CLIX.

Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, Though not for want of matter; but 't is time, According to the ancient epic laws, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.[ga]

End of Canto 5^th^ Finished Ravenna, Nov. 27^th^ 1820. Begun Oct. 16, 1820. and finished copying out, Dec. 26. with some intermediate additions, 1820. B.

FOOTNOTES:

{218}[270] [Canto V. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, and finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published August 8, 1821, together with Cantos III. and IV.]

[271] This expression of Homer has been much criticized. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Aegean intersected with islands.

[_Vide_ _Iliad_, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean-stream" was not the Hellespont, but the rim of waters which encircled the disk of the world.]

{219}[272] ["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison: but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."--See letter to Mr. Pope, No. xl. June 17, 1717, and letter to the Countess of Bristol, No. xlvi. n.d., _Letters of the Lady Mary Worthy Montagu,_ 1816, pp. 183-219. See, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, June 28, 1810, _Letters,_ 1890, i. 280, note 1.]

[273] [For Byron's "Marys," see _Poetical Works,_ 1898, i. 192, note 2.]

[274] The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate.

["The Giant's Mountain, 650 feet high, is almost exactly opposite Buyukdereh ... It is called by the Turks Yoshadagh, _Mountain of Joshua,_ because the _Giant's Grave_ on the top is, according to the Moslem legend, the grave of Joshua. The grave was formerly called the _Couch of Hercules;_ but the classical story is that it was the tomb of Amycus, king of the Bebryces [on his grave grew the _laurus insana_, a branch of which caused strife (Plin., _Hist. Nat.,_ lib. xvi. cap. xliv. ed. 1593, ii. 198)]. The grave is 20 feet long, and 5 feet broad; it is within a stone enclosure, and is planted with flowers and bushes."--_Handbook for Constantinople,_ p. 103.]

{220}[et] _For then the Parca are most busy spinning_ _The fates of seamen, and the loud winds raise_.--[MS.]

{221}[eu] _That he a man of rank and birth had been_, _And then they calculated on his ransom_, _And last not least--he was so very handsome_.--[MS.]

[ev] _It chanced that near him, separately lotted_, _From out the group of slaves put up for sale_, _A man of middle age, and_----.--[MS.]

{222}[275] [The object of Suwarof's campaign of 1789 was the conquest of Belgrade and Servia, that of Wallachia by the Austrians, etc. Neither of these plans succeeded."--_The Life of Field-Marshal Suwarof,_ by L.M.P. Tranchant de Laverne, 1814, pp. 105, 106.]

{226}[276] [The Turkish zecchino is a gold coin, worth about seven shillings and sixpence. The para is not quite equal to an English halfpenny.]

[277] [Candide's increased satisfaction with life is implied in the narrative. For example, in chap, xviii., where Candide visits Eldorado:--"Never was there a better entertainment, and never was more wit shown at table than that which fell from His Majesty. Cacambo explained the king's _bons mots_ to Candide, and notwithstanding they were translated, they still appeared _bons mots._" This was after supper. See, too, Part II. chap, ii.]

[278] See Plutarch in _Alex._, Q. Curt. _Hist. Alexand._, and Sir Richard Clayton's "Critical Inquiry into the Life of Alexander the Great," 1763 [from the _Examen Critique, etc._, of Guilhem de Clermont-Lodève, Baron de Sainte Croix, 1775.]

["He used to say that sleep and the commerce with the sex were the things that made him most sensible of his mortality, ... He was also very temperate in eating."--Plutarch's _Alexander_, Langhorne, 1838, p. 473.]

[ew] _But for mere food, I think with Philip's son_, _Or Ammon's--for two fathers claimed this one_.--[MS.]

{227}[279] The assassination alluded to took place on the 8th of December, 1820, in the streets of Ravenna, not a hundred paces from the residence of the writer. The circumstances were as described.

["December 9, 1820. I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is _now_ lying _dead_ in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my great coat to visit Madame la Comtessa G., when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the custom for everybody here, it seems, to run away from 'the stricken deer.' ... we found him lying on his back, almost, if not quite, dead, with five wounds; one in the heart, two in the stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However, we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a child--a surgeon, who said nothing of his profession--a priest, sobbing a frightened prayer--and the commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without light or assistance, or anything around him but confusion and dismay. As nobody could, or would, do anything but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I lost my patience--made my servant and a couple of the mob take up the body--sent off two soldiers to the guard--despatched Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had him carried upstairs into my own quarters. But it was too late--he was gone.... I had him partly stripped--made the surgeon examine him, and examined him myself. He had been shot by cut balls or slugs. I felt one of the slugs, which had gone through him, all but the skin.... He only said, 'O Dio!' and 'Gesu!' two or three times, and appeared to have suffered little. Poor fellow! he was a brave officer; but had made himself much disliked by the people."--Letter to Moore, December 9, 1820, _Letters,_ 1901, v. 133. The commandant's name was Del Pinto (_Life,_ p. 472).]

