzas xiii., xiv., _ibid_., lines 58-72.]

[gu] _Fool he not to know_.--[MS. erased.]

[gv] _Where there were mountains there for him were friends_. _Where there was Ocean--there he was at home_.--[MS.]

[gw] {224} _Like the Chaldean he could gaze on stars_.--[MS.] ----_adored the stars_.--[MS. erased.]

[gx] _That keeps us from that Heaven on which we love to think_.--[MS.]

[gy] _But in Man's dwelling--Harold was a thing_ _Restless and worn, and cold and wearisome_.--[MS.]

[286] {225} [In this stanza the mask is thrown aside, and "the real Lord Byron" appears _in propriâ personâ_.]

[287] [The mound with the Belgian lion was erected by William I. of Holland, in 1823.]

[gz] {226} _None; but the moral truth tells simpler so_.--[MS.]

[288] [Stanzas xvii., xviii., were written after a visit to Waterloo. When Byron was in Brussels, a friend of his boyhood, Pryse Lockhart Gordon, called upon him and offered his services. He escorted him to the field of Waterloo, and received him at his house in the evening. Mrs. Gordon produced her album, and begged for an autograph. The next morning Byron copied into the album the two stanzas which he had written the day before. Lines 5-8 of the second stanza (xviii.) ran thus--

"Here his last flight the haughty Eagle flew, Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain, Pierced with the shafts of banded nations through ..."

The autograph suggested an illustration to an artist, R. R. Reinagle (1775-1863), "a pencil-sketch of a spirited chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons." Gordon showed the vignette to Byron, who wrote in reply, "Reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than I am; eagles and all birds of prey attack with their talons and not with their beaks, and I have altered the line thus--

"'Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain.'"

(See _Personal Memoirs of Pryse Lockhart Gordon_, 1830, ii. 327, 328.)]

[ha] ----_and still must be_.--[MS.]

[hb] ----_the fatal Waterloo_.--[MS.]

[hc] _Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew_.--[MS.] _Then bit with bloody beak the rent plain_.--[MS. erased.] _Then tore with bloody beak_----.--[MS.]

[hd] {227} _And Gaul must wear the links of her own broken chain_.--[MS.]

[289] [With this "obstinate questioning" of the final import and outcome of "that world-famous Waterloo," compare the _Ode from the French_, "We do not curse thee, Waterloo," written in 1815, and published by John Murray in _Poems_ (1816). Compare, too, _The Age of Waterloo_, v. 93, "Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!" and _Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanzas xlviii.-l., etc. Shelley, too, in his sonnet on the _Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte_ (1816), utters a like lament (Shelley's _Works_, 1895, ii. 385)--

"I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time."

Even Wordsworth, after due celebration of this "victory sublime," in his sonnet _Emperors and Kings, etc._ (_Works_, 1889, p. 557), solemnly admonishes the "powers"--

"Be just, be grateful; nor, the oppressor's creed Reviving heavier chastisement deserve Than ever forced unpitied hearts to bleed."

But the Laureate had no misgivings, and in _The Poet's Pilgrimage_, iv. 60, celebrates the national apotheosis--

"Peace hath she won ... with her victorious hand Hath won thro' rightful war auspicious peace; Nor this alone, but that in every land The withering rule of violence may cease. Was ever War with such blest victory crowned! Did ever Victory with such fruits abound!"]

[he] {228} _Or league to teach their kings_----.--[MS.]

[290] [The most vivid and the best authenticated account of the Duchess of Richmond's ball, which took place June 15, the eve of the Battle of Quatrebras, in the duke's house in the Rue de la Blanchisserie, is to be found in Lady de Ros's (Lady Georgiana Lennox) _Personal Recollections of the Great Duke of Wellington_, which appeared first in _Murray's Magazine_, January and February, 1889, and were republished as _A Sketch of the Life of Georgiana, Lady de Ros_, by her daughter, the Hon. Mrs. J. R. Swinton (John Murray, 1893). "My mother's now famous ball," writes Lady de Ros (_A Sketch, etc._, pp. 122, 123), "took place in a large room on the ground-floor on the left of the entrance, connected with the rest of the house by an ante-room. It had been used by the coachbuilder, from whom the house was hired, to put carriages in, but it was papered before we came there; and I recollect the paper--a trellis pattern with roses.... When the duke arrived, rather late, at the ball, I was dancing, but at once went up to him to ask about the rumours. 'Yes, they are true; we are off to-morrow.' This terrible news was circulated directly, and while some of the officers hurried away, others remained at the ball, and actually had not time to change their clothes, but fought in evening costume."]

[hf] {229}

_The lamps shone on lovely dames and gallant men_.--[MS.] _The lamps shone on ladies_----.--[MS. erased.]

[hg] {230} _With a slow deep and dread-inspiring roar_.--[MS. erased.]

[hh] _Arm! arm, and out! it is the opening cannon's roar_.--[MS.] _Arm--arm--and out--it is--the cannon's opening roar_.--[C.]

[291] [Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick (1771-1815), brother to Caroline, Princess of Wales, and nephew of George III., fighting at Quatrebras in the front of the line, "fell almost in the beginning of the battle." His father, Charles William Ferdinand, born 1735, the author of the fatal manifesto against the army of the French Republic (July 15, 1792), was killed at Auerbach, October 14, 1806. In the plan of the Duke of Richmond's house, which Lady de Ros published in her _Recollections_, the actual spot is marked (the door of the ante-room leading to the ball-room) where Lady Georgiana Lennox took leave of the Duke of Brunswick. "It was a dreadful evening," she writes, "taking leave of friends and acquaintances, many never to be seen again. The Duke of Brunswick, as he took leave of me ... made me a civil speech as to the Brunswickers being sure to distinguish themselves after 'the honour' done them by my having accompanied the Duke of Wellington to their review! I remember being quite provoked with poor Lord Hay, a dashing, merry youth, full of military ardour, whom I knew very well, for his delight at the idea of going into action ... and the first news we had on the 16th was that he and the Duke of Brunswick were killed."--_A Sketch, etc._, pp. 132, 133.]

[hi] {231} _His heart replying knew that sound too well_.--[MS.] _And the hoped vengeance for a Sire so dear_ _As him who died on Jena--whom so well_ _His filial heart had mourned through many a year_ _Roused him to valiant fury nought could quell_.--[MS. erased.]

[hj] ----_tremors of distress_.--[MS.]

[hk] ----_which did press_ _Like death upon young hearts_----.--[MS.]

[hl] _Oh that on night so soft, such heavy morn should rise_.--[MS.]

[hm] {232} _And wakening citizens with terror dumb_ _Or whispering with pale lips--"The foe--They come, they come."_--[MS.] _Or whispering with pale lips--"The Desolation's come."_--[MS. erased.]

[hn] _And Soignies waves above them_----.--[MS.] _And Ardennes_----.--[C.]

[292] {233} [_Vide ante, English Bards, etc._, line 726, note: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 354.]

[ho] _But chiefly_----.--[MS.]

[293] {234} [The Hon. Frederick Howard (1785-1815), third son of Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle, fell late in the evening of the 18th of June, in a final charge of the left square of the French Guard, in which Vivian brought up Howard's hussars against the French. Neither French infantry nor cavalry gave way, and as the Hanoverians fired but did not charge, a desperate combat ensued, in which Howard fell and many of the 10th were killed.--_Waterloo: The Downfall of the First Napoleon_, G. Hooper, 1861, p. 236.

Southey, who had visited the field of Waterloo, September, 1815, in his _Poet's Pilgrimage_ (iii. 49), dedicates a pedestrian stanza to his memory--

"Here from the heaps who strewed the fatal plain Was Howard's corse by faithful hands conveyed; And not to be confounded with the slain, Here in a grave apart with reverence laid, Till hence his honoured relics o'er the seas Were borne to England, where they rest in peace."]

[294] [Autumn had been beforehand with spring in the work of renovation.

"Yet Nature everywhere resumed her course; Low pansies to the sun their purple gave, And the soft poppy blossomed on the grave." _Poet's Pilgrimage_, iii. 36.

But the contrast between the continuous action of nature and the doom of the unreturning dead, which does not greatly concern Southey, fills Byron with a fierce desire to sum the price of victory. He flings in the face of the vain-glorious mourners the bitter reality of their abiding loss. It was this prophetic note, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," which sounded in and through Byron's rhetoric to the men of his own generation.]

[hp] {235} _And dead within behold the Spring return_.--[MS. erased.]

[hq] {236} _It still is day though clouds keep out the Sun_.--[MS.]

[295] [So, too, Coleridge. "Have you never seen a stick broken in the middle, and yet cohering by the rind? The fibres, half of them actually broken and the rest sprained, and, though tough, unsustaining? Oh, many, many are the broken-hearted for those who know what the moral and practical heart of the man is."--_Anima Poetæ_, 1895, p. 303.]

[296] [According to Lady Blessington (_Conversations_, p. 176), Byron maintained that the image of the broken mirror had in some mysterious way been suggested by the following quatrain which Curran had once repeated to him:--

"While memory, with more than Egypt's art Embalming all the sorrows of the heart, Sits at the altar which she raised to woe, And finds the scene whence tears eternal flow."

But, as M. Darmesteter points out, the true source of inspiration was a passage in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_--"the book," as Byron maintained, "in my opinion most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the reputation of being well-read with the least trouble" (_Life_, p. 48). Burton is discoursing on injury and long-suffering. "'Tis a Hydra's head contention; the more they strive, the more they may; and as Praxiteles did by his glass [see Cardan, _De Consolatione_, lib. iii.], when he saw a scurvy face in it, break it in pieces; but for the one he saw, he saw many more as bad in a moment; for one injury done, they provoke another _cum fanore_, and twenty enemies for one."--_Anatomy of Melancholy_, 1893, ii. 228. Compare, too, Carew's poem, _The Spark_, lines 23-26--

"And as a looking-glass, from the aspect, Whilst it is whole doth but one face reflect, But being crack'd or broken, there are shewn Many half-faces, which at first were one. Anderson's _British Poets_, 1793, iii. 703.]

