[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 Poetae, 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 Heros 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 Caesar," 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 ruinae;" 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 Vendee, 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 quaeris—

"Deo Optimo Maximo.

Inclytissimi et fortissimi Burgundiae ducis exercitus, Moratum obsidens, ab Helvetiis caesus, 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 Cannae 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 tir (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 penna."]

[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'Inegalite parmi les Hommes) in 1750 and 1753; Emile, ou, de l'Education, and Du Contrat Social in 1762.]

[327] ["What Rousseau's Discourse [Sur l'Origine ... de l'Inegalite, 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 ge~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(pselo/tata to~n ou)re/on 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 Heloise, Partie I. Lettre xxiii., Oevres de J. J. Rousseau, 1836, ii. 36: "Tantot d'immenses rochers pendoient en ruines au-dessus de ma tete. Tantot de hautes et bruyantes cascades m'inondoient de leur epais brouillard: tantot un torrent eternel ouvroit a mes cotes un abime dont les yeux n'osoient sonder la profondeur. Quelquefois je me perdois dans l'obscurite d'un bois touffu. Quelquefois, en sortant d'un gouffre, une agreable prairie, rejouissoit tout-a-coup mes regards. Un melange etonnant de la nature sauvage et de la nature cultivee, montroit partout la main des hommes, ou l'on eut cru qu'ils n'avoient jamais penetre: a cote d'une caverne on trouvoit des maisons; on voyoit des pampres secs ou l'on n'eut cherche que des ronces, des vignes dans des terres eboullees, d'excellens fruits sur des rochers, et des champs dans des precipices." 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 Heloise, Partie IV. Lettre xvii, Oeuvres, etc., ii. 262: "Un torrent, forme par la fonte des neiges, rouloit a vingt pas de nous line eau bourbeuse, et charrioit avec bruit du limon, du sable et des pierres.... Des forets de noirs sapins nous ombrageoient tristement a droite. Un grand bois de chenes etoit a gauche au-dela 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 Freron, as Frelon ("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. Koelbing, 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 (Poetae Lyrici Graeci, Bergk. Lipsiae, 1866, p. 1290), begins thus—

E)n my/rtou kladi to xi/phos phore/so, O(sper A(rmo/dios kai A)ristogei/ton, O(/te to
y/rannon ktaneten I)sono/mous t' A)the/nas e)poiesa/ten

"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, Chaeronea, 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 herbae 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 Francois Severin Desgravins Marceau (1769-1796, general of the French Republic) bears the following epitaph and inscription:—

"'Hic cineres, ubique nomen.'

"Ici repose Marceau, ne a Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, soldat a seize ans, general a vingtdeux ans. Il mourut en combattant pour sa patrie, le dernier jour de l'an iv. de la Republique francaise. Qui que tu sois, ami ou ennemi de ce jeune heros, 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, ne a Versailles le 24 juin, 1768, sergent a seize ans, general en chef a vingt-cinq, mort a vingt-neuf, pacificateur de la Vendee."]

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 Luneville 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 Neuchatel. 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 Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago;—it is thus:—"Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris, infelix proles. Deae Aventiae 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 Caecina. 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 Argentiere 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 Hotel de l'Angleterre, at Secheron, 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 a Eaubonne; je passois par les coteaux d'Andilly qui sont charmans. Je revois en marchant a celle que j'allois voir, a l'accueil caressant qu'elle me feroit, au baiser qui m'attendoit a mon arrivee. Ce seul baiser, ce baiser funeste avant meme de le recevoir, m'embrasoit le sang a tel point, que ma tete se troubloit, un eblouissement m'aveugloit, mes genoux tremblants ne pouroient me soutenir; j'etois force de m'arreter, de m'asseoir; toute ma machine etoit dans un desordre inconcevable; j'etois pret a m'evanouir.... A l'instant que je la voyois, tout etoit repare; je ne sentois plus aupres d'elle que l'importunite d'une vigueur inepuisable et toujours inutile."—Les Confessions, Partie II. livre ix.; Oeuvres Completes 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 Haidee 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 Sigaeum 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 Completes, 1837, i. 341)—

"Je ne trouve pas de plus digne hommage a la Divinite que cette admiration muette qu'excite la contemplation de ses oeuvres, et qui ne s'exprime point par des actes developpes. 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 ame ne s'eleve-t-elle pas cent fois le jour avec extase a l'Auteur des merveilles qui les frappent? ... Dans ma chambre je prie plus rarement et plus sechement; mais a l'aspect d'un beau paysage je me sens emu 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 Heloise, Lettre 17, Part IV., note. "Ces montagnes sont si hautes, qu'une demi-heure apres le soleil couche, leurs sommets sont eclaires de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle couleur de rose, qu'on apercoit de fort loin."[356] This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie.—"J'allai a Vevay loger a 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 etablir enfin les heros de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers a ceux qui ont du gout et qui sont sensibles: Allez a Vevay—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 Heloise, 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, Boveret, 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 chateau[362] [Chateau des Cretes]. 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.

[Francois 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 Chene.—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 Hotel 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 Gibboniere."—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'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplait pas."—Appendice aux Maximes de La Rochefoucauld, Pantheon Litteraire, Paris, 1836, p. 460.]



FOOTNOTES:

[356] {303} [Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise: Oeuvres Completes de J. J. Rousseau, Paris, 1837, ii. 262.]

[357] [The Clef, is now a cafe 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 Cretes, the hillocks and bosquets described by Rousseau. Near by is a dove-cote filled with cooing doves.... In the last century this site (Les Cretes) 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 Heloise, "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 Heloise 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 Arqua, 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.