[ex] ---- _so I had_ _Him borne, as soon's I could, up several pair_ _Of stairs--and looked to,----But why should I add_ _More circumstances?_----.--[MS.]

[ey] _And now as silent as an unstrung drum_.--[MS.]

{229}[280] The light and elegant wherries plying about the quays of Constantinople are so called.

{230}[281] [_Ilderim, a Syrian Tale_, by Henry Gally Knight, was published in 1816; _Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale_, and _Alashtar, an Arabian Tale_, in 1817. Moore's _Lalla Kookh_ also appeared in 1817.]

[282] [St. Bartholomew was "discoriate, and flayed quick" (_Golden Legend_, 1900, v. 43).]

[ez] _We from impalement_----.--[MS.]

{231}[283] "Many of the seraï and summer-houses [on the Bosphorus] have received these significant, or rather fantastic names: one is the Pearl Pavilion; another is the Star Palace; a third the Mansion of Looking-glasses."--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 243.

{232}[fa] _Of speeches, beauty, flattery--there is no_ _Method more sure_----.--[MS.]

{233}[284] [_Guide des Voyageurs_; _Directions for Travellers_, etc.--_Rhymes, Incidental and Humorous_; _Rhyming Reminiscences_; _Effusions in Rhyme_, etc.--Lady Morgan's _Tour in Italy_; _Tour through Istria_, etc., etc.--_Sketches of Italy_; _Sketches of Modern Greece_, etc., etc.--_Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold_, by J.C. Hobhouse, 1818.]

[285] In Turkey nothing is more common than for the Mussulmans to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of appetiser. I have seen them take as many as six of raki before dinner, and swear that they dined the better for it: I tried the experiment, but fared like the Scotchman, who having heard that the birds called kittiwakes were admirable whets, ate six of them, and complained that "he was no hungrier than when he began."

[286] ["Everything is so still [in the court of the Seraglio], that the motion of a fly might be heard, in a manner; and if any one should presume to raise his voice ever so little, or show the least want of respect to the Mansion-place of their Emperor, he would instantly have the bastinado by the officers that go the rounds."-_A Voyage in the Levant_, by M. Tournefort, 1741, ii. 183.]

{234}[287] _A common furniture. I recollect being received by Ali Pacha, in a large room, paved with marble, containing a marble basin, and fountain playing in the centre, etc., etc._

[Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lxii.--

"In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring Of living water from the centre rose, Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, Ali reclined, a man of war and woes," etc.]

[288] [A reminiscence of Newstead. Compare Moore's song, "Oft in the Stilly Night"--

"I feel like one Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted."]

{235}[fb] _A small, snug chamber on a winter's night_, _Well furnished with a book, friend, girl, or glass, etc_.--[MS.]

[fc] _I pass my days in long dull galleries solely_.--[MS. erased.]

[289] [When this stanza was written Byron was domiciled in the Palazzo Guiccioli (in the Via di Porta Adriana) at Ravenna; but he may have had in his mind the monks' refectory at Newstead Abbey, "the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned" (_Lara_, Canto I. line 137), or the corridors which form the upper story of the cloisters.]

[290] ["Nabuch_o_donosor," here used _metri gratiâ_, is Latin (see the Vulgate) and French (see J.P. De Béranger, _Chansons Inédites_, 1828, p. 48) for Nebuchadnezzar.]

[291] [See Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, lib. iv. lines 55-58--

"In Babylon, where first her queen, for state, Raised walls of brick magnificently great, Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair! He found no Eastern youth his equal there, And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair."

Garth.]

{236}[292] Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strengthened and beautified by Nabuchadonosor, and rebuilt by Semiramis.

[Pliny (_Nat. Hist._, lib. viii. cap. xlii. ed. 1593, i. 392) cites Juba, King of Mauretania, died A.D. 19, as his authority for the calumny.]

[fd] _In an Erratum of her Horse for Courier_.--[MS.]

[293] [Queen Caroline--whose trial (August--November, 1820) was proceeding whilst this canto was being written--was charged with having committed adultery with Bartolommeo Bergami, who had been her courier, and was, afterwards, her chamberlain.]