[hr] {237} _But not his pleasure--such might be a task_.--[MS. erased.]

[297] [The "tale" or reckoning of the Psalmist, the span of threescore years and ten, is contrasted with the tale or reckoning of the age of those who fell at Waterloo. A "fleeting span" the Psalmist's; but, reckoning by Waterloo, "more than enough." Waterloo grudges even what the Psalmist allows.]

[hs] {238}

_Here where the sword united Europe drew_ _I had a kinsman warring on that day_.--[MS.]

[ht] _On little thoughts with equal firmness fixed._--[MS.]

[hu] _For thou hast risen as fallen--even now thou seek'st_ _An hour_----.--[MS.]

[298] [Byron seems to have been unable to make up his mind about Napoleon. "It is impossible not to be dazzled and overwhelmed by his character and career," he wrote to Moore (March 17, 1815), when his Héros de Roman, as he called him, had broken open his "captive's cage" and was making victorious progress to the capital. In the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, which was written in April, 1814, after the first abdication at Fontainebleau, the dominant note is astonishment mingled with contempt. It is the lamentation over a fallen idol. In these stanzas (xxxvi.-xlv.) he bears witness to the man's essential greatness, and, with manifest reference to his own personality and career, attributes his final downfall to the peculiar constitution of his genius and temper. A year later (1817), in the Fourth Canto (stanzas lxxxix.-xcii.), he passes a severe sentence. Napoleon's greatness is swallowed up in weakness. He is a "kind of bastard Cæsar," self-vanquished, the creature and victim of vanity. Finally, in The Age of Bronze, sections iii.-vi., there is a reversion to the same theme, the tragic irony of the rise and fall of the "king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave."

As a schoolboy at Harrow, Byron fought for the preservation of Napoleon's bust, and he was ever ready, in defiance of national feeling and national prejudice, to celebrate him as "the glorious chief;" but when it came to the point, he did not "want him here," victorious over England, and he could not fail to see, with insight quickened by self-knowledge, that greatness and genius possess no charm against littleness and commonness, and that the "glory of the terrestrial" meets with its own reward. The moral is obvious, and as old as history; but herein lay the secret of Byron's potency, that he could remint and issue in fresh splendour the familiar coinage of the world's wit. Moreover, he lived in a great age, when great truths are born again, and appear in a new light.]

[299] [The stanza was written while Napoleon was still under the guardianship of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, and before Sir Hudson Lowe had landed at St. Helena; but complaints were made from the first that imperial honours which were paid to him by his own suite were not accorded by the British authorities.]

[hv] {239} ----_and thy dark name_ _Was ne'er more rife within men's mouths than now_.--[MS.]

[hw] _Who tossed thee to and fro till_----.--[MS. erased.]

[hx] _Which be it wisdom, weakness_----.--[MS.]

[hy] _To watch thee shrinking calmly hadst thou smiled._--[MS.] _With a sedate tho' not unfeeling eye._--[MS. erased.]

[hz] {241} _Greater than in thy fortunes; for in them_ _Ambition lured thee on too far to show_ _That true habitual scorn_----.--[MS.]

[ia] {242} _Feeds on itself and all things_----.--[MS.]

[ib] _Which stir too deeply_----[MS.] _Which stir the blood too boiling in its springs_.--[MS. erased.]

[ic] {243} ----_they rave overcast_.--[MS.]

[id] ----_the hate of all below_.--[MS.]

[ie] ----_on his single head_.--[MS.]

[if] ----_the wise man's World will be_.--[MS.]

[ig] ----_for what teems like thee_.--[MS.]

[ih] {244} _From gray and ghastly walls--where Ruin kindly dwells_.--[MS.]

[300] [For the archaic use of "battles" for "battalions," compare _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 4, line 4; and Scott's _Lord of the Isles_, vi. 10--

"In battles four beneath their eye, The forces of King Robert lie."]

[ii] ----_are shredless tatters now_.--[MS.]

[ij] {245} _What want these outlaws that a king should have_ _But History's vain page_----.--[MS.]

[ik] ----_their hearts were far more brave_.--[MS.]

[301] [The most usual device is a bleeding heart.]

[il] _Nor mar it frequent with an impious show_ _Of arms or angry conflict_----.--[MS.]

[302] {246} [Compare Moore's lines, _The Meeting of the Waters_--

"There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the wide waters meet."]

[im] _Earth's dreams of Heaven--and such to seem to me_ _But one thing wants thy stream_----.--[MS.]

[303] [Compare Lucan's _Pharsalia_, ix. 969, "Etiam periere ruinæ;" and the lines from Tasso's _Gerusalemme Liberata_, xv. 20, quoted in illustration of Canto II. stanza liii.]

[in] _Glassed with its wonted light, the sunny ray;_ _But o'er the mind's marred thoughts--though but a dream_.--[MS.]

[io] {247} _Repose itself on kindness_----[MS.]

[304] [Two lyrics, entitled _Stanzas to Augusta_, and the _Epistle to Augusta_, which were included in _Domestic Pieces_, published in 1816, are dedicated to the same subject--the devotion and faithfulness of his sister.]

[ip] {248} _But there was one_----.--[MS.]

[iq] _Yet was it pure_----.--[MS.]

[305] [It has been supposed that there is a reference in this passage, and again in _Stanzas to Augusta_ (dated July 24, 1816), to "the only important calumny"--to quote Shelley's letter of September 29, 1816--"that was even ever advanced" against Byron. "The poems to Augusta," remarks Elze (_Life of Lord Byron_, p. 174), "prove, further, that she too was cognizant of the calumnious accusations; for under no other supposition is it possible to understand their allusions." But the mere fact that Mrs. Leigh remained on terms of intimacy and affection with her brother, when he was under the ban of society, would expose her to slander and injurious comment, "peril dreaded most in female eyes;" whereas to other calumnies, if such there were, there could be no other reference but silence, or an ecstasy of wrath and indignation.]

[ir] _Thus to that heart did his its thoughts in absence pour_.--[MS.] ----_its absent feelings pour_.--[MS. erased.]

[306] {249} [Written on the Rhine bank, May 11, 1816.--MS. M.]

[is] {251} _A sigh for Marceau_----.--[MS.]

[307] [Marceau (_vide post_, note 2, p. 296) took part in crushing the Vendean insurrection. If, as General Hoche asserts in his memoirs, six hundred thousand fell in Vendée, Freedom's charter was not easily overstepped.]

[308] {252} [Compare Gray's lines in _The Fatal Sisters_--

"Iron-sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darken'd air."]

[it] _And could the sleepless vultures_----.--[MS.]

[iu] _Rustic not rude, sublime yet not austere_.--[MS.]

[309] [Lines 8 and 9 may be cited as a crying instance of Byron's faulty technique. The collocation of "awful" with "austere," followed by "autumn" in the next line, recalls the afflictive assonance of "high Hymettus," which occurs in the beautiful passage which he stole from _The Curse of Minerva_ and prefixed to the third canto of _The Corsair_. The sense of the passage is that, as in autumn, the golden mean between summer and winter, the year is at its full, so in the varied scenery of the Rhine there is a harmony of opposites, a consummation of beauty.]

[iv] {253} _More mighty scenes may rise--more glaring shine_ _But none unite in one enchanted gaze_ _The fertile--fair--and soft--the glories of old days_.--[MS.]

[310] [The "negligently grand" may, perhaps, refer to the glories of old days, now in a state of neglect, not to the unstudied grandeur of the scene taken as a whole; but the phrase is loosely thrown out in order to convey a general impression, "an attaching maze," an engaging attractive combination of images, and must not be interrogated too closely.]

[iw] {254} _Around in chrystal grandeur to where falls_ _The avalanche--the thunder-clouds of snow_.--[MS.]

[311] [Compare the opening lines of Coleridge's _Hymn before Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni_--

"Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!"

The "thunderbolt" (line 6) recurs in _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1--

"Around his waist are forests braced, The Avalanche in his hand; But ere its fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command."]

[312] {255} [The inscription on the ossuary of the Burgundian troops which fell in the battle of Morat, June 14, 1476, suggested this variant of _Si monumentum quæris_--

"Deo Optimo Maximo.

Inclytissimi et fortissimi Burgundiæ ducis exercitus, Moratum obsidens, ab Helvetiis cæsus, hoc sui monumentum reliquit."]

[ix] _Unsepulchred they roam, and shriek_----[MS.]

[313] [The souls of the suitors when Hermes "roused and shepherded them followed gibbering" ([Greek: tri/zousai]).--_Od._, xxiv. 5. Once, too, when the observance of the _dies Parentales_ was neglected, Roman ghosts took to wandering and shrieking.

"Perque vias Urbis, Latiosque ululasse per agros Deformes animas, vulgus inane ferunt." Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. lines 553, 554.

The Homeric ghosts gibbered because they were ghosts; the Burgundian ghosts because they were confined to the Stygian coast, and could not cross the stream. For once the "classical allusions" are forced and inappropriate.]

[314] [Byron's point is that at Morat 15,000 men were slain in a righteous cause--the defence of a republic against an invading tyrant; whereas the lives of those that fell at Cannæ and at Waterloo were sacrificed to the ambition of rival powers fighting for the mastery.]

[iy] {255} ----_their proud land_ _Groan'd not beneath_----.--[MS.]

[iz] {257} _And thus she died_----.--[MS.]

[ja] _And they lie simply_----.--[MS. erased.]

[jb] _The dear depths yield_----.--[MS.]

[315] ["Haunted and hunted by the British tourist and gossip-monger, Byron took refuge, on June 10, at the Villa Diodati; but still the pursuers strove to win some wretched consolation by waylaying him in his evening drives, or directing the telescope upon his balcony, which overlooked the lake, or upon the hillside, with its vineyards, where he lurked obscure" (Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, 1896, p. 309). It is possible, too, that now and again even Shelley's companionship was felt to be a strain upon nerves and temper. The escape from memory and remorse, which could not be always attained in the society of a chosen few, might, he hoped, be found in solitude, face to face with nature. But it was not to be. Even nature was powerless to "minister to a mind diseased." At the conclusion of his second tour (September 29, 1816), he is constrained to admit that "neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and beneath me" (_Life_, p. 315). Perhaps Wordsworth had this confession in his mind when, in 1834, he composed the lines, "Not in the Lucid Intervals of Life," of which the following were, he notes, "written with Lord Byron's character as a past before me, and that of others, his contemporaries, who wrote under like influences:"--

"Nor do words, Which practised talent readily affords, Prove that his hand has touched responsive chords Nor has his gentle beauty power to move With genuine rapture and with fervent love The soul of Genius, if he dare to take Life's rule from passion craved for passion's sake; Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent Of all the truly great and all the innocent. But who is innocent? By grace divine, Not otherwise, O Nature! are we thine, Through good and evil there, in just degree Of rational and manly sympathy." _The Works of W. Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 729.

Wordsworth seems to have resented Byron's tardy conversion to "natural piety," regarding it, no doubt, as a fruitless and graceless endeavour without the cross to wear the crown. But if Nature reserves her balms for "the innocent," her quality of inspiration is not "strained." Byron, too, was nature's priest--

"And by that vision splendid Was on his way attended."]

[jc] {259} _In its own deepness_----[MS.]

[316] [The metaphor is derived from a hot spring which appears to boil over at the moment of its coming to the surface. As the particles of water, when they emerge into the light, break and bubble into a seething mass; so, too, does passion chase and beget passion in the "hot throng" of general interests and individual desires.]

[jd] _One of a worthless world--to strive where none are strong._--[MS.]

[317] [The thought which underlies the whole of this passage is that man is the creature and thrall of fate. In society, in the world, he is exposed to the incidence of passion, which he can neither resist nor yield to without torture. He is overcome by the world, and, as a last resource, he turns to nature and solitude. He lifts up his eyes to the hills, unexpectant of Divine aid, but in the hope that, by claiming kinship with Nature, and becoming "a portion of that around" him, he may forego humanity, with its burden of penitence, and elude the curse. There is a further reference to this despairing recourse to Nature in _The Dream_, viii. 10, _seq_.--

" ... he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe He held his dialogues! and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries."]

[je] {260} ----_through Eternity._--[MS.]

[318] [Shelley seems to have taken Byron at his word, and in the _Adonais_ (xxx. 3, _seq._) introduces him in the disguise of--

"The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument."

Notwithstanding the splendour of Shelley's verse, it is difficult to suppress a smile. For better or for worse, the sense of the ludicrous has asserted itself, and "brother" cannot take "brother" quite so seriously as in "the brave days of old." But to each age its own humour. Not only did Shelley and Byron worship at the shrine of Rousseau, but they took delight in reverently tracing the footsteps of St. Preux and Julie.]

[319] {261} [The name "Tigris" is derived from the Persian _tîr_ (Sanscrit _Tigra_), "an arrow." If Byron ever consulted Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_, he would have read, "_Tigris_, a velocitate dictus quasi _sagitta_;" but most probably he neither had nor sought an authority for his natural and beautiful simile.]

[jf] _To its young cries and kisses all awake._--[MS.]

[320] [Compare _Tintern Abbey_. In this line, both language and sentiment are undoubtedly Wordsworth's--

"The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours, and their forms, were then to me An appetite, a _feeling_, and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm."

But here the resemblance ends. With Wordsworth the mood passed, and he learned

"To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, but of amplest power To chasten and subdue."

He would not question Nature in search of new and untainted pleasure, but rests in her as inclusive of humanity. The secret of Wordsworth is acquiescence; "the still, sad music of humanity" is the key-note of his ethic. Byron, on the other hand, is in revolt. He has the ardour of a pervert, the rancorous scorn of a deserter. The "hum of human cities" is a "torture." He is "a link reluctant in a fleshly chain." To him Nature and Humanity are antagonists, and he cleaves to the one, yea, he would take her by violence, to mark his alienation and severance from the other.]

[jg] _Of peopled cities_----[MS.]

[jh] {262} ----_but to be_ _A link reluctant in a living chain_ _Classing with creatures_----[MS.]

[ji] _And with the air_----[MS.]

[jj] _To sink and suffer_----[MS.]

[jk] ----_which partly round us cling._--[MS.]

[321] [Compare Horace, _Odes_, iii. 2. 23, 24--

"Et udam Spernit humum fugiente pennâ."]

[jl] {263} ----_in this degrading form._--[MS.]

[jm] ----_the Spirit in each spot._--[MS.]

[322][The "bodiless thought" is the object, not the subject, of his celestial vision. "Even now," as through a glass darkly, and with eyes

"Whose half-beholdings through unsteady tears Gave shape, hue, distance to the inward dream,"

his soul "had sight" of the spirit, the informing idea, the essence of each passing scene; but, hereafter, his bodiless spirit would, as it were, encounter the place-spirits face to face. It is to be noted that warmth of feeling, not clearness or fulness of perception, attends this spiritual recognition.]

[jn] [_Is not_] _the universe a breathing part?_--[MS.]

[jo] {264} _And gaze upon the ground with sordid thoughts and slow._--[MS.]

[323] [Compare Coleridge's _Dejection. An Ode_, iv. 4-9--

"And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd; Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth."]

[jp] _But this is not a time--I must return._--[MS.]

[jq] _Here the reflecting Sophist_----.--[MS.]

[jr] {265} _O'er sinful deeds and thoughts the heavenly hue_ _With words like sunbeams dazzling as they passed_ _The eye that o'er them shed deep tears which flowed too fast_.--[MS.] _O'er deeds and thoughts of error the bright hue_.--[MS. erased.]

[js] _Like him enamoured were to die the same_.--[MS.]

[jt] {266} ----_self-consuming heat_.--[MS. erased.]

[324] [As, for instance, with Madame de Warens, in 1738; with Madame d'Epinay; with Diderot and Grimm, in 1757; with Voltaire; with David Hume, in 1766 (see "Rousseau in England," _Q. R._, No. 376, October, 1898); with every one to whom he was attached or with whom he had dealings, except his illiterate mistress, Theresa le Vasseur. (See _Rousseau_, by John Morley, 2 vols., 1888, _passim_.)]

[ju] _For its own cruel workings the most kind_.--[MS. erased.]

[jv] _Since cause might be yet leave no trace behind_.--[MS.]

[325] ["He was possessed, as holier natures than his have been, by an enthusiastic vision, an intoxicated confidence, a mixture of sacred rage and prodigious love, an insensate but absolutely disinterested revolt against the stone and iron of a reality which he was bent on melting in a heavenly blaze of splendid aspiration and irresistibly persuasive expression."--_Rousseau_, by John Morley, 1886, i. 137.]

[326] {267} [Rousseau published his _Discourses_ on the influence of the sciences, on manners, and on inequality (_Sur l'Origine ... de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes_) in 1750 and 1753; _Émile, ou, de l'Education_, and _Du Contrat Social_ in 1762.]

[327] ["What Rousseau's Discourse [_Sur l'Origine ... de l'Inégalité_, etc.] meant ... is not that all men are born equal. He never says this.... His position is that the artificial differences, springing from the conditions of the social union, do not coincide with the differences in capacity springing from original constitution; that the tendency of the social union as now organized is to deepen the artificial inequalities, and make the gulf between those endowed with privileges and wealth, and those not so endowed, ever wider and wider.... It was ... [the influence of Rousseau ... and those whom he inspired] which, though it certainly did not produce, yet did as certainly give a deep and remarkable bias, first to the American Revolution, and a dozen years afterwards to the French Revolution."--_Rousseau_, 1888, i. 181, 182.]

[jw] ----_thoughts which grew_ _Born with the birth of Time_----.--[MS.]

[jx] ----_even let me view_ _But good alas_----.--[MS.]

[jy] {268} ----_in both we shall lie slower_.--[MS. erased.]

[328] [The substitution of "one" for "both" (see _var._ i.) affords conclusive proof that the meaning is that the next revolution would do its work more thoroughly and not leave things as it found them.]

[329] {269} [After sunset the Jura range, which lies to the west of the Lake, would appear "darkened" in contrast to the afterglow in the western sky.]

[jz] {270} _He is an endless reveller_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ka] _Him merry with light talking with his mate_.--[MS. erased.]

[330] [Compare Anacreon ([Greek: Ei)s te/ttiga]), _Carm._ xliii. line 15--

[Greek: To\ de\ gê~ras ou)\ se tei/rei.].]

[kb] _Deep into Nature's breast the existence which they lose_.--[MS.]

[331] [For the association of "Fortune" and "Fame" with a star, compare stanza xi. lines 5, 6--

"Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The _star_ which rises o'er her steep," etc.?

And the allusion to Napoleon's "star," stanza xxxviii. line 9--

"Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest _Star_."

Compare, too, the opening lines of the _Stanzas to Augusta_ (July 24, 1816)--

"Though the day of my destiny's over, And the _star_ of my fate has declined."

"Power" is symbolized as a star in _Numb._ xxiv. 17, "There shall come a _star_ out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel;" and in the divine proclamation, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning _star_" (_Rev._ xxii. 16).

The inclusion of "life" among star similes may have been suggested by the astrological terms, "house of life" and "lord of the ascendant." Wordsworth, in his Ode (_Intimations of Immortality, etc._) speaks of the soul as "our life's _star_." Mr. Tozer, who supplies most of these "comparisons," adds a line from Shelley's _Adonais_, 55. 8 (Pisa, 1821)--

"The soul of Adonais, like a _star_."]

[332] {271} [Compare Wordsworth's sonnet, "It is a Beauteous," etc.--

"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration."]

[333] [Here, too, the note is Wordsworthian, though Byron represents as inherent in Nature, that "sense of something far more deeply interfused," which Wordsworth (in his _Lines_ on Tintern Abbey) assigns to his own consciousness.]

[kc] {272} _It is a voiceless feeling chiefly felt_.--[MS.]

[kd] _Of a most inward music_----.--[MS.]

[334] [As the cestus of Venus endowed the wearer with magical attraction, so the immanence of the Infinite and the Eternal in "all that formal is and fugitive," binds it with beauty and produces a supernatural charm which even Death cannot resist.]