[294] ["_Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon_, by Claudius James Rich, Esq., Resident for the Honourable East India Company at the Court of the Pasha of Bagdad, 1815," pp. 61-64: _Second Memoir on Babylon,_ ... 1818, by Claudius James Rich. See the plates at the end of the volume.]

[fe] _If they shall not as soon cut off my head._--[MS.]

{240}[ff] _A pair of drawers_----.--[MS.]

[295] [Compare "Extracts from a Diary," January 24, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 184.]

[fg] _Kings are not more imperative than rhymes_.--[MS.]

{241}[fh] _He looked almost in modesty a maid_.--[MS.]

{242}[296] _Features_ of a gate--a ministerial metaphor: "the _feature_ upon which this question _hinges_." See the "Fudge Family," or hear Castlereagh.

[Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord Castlereagh, says--

"As _thou_ would'st say, my guide and teacher In these gay metaphoric fringes, I must _embark_ into the _feature_ On which this letter chiefly _hinges_."

Moore's note adds, "Verbatim from one of the noble Viscount's speeches:--'_And now, sir, I must embark into the_ feature _on which this question chiefly hinges_.'"--_Fudge Family in Paris_, Letter II. See, too, _post_, the Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII., p. 264, note 3.]

{243}[297] [Compare--

"A snake's small eye blinks dull and sly, And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye."

_Christabel_, Part II. lines 583-585.]

{244}[298] A few years ago the wile of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's supposed infidelity: he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night. One of the guards who was present informed me, that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love."

[See _The Giaour_, line _1328, Poetical Works, 1900_, iii. 144, note 1.]

{245}[fi] _As Venus rose from Ocean--bent on them_ _With a far-reaching glance, a Paphian pair_.--[MS.]

[fj] _But there are forms which Time adorns, not wears_, _And to which Beauty obstinately clings_.--[MS.]

{246}[299] [Legend has credited Ninon de Lenclos (1620-1705) with lovers when she had "come to four-score years." According to Voltaire, John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, succumbed to her secular charms (see _Mazeppa_, line 138, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 212, note 1). "In her old age, her house was the rendezvous of wits and men of letters. Scarron is said to have consulted her on his romances, Saint-Evremond on his poems, Molière on his comedies, Fontenelle on his dialogues, and La Rochefoucauld on his maxims. Coligny, Sévigné, etc., were her lovers and friends. At her death, in 1705, she bequeathed to Voltaire two thousand francs, to expend in books."--_Biographic Universelle_, art. "Lenclos."]

[300] ["Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished such a scene of beauty," etc.--Lady M.W. Montagu to the Countess of Mar, April 18, O.S. 1717, ed. 1816, p. 163.]

[301]

["Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici, Solaque quæ possit facere et servare beatum."

Hor., _Epist._, lib. 1, ep. vi. lines 1, 2.]

{247}[302]

["Not to admire, is all the Art I know To make men happy, and to keep them so, (Plain Truth, dear MURRAY, needs no flow'rs of speech, So take it in the very words of Creech)."

_To Mr. Murray_ (Lord Mansfield), Pope's _Imitations of Horace_, Book I. epist. vi. lines 1-4.

Thomas Creech (1659-1701) published his _Translation of Horace_ in 1684. In the second edition, 1688, p. 487, the lines run--

"Not to admire, as most are wont to do, It is the only method that I know, To make Men happy and to keep 'em so."]

[303] [Johnson placed judgment and friendship above admiration and love. "Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened." See Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1876, p. 450.]

{248}[304] There is nothing, perhaps, more distinctive of birth than the hand. It is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate.

{249}[305] [In old pictures of the Fall, it is a cherub who whispers into the ear of Eve. The serpent's coils are hidden in the foliage of the tree.]

{250}[fk] _The very women half forgave her face_.--[MS, Erased.]

[fl] _Had his instructions--where and how to deal_.--[MS.]

[fm] _And husbands now and then are mystified_.--[MS.]

{251}[306] [Narrow javelins, once known as archegays--the assegais of Zulu warfare.]

{252}[fn] _But nature teaches what power cannot spoil_ _And, though it was a new and strange sensation_, _Young female hearts are such a genial soil_ _For kinder feelings, she forgot her station_.--[MS.]

[fo] _War with your heart_--.--[MS.]

{254}[307] [See _Fielding's History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews_, bk. i. chap. v.]

[308]

["'But if my boy with virtue be endued, What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good? Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?-- O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride Took fire to be so steadfastly denied! Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame, And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame!"

Gifford, _Juvenal_, Sat. x. 473-480.