[335] [Compare Herodotus, i. 131, [Greek: Oi(de\ nomi/zousi Dii) me, e)pi\ ta\ y(psêlo/tata tô~n ou)re/ôn a)nabai/nontes, thysi/as e(/rdein, to ky/klon pa/nta tou~ y)rano Di/a kale/ontes]. Perhaps, however, "early Persian" was suggested by a passage in "that drowsy, frowsy poem, _The Excursion_"--

"The Persian--zealous to reject Altar and image and the inclusive walls And roofs and temples built by human hands-- To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow, Presented sacrifice to moon and stars."

_The Excursion_, iv. (_The Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 461).]

[336] {273} [Compare the well-known song which forms the prelude of the _Hebrew Melodies_--

"She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes."]

[ke] ----_Oh glorious Night_ _That art not sent_----.--[MS.]

[kf] {274} _A portion of the Storm--a part of thee_.--[MS.]

[kg] ----_a fiery sea_.--[MS.]

[kh] _As they had found an heir and feasted o'er his birth_.--[MS. erased.]

[ki] _Hills which look like brethren with twin heights_ _Of a like aspect_----.--[MS. erased.]

[337] [There can be no doubt that Byron borrowed this metaphor from the famous passage in Coleridge's _Christabel_ (ii. 408-426), which he afterwards prefixed as a motto to _Fare Thee Well_.

The latter half of the quotation runs thus--

"But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining-- They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between, But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once had been."]

[kj] {275} _Of separation drear_----.--[MS. erased.]

[338] [There are numerous instances of the use of "knoll" as an alternative form of the verb "to knell;" but Byron seems, in this passage, to be the authority for "knoll" as a substantive.]

[339] [For Rousseau's description of Vevey, see _Julie; ou, La Nouvelle Héloise_, Partie I. Lettre xxiii., _Oevres de J. J. Rousseau_, 1836, ii. 36: "Tantôt d'immenses rochers pendoient en ruines au-dessus de ma tête. Tantôt de hautes et bruyantes cascades m'inondoient de leur epais brouillard: tantôt un torrent éternel ouvroit à mes côtés un abîme dont les yeux n'osoient sonder la profondeur. Quelquefois je me perdois dans l'obscurité d'un bois touffu. Quelquefois, en sortant d'un gouffre, une agréable prairie, réjouissoit tout-à-coup mes regards. Un mélange étonnant de la nature sauvage et de la nature cultivée, montroit partout la main des hommes, où l'on eût cru qu'ils n'avoient jamais pénétré: a côté d'une caverne on trouvoit des maisons; on voyoit des pampres secs où l'on n'eût cherché que des ronces, des vignes dans des terres éboullées, d'excellens fruits sur des rochers, et des champs dans des précipices." See, too, Lettre xxxviii. p. 56; Partie IV. Lettre xi. p. 238 (the description of Julie's Elysium); and Partie IV. Lettre xvii. p. 260 (the excursion to Meillerie).

Byron infuses into Rousseau's accurate and charming compositions of scenic effects, if not the "glory," yet "the freshness of a dream." He belonged to the new age, with its new message from nature to man, and, in spite of theories and prejudices, listened and was convinced. He extols Rousseau's recognition of nature, lifting it to the height of his own argument; but, consciously or unconsciously, he desires to find, and finds, in nature a spring of imagination undreamt of by the Apostle of Sentiment. There is a whole world of difference between Rousseau's persuasive and delicate patronage of Nature, and Byron's passionate, though somewhat belated, surrender to her inevitable claim. With Rousseau, Nature is a means to an end, a conduct of refined and heightened fancy; whereas, to Byron, "her reward was with her," a draught of healing and refreshment.]

[kk] {277} _The trees have grown from Love_----.--[MS. erased.]

[kl] {278} _By rays which twine there_----.--[MS.]

[km] _Clarens--sweet Clarens--thou art Love's abode_-- _Undying Love's--who here hath made a throne_.--[MS.]

[kn] _And girded it with Spirit which is shown_ _From the steep summit to the rushing Rhone_.--[MS. erased.]

[ko] ----_whose searching power_ _Surpasses the strong storm in its most desolate hour_.--[MS.]

[340] [Compare _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, Partie IV. Lettre xvii, _Oeuvres, etc._, ii. 262: "Un torrent, formé par la fonte des neiges, rouloit à vingt pas de nous line eau bourbeuse, et charrioit avec bruit du limon, du sable et des pierres.... Des forêts de noirs sapins nous ombrageoient tristement à droite. Un grand bois de chênes étoit à gauche au-delà du torrent."]

[kp] {279} _But branches young as Heaven_----[MS. erased,]

[kq] ----_with sweeter voice than words_.--[MS.]

[341] [Compare the _Pervigilium Veneris_--

"Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, Quique amavit eras amet." ("Let those love now, who never loved before; Let those who always loved, now love the more.")

Parnell's _Vigil of Venus: British Poets_, 1794, vii. 7.]

[kr] {279} ----_driven him to repose._--[MS.]

[342] [Compare _Confessions of J. J. Rousseau_, lib. iv., _passim._]

[343] {281} [In his appreciation of Voltaire, Byron, no doubt, had in mind certain strictures of the lake school--"a school, as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete." Coleridge, in _The Friend_ (1850, i. 168), contrasting Voltaire with Erasmus, affirms that "the knowledge of the one was solid through its whole extent, and that of the other extensive at a chief rate in its superficiality," and characterizes "the wit of the Frenchman" as being "without imagery, without character, and without that pathos which gives the magic charm to genuine humour;" and Wordsworth, in the second book of _The Excursion_ (_Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 434), "unalarmed" by any consideration of wit or humour, writes down Voltaire's _Optimist_ (_Candide, ou L'Optimisme_), which was accidentally discovered by the "Wanderer" in the "Solitary's" pent-house, "swoln with scorching damp," as "the dull product of a scoffer's pen." Byron reverts to these contumelies in a note to the Fifth Canto of _Don Juan_ (see _Life_, Appendix, p. 809), and lashes "the school" _secundum artem._]

[ks] _Coping with all and leaving all behind_ _Within himself existed all mankind_-- _And laughing at their faults betrayed his own_ _His own was ridicule which as the Wind_.--[MS.]

[344] {282} [In his youth Voltaire was imprisoned for a year (1717-18) in the Bastille, by the regent Duke of Orleans, on account of certain unacknowledged lampoons (_Regnante Puero, etc._); but throughout his long life, so far from "shaking thrones," he showed himself eager to accept the patronage and friendship of the greatest monarchs of the age--of Louis XV., of George II. and his queen, Caroline of Anspach, of Frederick II., and of Catharine of Russia. Even the Pope Benedict XIV. accepted the dedication of _Mahomet_ (1745), and bestowed an apostolical benediction on "his dear son." On the other hand, his abhorrence of war, his protection of the oppressed, and, above all, the questioning spirit of his historical and philosophical writings (e.g. _Les Lettres sur les Anglais_, 1733; _Annales de l'Empire depuis Charlemagne_, 1753, etc.) were felt to be subversive of civil as well as ecclesiastical tyranny, and, no doubt, helped to precipitate the Revolution.

The first half of the line may be illustrated by his quarrel with Maupertuis, the President of the Berlin Academy, which resulted in the production of the famous _Diatribe of Doctor Akakia, Physician to the Pope_ (1752), by a malicious attack on Maupertuis's successor, Le Franc de Pompignan, and by his caricature of the critic Elie Catharine Fréron, as _Frélon_ ("Wasp"), in _L'Ecossaise_, which was played at Paris in 1760.--_Life of Voltaire_, by F. Espinasse, 1892, pp. 94, 114, 144.]

[kt] ----_concentering thought_ _And gathering wisdom_----.--[MS.]

[ku] {283} _Which stung his swarming foes with rage and fear_.--[MS.]

[345] [The first three volumes of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, contrary to the author's expectation, did not escape criticism and remonstrance. The Rev. David Chetsum (in 1772 and (enlarged) 1778) published _An Examination of, etc._, and Henry Edward Davis, in 1778, _Remarks on_ the memorable Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters. Gibbon replied by a _Vindication_, issued in 1779. Another adversary was Archdeacon George Travis, who, in his _Letter_, defended the authenticity of the text on "Three Heavenly Witnesses" (1 _John_ v. 7), which Gibbon was at pains to deny (ch. xxxvii. note 120). Among other critics and assailants were Joseph Milner, Joseph Priestley, and Richard Watson afterwards Bishop of Llandaff. (For Porson's estimate of Gibbon, see preface to _Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, etc._, 1790.)]

[kv] _In sleep upon one pillow_----.--[MS.]

[346] [There is no reason to suppose that this is to be taken ironically. He is not certain whether the "secrets of all hearts shall be revealed," or whether all secrets shall be kept in the silence of universal slumber; but he looks to the possibility of a judgment to come. He is speaking for mankind generally, and is not concerned with his own beliefs or disbeliefs.]

[347] {284} [The poet would follow in the wake of the clouds. He must pierce them, and bend his steps to the region of their growth, the mountain-top, where earth begets and air brings forth the vapours. Another interpretation is that the Alps must be pierced in order to attain the great and ever-ascending regions of the mountain-tops ("greater and greater as we proceed"). In the next stanza he pictures himself looking down from the summit of the Alps on Italy, the goal of his pilgrimage.]

[348] [The Roman Empire engulfed and comprehended the great empires of the past--the Persian, the Carthaginian, the Greek. It fell, and kingdoms such as the Gothic (A.D. 493-554), the Lombardic (A.D. 568-774) rose out of its ashes, and in their turn decayed and passed away.]

[349] {285} [The task imposed upon his soul, which dominates every other instinct, is the concealment of any and every emotion--"love, or hate, or aught," not the concealment of the particular emotion "love or hate," which may or may not be the "master-spirit" of his thought. He is anxious to conceal his feelings, not to keep the world in the dark as to the supreme feeling which holds the rest subject.]

[kw] _They are but as a self-deceiving wile_.-[MS. erased.]

[kx] _The shadows of the things that pass along_.--[MS.]