The adventures of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, and Bellerophon are well known. They were accused of incontinence, by the women whose inordinate passions they had refused to gratify at the expense of their duty, and sacrificed to the fatal credulity of the husbands of the disappointed fair ones. It is very probable that both the stories are founded on the Scripture account of Joseph and Potiphar's wife.--Footnote, ibid., ed. 1817, ii. pp. 49, 50.]

[fp] _The poets and romances_----.--[MS.]

[fq] _And this strong second cause (to tire no longer_ _Your patience) shows the first must still be stronger_.

--[MS. Alternative reading.]

{256}[309]

["By Heaven! methinks, it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon."

_Henry IV_., act i. sc. 3, lines 201, 202.]

[fr] _Like natural Shakespeare on the immortal page_.--[MS.]

[310]

["And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."

_King Lear_, act iv. sc. 6, lines 185, 186.]

[311]

["A woman scorn'd is pitiless as fate, For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate." Gifford's _Juvenal, Sat_. x. lines 481, 482, ed. 1817, ii. p. 50.]

{258}[312] ["Yes--my valour is certainly going! it is sneaking off! I feel it _oozing_ out, as it were, at the palms of my hands!"--Sheridan's _Rivals_, act v. sc. 3.]

[fs] _Or all the stuff which uttered by the "Blues" is_.--[MS.]

{259}[ft] _But prithee--get my women in the way_, _That all the stars may gleam with due adorning_.--[MS.]

[fu] _Of Cantemir or Knollēs_-----.--[MS.]

[313] It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, in his essay on "Empire" (Essays, No. xx.), hints that Solyman was the last of his line; on what authority, I know not. These are his words: "The destruction of Mustapha was so fatal to Solyman's line; as the succession of the Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the second was thought to be supposititious." But Bacon, in his historical authorities, is often inaccurate. I could give half a dozen instances from his Apophthegms only.

[Selim II. (1524-1574) succeeded his father as Sultan in 1566. Hofmann (_Lexicon Univ_.) describes him as "meticulosus, effeminatus, ebriosus," but neither Demetrius Cantemir, in his _History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire_ (translated by N. Tyndal, 1734); nor _The Turkish History_ (written by Mr. Knolles, 1701), cast any doubts on his legitimacy. Byron complained of the omission from the notes to the first edition of Don Juan, of his corrections of Bacon's "Apophthegms" (see _Letters_, 1901, v. Appendix VI. pp. 597-600), in a letter to Murray, dated January 21, 1821,--_vide ibid_., p. 220.]

{260}[314] [Gibbon.]

[fv] _Because he kept them wrapt up in his closet, he_ _Ruled fair wives and twelve hundred whores, unseen,_ _More easily than Christian kings one queen_.--[MS.]

[fw] _Then ended many a fair Sultana's trip_: _The Public knew no more than does this rhyme_; _No printed scandals flew,--the fish, of course,_ _Were better--while the morals were no worse_.--[MS.]

[fx] _No sign of its depression anywhere_.--[MS.]

[315] ["We attempted to visit the Seven Towers, but were stopped at the entrance, and informed that without a firman it was inaccessible to strangers.... It was supposed that Count Bulukof, the Russian minister, would be the last of the _Moussafirs_, or imperial hostages, confined in this fortress; but since the year 1784 M. Ruffin and many of the French have been imprisoned in the same place; and the dungeons.... were gaping, it seems, for the sacred persons of the gentlemen composing his Britannic Majesty's mission, previous to the rupture between Great Britain and the Porte in 1809."--Hobhouse, _Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 311, 312.]

{261}[316] ["The princess" (Asma Sultana, daughter of Achmet III.) "complained of the barbarity which, at thirteen years of age, united her to a decrepit old man, who, by treating her like a child, had inspired her with nothing but disgust."--_Memoirs of Baron de Toil_, 1786, i. 74. See, too, _Mémoires_, etc., 1784, i. 84, 85.]

{262}[317] [The connection between "horns" and Heaven, to which Byron twice alludes, is not very obvious. The reference may be to the Biblical "horn of salvation," or to the symbolical horns of Divine glory as depicted in the Moses of Michel Angelo. Compare _Mazeppa_, lines 177, 178, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 213.]

[fy]---- _with solemn air and wise_.--[MS.]

[fz] _Virginity in these unhappy climes_.--[MS.]