[ky] {286} _Fame is the dream of boyhood--I am not_ _So young as to regard the frown or smile_ _Of crowds as making an immortal lot_.--[MS. (lines 6, 7 erased).]

[350] [Compare Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 66, 67--

"For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them Regard me as I do not flatter."]

[351] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 54-57--

"My spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine."]

[kz] {287} _O'er misery unmixedly some grieve_.--[MS.]

[352] [Byron was at first in some doubt whether he should or should not publish the "concluding stanzas of _Childe Harold_ (those to my _daughter_);" but in a letter to Murray, October 9, 1816, he reminds him of his later determination to publish them with "the rest of the Canto."]

[353] {288} ["His allusions to me in _Childe Harold_ are cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to make _me_ appear so, and to attract sympathy to himself. It is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. I might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when I have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. It is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly unrequited affection, but so long as I live my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly."--(_Letter of Lady Byron to Lady Anne Lindsay_, extracted from Lord Lindsay's letter to the _Times_, September 7, 1869.)

According to Mrs. Leigh (see her letter to Hodgson, Nov., 1816, _Memoirs of Rev. F. Hodgson_, 1878, ii. 41), Murray paid Lady Byron "the compliment" of showing her the transcription of the Third Canto, a day or two after it came into his possession. Most probably she did not know or recognize Claire's handwriting, but she could not fail to remember that but one short year ago she had herself been engaged in transcribing _The Siege of Corinth_ and _Parisina_ for the press. Between the making of those two "fair copies," a tragedy had intervened.]

[354] {289} [The Countess Guiccioli is responsible for the statement that Byron looked forward to a time when his daughter "would know her father by his works." "Then," said he, "shall I triumph, and the tears which my daughter will then shed, together with the knowledge that she will have the feelings with which the various allusions to herself and me have been written, will console me in my darkest hours. Ada's mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her youth and childhood, but the tears of her maturer age will be for me."--_My Recollections of Lord Byron_, by the Countess Guiccioli, 1869, p. 172.]

[355] [For a biographical notice of Ada Lady Lovelace, including letters, elsewhere unpublished, to Andrew Crosse, see _Ada Byron_, von E. Kölbing, _Englische Studien_, 1894, xix. 154-163.]

[la]

_End of Canto Third_. _Byron. July 4, 1816, Diodati_.--[C.]

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

## CANTO III.

1.

In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew. Stanza xviii. line 5.

"Pride of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See _Macbeth_, etc.--

"An eagle towering in his pride of place Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed."

["A falcon towering in her pride of place," etc. _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 4, line 12.]

2.

Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant Lord. Stanza xx. line 9.

See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The best English translation is in Bland's _Anthology_, by Mr. Denman--

"With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," etc.

[_Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, etc._, 1806, pp. 24, 25. The _Scholium_, attributed to Callistratus (_Poetæ Lyrici Græci_, Bergk. Lipsiæ, 1866, p. 1290), begins thus--

E)n my/rtou kladi\ to\ xi/phos phorê/sô, Ô(\sper A(rmo/dios kai\ A)ristogei/tôn, O(/te to\n y/rannon ktanetên I)sono/mous t' A)thê/nas e)poiêsa/tên

"Hence," says Mr. Tozer, "'the sword in myrtles drest' (Keble's _Christian Year_, Third Sunday in Lent) became the emblem of assertors of liberty."--_Childe Harold_, 1885, p. 262.]

3.

And all went merry as a marriage bell. Stanza xxi. line 8.

On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. [See notes to the text.]

4.

And Evan's--Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears! Stanza xxvi. line 9.

Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant, Donald, the "gentle Lochiel" of the "forty-five."

[Sir Evan Cameron (1629-1719) fought against Cromwell, finally yielding on honourable terms to Monk, June 5, 1658, and for James II. at Killiecrankie, June 17, 1689. His grandson, Donald Cameron of Lochiel (1695-1748), celebrated by Campbell, in _Lochiel's Warning_, 1802, was wounded at Culloden, April 16, 1746. His great-great-grandson, John Cameron, of Fassieferne (b. 1771), in command of the 92nd Highlanders, was mortally wounded at Quatre-Bras, June 16, 1815. Compare Scott's stanzas, _The Dance of Death_, lines 33, _sq_.--

"Where through battle's rout and reel, Storm of shot and hedge of steel, Led the grandson of Lochiel, Valiant Fassiefern. * * * * * And Morven long shall tell, And proud Ben Nevis hear with awe, How, upon bloody Quatre-Bras, Brave Cameron heard the wild hurra Of conquest as he fell."

Compare, too, Scott's _Field of Waterloo_, stanza xxi. lines 14, 15--

"And Cameron, in the shock of steel. Die like the offspring of Lochiel."]

5.

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. Stanza xxvii. line 1.

The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the forest of Ardennes, famous in Bojardo's _Orlando_, and immortal in Shakspeare's _As You Like It_. It is also celebrated in Tacitus, as being the spot of successful defence by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. I have ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter.

[It is a far cry from Soignies in South Brabant to Ardennes in Luxembourg. Possibly Byron is confounding the "saltus quibus nomen Arduenna" (Tacitus, _Ann._, 3. 42), the scene of the revolt of the Treviri, with the "saltus Teutoburgiensis" (the Teutoburgen or Lippische Wald, which divides Lippe Detmold from Westphalia), where Arminius defeated the Romans (Tacitus, _Ann_., 1. 60). (For Boiardo's "Ardenna," see _Orlando Innamorato_, lib. i. canto 2, st. 30.) Shakespeare's Arden, the "immortal" forest, in _As You Like It_, "favours" his own Arden in Warwickshire, but derived its name from the "forest of Arden" in Lodge's _Rosalynd_.]

6.

I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. Stanza xxx. line 9.

My guide from Mount St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, "Here Major Howard lay: I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination: I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chæronea, and Marathon; and the field around Mount St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned.

[For particulars of the death of Major Howard, see _Personal Memoirs, etc._, by Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 323.]

7.

Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. Stanza xxxiv. line 6.

The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltites were said to be fair without, and, within, ashes.

[Compare Tacitus, _Histor._, lib. v. 7, "Cuncta sponte edita, aut manu sata, sive herbæ tenues, aut flores, ut solitam in speciem adolevere, atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt." See, too, _Deut._ xxxii. 32, "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter."

They are a species of gall-nut, and are described by Curzon (_Visits to Monasteries of the Levant_, 1897, p. 141), who met with the tree that bears them, near the Dead Sea, and, mistaking the fruit for a ripe plum, proceeded to eat one, whereupon his mouth was filled "with a dry bitter dust."

"The apple of Sodom ... is supposed by some to refer to the fruit of _Solanum Sodomeum_ (allied to the tomato), by others to the _Calotropis procera_" (_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Apple").]

8.

For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a den. Stanza xli. line 9.

The great error of Napoleon, "if we have writ our annals true," was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is pleasanter than Moscow," would probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark.

9.

What want these outlaws conquerors should have? Stanza xlviii. line 6.

"What wants that knave that a king should have?" was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements. See the Ballad.

[Johnie Armstrong, the laird of Gilnockie, on the occasion of an enforced surrender to James V. (1532), came before the king somewhat too richly accoutred, and was hanged for his effrontery--

"There hang nine targats at Johnie's hat, And ilk ane worth three hundred pound-- 'What wants that knave a king suld have But the sword of honour and the crown'?" _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 1821, i. 127.]

10.

The castled Crag of Drachenfels. Song, stanza 1, line 1.

The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of "the Seven Mountains," over the Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions. It is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river: on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross, commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful.

[The castle of Drachenfels (Dragon's Rock) stands on the summit of one, but not the highest, of the Siebengebirge, an isolated group of volcanic hills on the right bank of the Rhine between Remagen and Bonn. The legend runs that in one of the caverns of the rock dwelt the dragon which was slain by Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied. Hence the _vin du pays_ is called _Drachenblut_.]

11.

The whiteness of his soul--and thus men o'er him wept. Stanza lvii. line 9.

The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day of the fourth year of the French Republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough; France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there: his death was attended by suspicions of poison.

A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine [April 18, 1797]. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing.

"The Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander-in-Chief Hoche."

This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier generals, before Buonaparte monopolised her triumphs. He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland.

[The tomb of François Sévérin Desgravins Marceau (1769-1796, general of the French Republic) bears the following epitaph and inscription:--

"'Hic cineres, ubique nomen.'

"Ici repose Marceau, né à Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, soldat à seize ans, général à vingtdeux ans. Il mourut en combattant pour sa patrie, le dernier jour de l'an iv. de la République française. Qui que tu sois, ami ou ennemi de ce jeune héros, respecte ces cendres."

A bronze statue at Versailles, raised to the memory of General Hoche (1768-1797) bears a very similar record--

"A Lazare Hoche, né à Versailles le 24 juin, 1768, sergent à seize ans, général en chef à vingt-cinq, mort à vingt-neuf, pacificateur de la Vendée."]

12.

Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall. Stanza lviii. line 1.

Ehrenbreitstein, i.e. "the broad stone of honour," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison; but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it.

[Ehrenbreitstein, which had resisted the French under Marshal Boufflers in 1680, and held out against Marceau (1795-96), finally capitulated to the French after a prolonged siege in 1799. The fortifications were dismantled when the French evacuated the fortress after the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. The Treaty of Leoben was signed April 18, 1797.]

13.

Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. Stanza lxiii. line 9.

The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian Legion in the service of France; who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country), and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, who carried them off to sell for knife-handles; a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preservation which I intend for them.

[Charles the Bold was defeated by the Swiss at the Battle of Morat, June 22, 1476. It has been computed that more than twenty thousand Burgundians fell in the battle. At first, to avoid the outbreak of a pestilence, the bodies were thrown into pits. "Nine years later ... the mouldering remains were unearthed, and deposited in a building ... on the shore of the lake, near the village of Meyriez.... During three succeeding centuries this depository was several times rebuilt.... But the ill-starred relics were not destined even yet to remain undisturbed. At the close of the last century, when the armies of the French Republic were occupying Switzerland, a regiment consisting mainly of Burgundians, under the notion of effacing an insult to their ancestors, tore down the 'bone-house' at Morat, covered the contents with earth, and planted on the mound 'a tree of liberty.' But the tree had no roots; the rains washed away the earth; again the remains were exposed to view, and lay bleaching in the sun for a quarter of a century. Travellers stopped to gaze, to moralize, and to pilfer; postilions and poets scraped off skulls and thigh-bones.... At last, in 1822, the vestiges were swept together and resepulchred, and a simple obelisk of marble was erected, to commemorate a victory well deserving of its fame as a military exploit, but all unworthy to be ranked with earlier triumphs, won by hands pure as well as strong, defending freedom and the right."--_History of Charles the Bold_, by J. F. Kirk, 1868, iii. 404, 405.

Mr. Murray still has in his possession the parcel of bones--the "quarter of a hero"--which Byron sent home from the field of Morat.]

14.

Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands. Stanza lxv. line 9.

Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Helvetia, where Avenches now stands.

[Avenches (Wiflisburg) lies due south of the Lake of Morat, and about five miles east of the Lake of Neuchâtel. As a Roman colony it bore the name of _Pia Flavia Constans Emerita_, and circ. 70 A.D. contained a population of sixty thousand inhabitants. It was destroyed first by the Alemanni and, afterwards, by Attila. "The Emperor Vespasian--son of the banker of the town," says Suetonius (lib. viii. i)--"surrounded the city by massive walls, defended it by semicircular towers, adorned it with a capitol, a theatre, a forum, and granted it jurisdiction over the outlying dependencies....

"To-day plantations of tobacco cover the forgotten streets of Avenches, and a single Corinthian column ['the lonelier column,' the so-called _Cicognier_], with its crumbling arcade, remains to tell of former grandeur."--_Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy_, by General Meredith Read, 1897, i. 16.]

15.

And held within their urn one mind--one heart--one dust. Stanza lxvi. line 9.

Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago;--it is thus:--"Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris, infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos XXIII."--I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication.

[A mutinous outbreak among the Helvetii, which had been provoked by the dishonest rapacity of the twenty-first legion, was speedily quelled by the Roman general Aulus Cæcina. Aventicum surrendered (A.D. 69), but Julius Alpinus, a chieftain and supposed ring-leader, was singled out for punishment and put to death. "The rest," says Tacitus, "were left to the ruth or ruthlessness of Vitellius" (_Histor_., i. 67, 68). Julia Alpinula and her epitaph were the happy inventions of a sixteenth-century scholar. "It appears," writes Lord Stanhope, "that this inscription was given by one Paul Wilhelm, a noted forger (_falsarius_), to Lipsius, and by Lipsius handed over to Gruterus. Nobody, either before or since Wilhelm, has even pretended to have seen the stone ... as to any son or daughter of Julius Alpinus, history is wholly silent" (_Quarterly Review_, June, 1846, vol. lviii. p. 61; _Historical Essays_, by Lord Mahon, 1849, pp. 297, 298).]

16.

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow. Stanza lxvii. line 8.

This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3rd, 1816), which even at this distance dazzles mine.--(July 20th.) I this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles.

[The first lines of the note dated June 3, 1816, were written at "Dejean's Hôtel de l'Angleterre, at Sécheron, a small suburb of Geneva, on the northern side of the lake." On the 10th of June Byron removed to the Campagne Diodati, about two miles from Geneva, on the south shore of the lake (_Life of Shelley_, by Edward Dowden, 1896, pp. 307-309).]

17.

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone. Stanza lxxi. line 3.

The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago.

[The blueness of the Rhone, which has been attributed to various causes, is due to the comparative purity of the water. The yellow and muddy stream, during its passage through the lake, is enabled to purge itself to a very great extent of the solid matter held in suspension--the glacial and other detritus---and so, on leaving its vast natural filtering-bed, it flows out clear and blue: it has regained the proper colour of pure water.]

18.

This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss. Stanza lxxix. line 3.

This refers to the account, in his _Confessions_, of his passion for the Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lambert), and his long walk every morning, for the sake of the single kiss which was the common salutation of French acquaintance. Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure, description and expression of love that ever kindled into words; which, after all, must be felt, from their very force, to be inadequate to the delineation; a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean.

[Here is Rousseau's "passionate, yet not impure," description of his sensations: "J'ai dit qu'il y avoit loin de l'Hermitage à Eaubonne; je passois par les coteaux d'Andilly qui sont charmans. Je rêvois en marchant à celle que j'allois voir, à l'accueil caressant qu'elle me feroit, au baiser qui m'attendoit a mon arrivée. Ce seul baiser, ce baiser funeste avant même de le recevoir, m'embrasoit le sang à tel point, que ma tête se troubloit, un éblouissement m'aveugloit, mes genoux tremblants ne pouroient me soutenir; j'étois forcé de m'arréter, de m'asseoir; toute ma machine étoit dans un désordre inconcevable; j'étois prêt à m'évanouir.... A l'instant que je la voyois, tout étoit réparé; je ne sentois plus auprès d'elle que l'importunité d'une vigueur inépuisable et toujours inutile."--_Les Confessions_, Partie II. livre ix.; _Oeuvres Complètes de J.J. Rousseau_, 1837, i. 233.

Byron's mother "would have it" that her son was like Rousseau, but he disclaimed the honour antithetically and with needless particularity (see his letter to Mrs. Byron, and a quotation from his _Detached Thoughts, Letters_, 1898, i. 192, note). There was another point of unlikeness, which he does not mention. Byron, on the passion of love, does not "make for morality," but he eschews nastiness. The loves of Don Juan and Haidée are chaste as snow compared with the unspeakable philanderings of the elderly Jean Jacques and the "mistress of St. Lambert."

Nevertheless, his mother was right. There was a resemblance, and consequently an affinity, between Childe Burun and the "visionary of Geneva"--delineated by another seer or visionary as "the dreamer of love-sick tales, and the spinner of speculative cobwebs; shy of light as the mole, but as quick-eared too for every whisper of the public opinion; the teacher of Stoic pride in his principles, yet the victim of morbid vanity in his feelings and conduct."--_The Friend_; _Works_ of S. T. Coleridge, 1853, ii. 124.]

19.

Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take. Stanza xci. line 3.

It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impressive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not in the _Temple_, but on the _Mount_. To waive the question of devotion, and turn to human eloquence,--the most effectual and splendid specimens were not pronounced within walls. Demosthenes addressed the public and popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to their effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be conceived from the difference between what we read of the emotions then and there produced, and those we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is one thing to read the _Iliad_ at Sigæum and on the tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library--_this_ I know. Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvass nor to question), I should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the _fields_, and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers, wherever they may be, at the stated hours--of course, frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required); the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication: nothing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within and upon them, made a far greater impression than any general rite which was ever performed in places of worship, of which I have seen those of almost every persuasion under the sun; including most of our own sectaries, and the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free exercise of their belief and its rites; some of these I had a distant view of at Patras; and, from what I could make out of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a spectator.

[For this profession of "natural piety," compare Rousseau's _Confessions_, Partie II. livre xii. (_Oeuvres Complètes_, 1837, i. 341)--

"Je ne trouve pas de plus digne hommage à la Divinité que cette admiration muette qu'excite la contemplation de ses oeuvres, et qui ne s'exprime point par des actes développés. Je comprends comment les habitants des villes, qui ne voient que des murs, des rues et des crimes, ont peu de foi; mais je ne puis comprendre comment des campagnards, et surtout des solitaires, peuvent n'en point avoir. Comment leur âme ne s'élève-t-elle pas cent fois le jour avec extase à l'Auteur des merveilles qui les frappent? ... Dans ma chambre je prie plus rarement et plus sèchement; mais à l'aspect d'un beau paysage je me sens ému sans pourvoir dire de quoi."

Compare, too, Coleridge's lines "To Nature"--

"So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields, Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only, God! and Thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice." _Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 190.]

20.

The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh Night! Stanza xcii. line 1.

The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.

21.

And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought. Stanza xcix. line 5.

Rousseau's _Héloïse_, Lettre 17, Part IV., note. "Ces montagnes sont si hautes, qu'une demi-heure après le soleil couché, leurs sommets sont éclairés de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches _une belle couleur de rose_, qu'on aperçoit de fort loin."[356] This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie.--"J'allai à Vévay loger à la Clef;[357] et pendant deux jours que j'y restai sans voir personne, je pris pour cette ville un amour qui m'a suivi dans tous mes voyages, et qui m'y a fait établir enfin les héros de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers à ceux qui ont du goût et qui sont sensibles: Allez à Vévay--visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire,[358] et pour un St. Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas."--_Les Confessions_, [P. I. liv. 4, _Oeuvres, etc._, 1837, i. 78].--In July [June 23-27], 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva;[359] and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his _Héloïse_, I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Bôveret, St. Gingo, Meillerie, Evian,[360] and the entrances of the Rhone) without being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not all; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory: it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole.--If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same associations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by their adoption; he has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection; but they have done that for him which no human being could do for them.--I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from Meillerie[361] (where we landed for some time) to St. Gingo during a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around, although occasionally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. It was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. On gaining the shore at St. Gingo, I found that the wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old chestnut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the opposite height of Clarens is a château[362] [Château des Crêtes]. The hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods; one of these was named the "Bosquet de Julie;" and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St. Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the "local habitations" he has given to "airy nothings." The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent one; but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that "La route vaut mieux que les souvenirs."

22.

Of Names which unto you bequeathed a name. Stanza cv. line 2.

Voltaire and Gibbon.

[François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) lived on his estate at Fernex, five miles north of Geneva, from 1759 to 1777. "In the garden at Fernex is a long _berceau_ walk, closely arched over with clipped horn-beam--a verdant cloister, with gaps cut here and there, admitting a glimpse of the prospect. Here Voltaire used to walk up and down, and dictate to his secretary."--_Handbook for Switzerland_, p. 174.