{263}[318] [This stanza, which Byron composed in bed, February 27, 1821 (see _Extracts from a Diary, Letters_, 1901, v. 209), is not in the first edition. On discovering the omission, he wrote to Murray: "Upon what principle have you omitted ... one of the concluding stanzas sent as an addition?--because it ended, I suppose, with--

'And do not link two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur, man and wife?'

Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis)--particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages."--Letter to Murray, August 31, 1821, ibid., p. 351.]

[ga] _Meanwhile as Homer sometimes sleeps, much more_ _The modern muse may be allowed to snore_.--[MS.]

PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII.

THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (_i.e._ the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, entitled _Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie._[319] Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence.

In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry,[320] but written some time before his decease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That he was an amiable man in _private_ life, may or may not be true: but with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannised over a country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans that England has been insulted by a _minister_ (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop.

Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson,[321] had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic--a sentimental suicide--he merely cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on their learning!) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of dolour yelled forth"[322] by the newspapers--and the harangue of the Coroner in a eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased--(an Anthony worthy of such a Cæsar)--and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law[323]--a felon or a madman--and in either case no great subject for panegyric.[324] In his life he was--what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani[325] of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!!!

With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire:--"La pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." ... "Plus les moeurs sont dépravés, plus les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer--which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc., are the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen--should be welcome to all who recollect on _whom_ it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as _blasphemers_, and so have been and may be many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do--they may be right or wrong--but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox[326] Prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!"[327] I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and----but enough for the present.

FOOTNOTES:

{264}[319] [The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author of an _Essai sur L'Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie_ (Sec. Ed. 3 tom. 1827), was, at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met and made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, Duc de Richelieu, who took part in the siege of Ismail. M. Léon de Crousaz-Crétet describes him as "ancien surintendant des théâtres sous l'Empereur Paul."--_Le Duc de Richelieu_, 1897, p. 83.]

[320] [For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1.]

{266}[321] [Samuel Ferrand Waddington, born 1759, hop-grower and radical politician, first came into notice as the chairman of public meetings in favour of making peace with the French in 1793. He was the author, _inter alia_, of _A Key to a Delicate Investigation_, 1812, and _An Address to the People of the United Kingdom_, 1812. He was alive in 1822. James Watson (1766-1838), a radical agitator of the following of Thomas Spence, was engaged, in the autumn of 1816, in an abortive conspiracy to blow up cavalry barracks, barricade the streets, and seize the Bank and the Tower. He was tried for high treason before Lord Ellenborough, and acquitted.]

[322] [_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. 3, lines 7, 8.]

[323] I say by the _law_ of the _land_--the laws of humanity judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, let them here make the most of it.

[324] [Mr. Joseph Carttar, of Deptford, coroner for the County of Kent, addressed the jury at some length. The following sentences are taken from the report of the inquest, contained in _The Annual Biography and Obituary for the year 1823_, vol. vii. p. 57: "As a public man, it is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can hold. In private life I believe the world will admit that a more amiable man could not be found.... If it should unfortunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder. ...The Bible declares that a man clings to nothing so strongly as his own life, I therefore view it as an axiom, and an abstract principle, that a man must necessarily be out of his mind at the moment of destroying himself." Byron, probably, read the report of the inquest in Cobbett's _Weekly Register_ (August 17, 1822, vol. 43, pp. 389-425). The "eulogy" was in perfectly good taste, but there can be little doubt that if "Waddington or Watson" had cut _their_ "carotid arteries," the verdict would have been different.]

[325] From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If ever man saved his country, Canning _can_, but _will_ he? I for one, hope so.

[The phrase, "great moral lesson," was employed by the Duke of Wellington, _à propos_ of the restoration of pictures and statues to their "rightful owners," in a despatch addressed to Castlereagh, under date, Paris, September 19, 1815 (_The Dispatches, etc._ (ed. by Colonel Gurwood), 1847, viii. 270). The words, "moral lesson," as applied to the French generally, are to be found in Scott's _Field of Waterloo_ (conclusion, stanza vi. line 3), which was written about the same time as the despatch. Byron quotes them in his "Ode from the French," stanza iv. line 8 (see _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 434, note 1). There is a satirical allusion to the Duke's "assumption of the didactic" about teaching a "great moral lesson" in the Preface to the first number of the _Liberal_ (1822, p. xi.).]

{267}[326] When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is _my doxy_, and heterodoxy is _another man's_ doxy." A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a _third_ kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism."

[For the "prelate," see _Letters_, 1902, vi. 101, note 2.]

[327] [For the Duke of Wellington and the Holy Alliance, see the Introduction to _The Age of Bronze, Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 538, 561.]

CANTO THE SIXTH.[328]