Previous to this he had lived for some time at Lausanne, at "Monrepos, a country house at the end of a suburb," at Monrion, "a square building of two storeys, and a high garret, with wings, each fashioned like the letter L," and afterwards, in the spring of 1757, at No. 6, Rue du Grand Chêne.--_Historic Studies_, ii. 210, 218, 219.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) finished (1788) _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ at "La Grotte, an ancient and spacious mansion behind the church of St. Francis, at Lausanne," which was demolished by the Swiss authorities in 1879. Not only has the mansion ceased to exist, but the garden has been almost entirely changed. The wall of the Hôtel Gibbon occupies the site of the famous wooden pavilion, or summer-house, and of the "berceau of plum trees, which formed a verdant gallery completely arched overhead," and which "were called after Gibbon, La Gibbonière."--_Historic Studies_, i. I; ii. 493.

In 1816 the pavilion was "utterly decayed," and the garden neglected, but Byron gathered "a sprig of _Gibbon's acacia_," and some rose leaves from his garden and enclosed them in a letter to Murray (June 27, 1816). Shelley, on the contrary, "refrained from doing so, fearing to outrage the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau; the contemplation of whose imperishable creations had left no vacancy in my heart for mortal things. Gibbon had a cold and unimpassioned spirit."--_Essays, etc._, 1840, ii. 76.]

23.

Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. Stanza cxiii. line 9.

"----If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I _filed_ my mind." _Macbeth_, [act iii. sc. 1, line 64].

24.

O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve. Stanza cxiv. line 7.

It is said by Rochefoucault, that "there is _always_ something in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them."

["Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplaît pas."--_Appendice aux Maximes de La Rochefoucauld, Panthéon Littéraire_, Paris, 1836, p. 460.]

FOOTNOTES:

[356] {303} [_Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse_: _Oeuvres Complètes de J. J. Rousseau_, Paris, 1837, ii. 262.]

[357] [The Clef, is now a café on the Grande Place, and still distinguished by the sign of the Key. But Vevey had other associations for Rousseau, more powerful and more persuasive than a solitary visit to an inn. "Madame Warens," says General Read, "possessed a charming country resort midway between Vevey and Chillon, just above the beautiful village of Clarens. It was situated at the Bassets, amid scenery whose exquisite features inspired some of the fine imagery of Rousseau. It is now called the Bassets de Pury. ... The exterior of the older parts has not been changed. ... The stairway leads to a large _salon_, whose windows command a view of Meillerie, St. Gingolph, and Bouveret, beyond the lake. Communicating with this _salon_ is a large dining-room.

"These two rooms open to the east, upon a broad terrace. At a corner of the terrace is a large summer-house, and through the chestnut trees one sees as far as Les Crêtes, the hillocks and bosquets described by Rousseau. Near by is a dove-cote filled with cooing doves.... In the last century this site (Les Crêtes) was covered with pleasure-gardens, and some parts are even pointed out as associated with Rousseau and Madame de Warens."--_Historic Sketches of Vaud, etc._, by General Meredith Read, 1897, i. 433-437. There was, therefore, some excuse for the guide (see Byron's _Diary_, September 18, 1816) "confounding Rousseau with St. Preux, and mixing the man with the book."]

[358] {304} [Claire, afterwards Madame Orbe, is Julie's cousin and confidante. She is represented as whimsical and humorous. It is not impossible that "Claire," in _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, "bequeathed her name" to Claire, otherwise Jane Clairmont.]

[359] [Byron and Shelley sailed round the Lake of Geneva towards the end of June, 1816. Writing to Murray, June 27, he says, "I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the _Héloïse_ before me;" and in the same letter announces the completion of a third canto of _Childe Harold_. He revisited Clarens and Chillon in company with Hobhouse in the following September (see extracts from a Journal, September 18, 1816, _Life_, pp. 311, 312).]

[360] [Bouveret, St. Gingolph, Evian.]

[361] {305} [Byron mentions the "squall off Meillerie" in a letter to Murray, dated Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27, 1816. Compare, too, Shelley's version of the incident: "The wind gradually increased in violence until it blew tremendously; and as it came from the remotest extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam.... I felt in this near prospect of death a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though but subordinately. My feelings would have been less painful had I been alone; but I know that my companion would have attempted to save me, and I was overcome with humiliation, when I thought that his life might have been risked to preserve mine."--_Letters from Abroad_, etc.; _Essays_, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley, 1840, ii. 68, 69.]

[362] [Byron and Shelley slept at Clarens, June 26, 1816. The windows of their inn commanded a view of the _Bosquet de Julie_. "In the evening we walked thither. It is, indeed, Julia's wood ... the trees themselves were aged but vigorous.... We went again (June 27) to the _Bosquet de Julie_, and found that the precise spot was now utterly obliterated, and a heap of stones marked the place where the little chapel had once stood. Whilst we were execrating the author of this brutal folly, our guide informed us that the land belonged to the Convent of St. Bernard, and that this outrage had been committed by their orders. I knew before that if avarice could harden the hearts of men, a system of prescriptive religion has an influence far more inimical to natural sensibility. I know that an isolated man is sometimes restrained by shame from outraging the venerable feelings arising out of the memory of genius, which once made nature even lovelier than itself; but associated man holds it as the very sacrament of this union to forswear all delicacy, all benevolence, all remorse; all that is true, or tender, or sublime."--_Essays, etc._, 1840, ii. 75.]

* * * * *

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

"Visto ho Toscana Lombardia Romagna, Quel monte che divide, e quel che serra Italia, e un mare e l'altro che la bagna."

_Ariosto_, Satira iv. lines 58-60.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH CANTO.

The first draft of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, which embodies the original and normal conception of the poem, was the work of twenty-six days. On the 17th of June, 1817, Byron wrote to Murray: "You are out about the Third Canto: I have not done, nor designed, a line of continuation to that poem. I was too short a time at Rome for it, and have no thought of recommencing." But in spite of this assertion, "the numbers came," and on June 26 he made a beginning. Thirty stanzas "were roughened off" on the 1st of July, fifty-six were accomplished by the 9th, "ninety and eight" by the 13th, and on July 20 he announces "the completion of the fourth and ultimate canto of _Childe Harold_. It consists of 126 stanzas." One stanza (xl.) was appended to the fair copy. It suggested a parallel between Ariosto "the Southern Scott," and Scott "the Northern Ariosto," and excited some misgiving.

In commending his new poem to Murray (July 20, August 7), Byron notes three points in which it differed from its predecessors: it is "the longest of the four;" "it treats more of works of art than of nature;" "there are no metaphysics in it--at least, I think not." In other words, "The Fourth Canto is not a continuation of the Third. I have parted company with Shelley and Wordsworth. Subject-matter and treatment are alike new."

The poem as it stood was complete, and, as a poem, it lost as well as gained by the insertion of additional stanzas and groups of stanzas, "purple patch" on "purple patch," each by itself so attractive and so splendid. The pilgrim finds himself at Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs." He beholds in a vision the departed glories of "a thousand years." The "long array of shadows," the "beings of the mind," come to him "like truth," and repeople the vacancy. But he is an exile, and turns homeward in thought to "the inviolate island of the sage and free." He is an exile and a sufferer. He can and will endure his fate, but "ever and anon" he feels the prick of woe, and with the sympathy of despair would stand "a ruin amidst ruins," a desolate soul in a land of desolation and decay. He renews his pilgrimage. He passes Arquà, where "they keep the dust of Laura's lover," lingers for a day at Ferrara, haunted by memories of "Torquato's injured shade," and, as he approaches "the fair white walls" of Florence, he re-echoes the "Italia! oh, Italia!" of Filicaja's impassioned strains. At Florence he gazes, "dazzled and drunk with beauty," at the "goddess in stone," the Medicean Venus, but forbears to "describe the indescribable," to break the silence of Art by naming its mysteries. Santa Croce and the other glories "in Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine," he passes by unsung, if not unseen; but Thrasymene's "sheet of silver," the "living crystal" of Clitumnus' "gentlest waters," and Terni's "matchless cataract," on whose verge "an Iris sits," and "lone Soracte's ridge," not only call forth his spirit's homage, but receive the homage of his Muse.

And now the Pilgrim has reached his goal, "Rome the wonderful," the sepulchre of empire, the shrine of art.

Henceforth the works of man absorb his attention. Pompey's "dread statue;" the Wolf of the Capitol; the Tomb of Cecilia Metella; the Palatine; the "nameless column" of the Forum; Trajan's pillar; Egeria's Grotto; the ruined Colosseum, "arches on arches," an "enormous skeleton," the Colosseum of the poet's vision, a multitudinous ring of spectators, a bloody Circus, and a dying Gladiator; the Pantheon; S. Nicola in Carcere, the scene of the Romana Caritas; St. Peter's "vast and wondrous dome,"--are all celebrated in due succession. Last of all, he "turns to the Vatican," to view the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere, the counterfeit presentments of ideal suffering and ideal beauty. His "shrine is won;" but ere he bids us farewell he climbs the Alban Mount, and as the Mediterranean once more bursts upon his sight, he sums the moral of his argument. Man and all his works are as a drop of rain in the Ocean, "the image of eternity, the throne of the Invisible"!

Byron had no sooner completed "this fourth and ultimate canto," than he began to throw off additional stanzas. His letters to Murray during the autumn of 1817 announce these successive lengthenings; but it is impossible to trace the exact order of their composition. On the 7th of August the canto stood at 130 stanzas, on the 21st at 133; on the 4th of September at 144, on the 17th at 150; and by November 15 it had reached 167 stanzas. Of nineteen stanzas which were still to be added, six--on the death of the Princess Charlotte (died November 6, 1817)--were written at the beginning of December, and two stanzas (clxxvii., clxxviii.) were forwarded to Murray in the early spring of 1818.

Of these additions the most notable are four stanzas on Venice (including stanza xiii. on "The Horses of St. Mark"); "The sunset on the Brenta" (stanzas xxvii.-xxix.); The tombs in Santa Croce,--the apostrophe to "the all Etruscan three," Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio (stanzas liv.-lx.); "Rome a chaos of ruins--antiquarian ignorance" (stanzas lxxx.-lxxxii.); "The nothingness of Man--the hope of the future--Freedom" (stanzas xciii.-xcviii.); "The Tarpeian Rock--the Forum--Rienzi" (stanzas cxii.-cxiv.); "Love, Life, and Reason" (stanzas cxx.-cxxvii.); "The Curse of Forgiveness" (stanzas cxxxv.-cxxxvii.); "The Mole of Hadrian" (stanza clii.); "The death of the Princess Charlotte" (stanzas clxvii.-clxxii.); "Nemi" (stanzas clxxiii., clxxiv.); "The Desert and one fair Spirit" (stanzas clxxvii., clxxviii.).

Some time during the month of December, 1817, Byron wrote out a fair copy of the entire canto, numbering 184 stanzas _(MS. D.)_; and on January 7, 1818, Hobhouse left Venice for England, with the "whole of the MSS.," viz. _Beppo_ (begun October, 1817), and the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, together with a work of his own, a volume of essays on Italian literature, the antiquities of Rome, etc., which he had put together during his residence in Venice (July--December, 1817), and proposed to publish as an appendix to _Childe Harold_. In his preface to _Historical Illustrations_, etc., 1818, Hobhouse explains that on his return to England he considered that this "appendix to the Canto would be swelled to a disproportioned bulk," and that, under this impression, he determined to divide his material into two parts. The result was that "such only of the notes as were more immediately connected with the text" were printed as "Historical Notes to Canto the Fourth," and that his longer dissertations were published in a separate volume, under his own name, as _Historical Illustrations to the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold_. To these "Historical Notes" an interest attaches apart from any consideration of their own worth and importance; but to understand the relation between the poem and the notes, it is necessary to retrace the movements of the poet and his annotator.

Byron and Hobhouse left the Villa Diodati, October 5, 1816, crossed the Simplon, and made their way together, via Milan and Verona, to Venice. Early in December the friends parted company. Byron remained at Venice, and Hobhouse proceeded to Rome, and for the next four months devoted himself to the study of Italian literature, in connection with archæology and art. Byron testifies (September 14, 1817) that his researches were "indefatigable," that he had "more real knowledge of Rome and its environs than any Englishman who has been there since Gibbon." Hobhouse left Rome for Naples, May 21; returned to Rome, June 9; arrived at Terni, July 2; and early in July joined Byron on the Brenta, at La Mira. The latter half of the year (July--December, 1817) was occupied in consulting "the best authorities" in the Ducal Library at Venice, with a view to perfecting his researches, and giving them to the world as an illustrative appendix to _Childe Harold_. It is certain that Byron had begun the fourth canto, and written some thirty or more stanzas, before Hobhouse rejoined him at his villa of La Mira on the banks of the Brenta, in July, 1817; and it would seem that, although he had begun by saying "that he was too short a time in Rome for it," he speedily overcame his misgivings, and accomplished, as he believed, the last "fytte" of his pilgrimage. The first draft was Byron's unaided composition, but the "additional stanzas" were largely due to Hobhouse's suggestions in the course of conversation, if not to his written "researches." Hobhouse himself made no secret of it. In his preface (p. 5) to _Historical Illustrations_ he affirms that both "illustrations" and notes were "for the most part written while the noble author was yet employed in the composition of the poem. They were put into the hands of Lord Byron much in the state in which they now appear;" and, writing to Murray, December 7, 1817, he says, "I must confess I feel an affection for it [Canto IV.] more than ordinary, as part of it was begot as it were under my own eyes; for although your poets are as shy as elephants and camels ... yet I have, not unfrequently, witnessed his lordship's coupleting, and some of the stanzas owe their birth to our morning walk or evening ride at La Mira." Forty years later, in his revised and enlarged "Illustrations" (_Italy: Remarks made in Several Visits from the year 1816 to 1854_, by the Right Hon. Lord Broughton, G.C.B., 1859, i. p. iv.), he reverts to this collaboration: "When I rejoined Lord Byron at La Mira ... I found him employed upon the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, and, later in the autumn, he showed me the first sketch of the poem. It was much shorter than it afterwards became, and it did not remark on several objects which appeared to me peculiarly worthy of notice. I made a list of these objects, and in conversation with him gave him reasons for the selection. The result was the poem as it now appears, and he then engaged me to write the notes."

As the "delicate spirit" of Shelley suffused the third canto of _Childe Harold_, so the fourth reveals the presence and co-operation of Hobhouse. To his brother-poet he owed a fresh conception, perhaps a fresh appreciation of nature; to his lifelong friend, a fresh enthusiasm for art, and a host of details, "dry bones ... which he awakened into the fulness of life."

The Fourth Canto was published on Tuesday, April 28, 1818. It was reviewed by [Sir] Walter Scott in the _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxvii., April, 1818, and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. 59, June, 1818. Both numbers were published on the same day, September 26, 1818.

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV. ORIGINAL DRAFT. [MS. M.]

[June 26--July 19. 1817.]

Stanza i. "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,"--

Stanza iii.-xi. "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,"--"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,"--

Stanza xv. "Statues of glass--all shivered--the long file,"--

Stanza xviii.-xxvi. "I loved her from my boyhood--she to me,"--"The Commonwealth of Kings--the Men of Rome!"--

Stanza xxx.-xxxix. "There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,"--"Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his,"--

Stanza xlii.-xlvi. "Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast,"--"That page is now before me, and on mine,"--

Stanza xlviii.-l. "But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,"--"We gaze and turn away, and know not where,"--

Stanza liii. "I leave to learnéd fingers, and wise hands,"--

Stanza lxi.-lxxix. "There be more things to greet the heart and eyes,"--"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,"--

Stanza lxxxiii. "Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,"--

Stanza lxxxiv. "The dictatorial wreath--couldst thou divine,"--

Stanza lxxxvii.-xcii. "And thou, dread Statue! yet existent in,"--"And would be all or nothing--nor could wait,"--

Stanza xcix.-cviii. "There is a stern round tower of other days,"--"There is the moral of all human tales,"--

Stanza cx. "Tully was not so eloquent as thou,"--

Stanza cxi. "Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,"--

Stanza cxv.-cxix. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,"--"And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,"--

Stanza cxxviii.-cxxxiv. "Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,"--"And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now,"--

Stanza cxxxviii.-cli. "The seal is set.--Now welcome, thou dread Power!"--"The starry fable of the Milky Way,"--

Stanza cliii.-clxvi. "But lo! the Dome--the vast and wondrous Dome,"--"And send us prying into the abyss,"--

Stanza clxxv. "But I forget.--My Pilgrim's shrine is won,"--

Stanza clxxvi. "Upon the blue Symplegades: long years,"--

Stanza clxxix. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!"--

Stanza clxxx. "His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields,"--

Stanza clxxxiii.-clxxxvi. "Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form,"--"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,"--

ADDITIONAL STANZA.

Stanza xl. "Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,"--

(127 stanzas.)

ADDITIONS BOUND UP WITH MS. M.

Stanza ii. "She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from Ocean,"--

Stanza xii.-xiv. "The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns," --(November 10, 1817.)--"In youth She was all glory,--a new Tyre,"--

Stanza xvi. "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,"--

Stanza xvii. "Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,"--

Stanza xxvii.-xxix. "The Moon is up, and yet it is not night,"--"Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,"--

Stanza xlvii. "Yet, Italy! through every other land,"--

Stanza li. "Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?"--

Stanza lii. "Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,"--

Stanza liv.-lx. "In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie,"--"What is her Pyramid of precious stones?"--

Stanza lxxx.-lxxxii. "The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire,"--"Alas! the lofty city! and alas!"--

Stanza lxxxv. "Sylla was first of victors; but our own,"--

Stanza lxxxvi. "The third of the same Moon whose former course,"--

Stanza xciii.-xcvi. "What from this barren being do we reap?"--"Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,"--

Stanza cix. "Admire--exult--despise--laugh--weep,--for here,"--

Stanza cxii.-cxiv. "Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place,"--"Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,"--

Stanza cxxiii. "Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure,"--

Stanza cxxv.-cxxvii. "Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,"--"Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a base,"--

Stanza cxxxv.-cxxxvii. "That curse shall be Forgiveness,--Have I not,"--"But I have lived, and have not lived in vain,"--

Stanza clii. "Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high,"--

Stanza clxvii.-clxxii. "Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,"--(On the death of the Princess Charlotte, November 6, 1817.)--"These might have been her destiny--but no,"--

Stanza clxxiii. "Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills,"--

Stanza clxxiv. "And near, Albano's scarce divided waves,"--

Stanza clxxvii. "Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,"--(1818.)

Stanza clxxviii. "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,"--(1818.)

Stanza clxxxi. "The armaments which thunderstrike the walls,"--

Stanza clxxxii. "Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee,"--

(52 stanzas.)

ADDITIONS INCLUDED IN MS. D.,[363] BUT NOT AMONG MSS. M.

Stanza xli. "The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust,"--

Stanza xcvii. "But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,"--

Stanza xcviii. "Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,"--

Stanza cxx. "Alas! our young affections run to waste,"--

Stanza cxxi. "Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art,"--

Stanza cxxii. "Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,"--

Stanza cxxiv. "We wither from our youth, we gasp away,"--

(Seven stanzas.)

* * * * *

TO

JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S.,

&c., &c., &c. Venice, _January_ 2, 1818.

* * * * *

My dear Hobhouse,

After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of _Childe Harold_, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend,[364] it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better,--to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than--though not ungrateful--I can, or could be, to _Childe Harold_, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the poet,--to one, whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril,--to a friend often tried and never found wanting;--to yourself.

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence,[365] but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable--Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_,[366] whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether--and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are _now_ a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors.

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent reflections: and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself,[367] and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text.

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us,--though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode--to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to _have_ run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language--"Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l'antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima." Italy has great names still--Canova,[368] Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzofanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very highest--Europe--the World--has but one Canova.

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that "La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra--e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their _capabilities_,[369] the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched "longing after immortality,"[370]--the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, "Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non è più come era prima!"[371] it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean,[372] and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history.[373] For me,--

"Non movero mai corda Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda."

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus;[374] it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, "Verily they _will have_ their reward," and at no very distant period.

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever

Your obliged And affectionate friend, BYRON.

CANTO THE FOURTH[375]