back on a "noble author," who was about to admit that he could not
savour Horace, and who turned aside from Mantua and memories of Virgil
to visit Ferrara and the "cell" where Tasso was "encaged." (See
Darmesteter's _Notes to Childe Harold_, pp. 201, 217.)
If "the Youth with brow serene," as Hugo calls him, had lived to read
_Dedain. A Lord Byron, en_ 1811, he would have passed a somewhat
different criticism on French poetry in general--
"En vain vos legions l'environnent sans nombre,
Il n'a qu'a se lever pour couvrir de son ombre
A la fois tous vos fronts;
Il n'a qu'a dire un mot pour couvrir vos voix greles,
Comme un char en passant couvre le bruit des ailes
De mille moucherons!"
_Les Feuilles d'Automne_, par Victor Hugo,
Bruxelles, 1833, pp. 59, 63.]
[ml] {359} _Could mount into a mind like thine_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[mm] ----_they would not form the Sun_.--[MS. M.]
[420] [In a letter to Murray (August 7, 1817) Byron throws out a hint
that Scott might not like being called "the Ariosto of the North," and
Murray seems to have caught at the suggestion. "With regard to 'the
Ariosto of the North,'" rejoins Byron (September 17, 1817), "surely
their themes, Chivalry, war, and love, were as like as can be; and as to
the compliment, if you knew what the Italians think of Ariosto, you
would not hesitate about that.... If you think Scott will dislike it,
say so, and I will expunge." Byron did not know that when Scott was at
college at Edinburgh he had "had the audacity to produce a composition
in which he weighed Homer against Ariosto, and pronounced him wanting in
the balance," or that he "made a practice of reading through ... the
_Orlando_ of Ariosto once every year" (see _Memoirs of the Life, etc._,
1871, pp. 12, 747); but the parallel had suggested itself. The key-note
of "the harpings of the north," the chivalrous strain of "shield, lance,
and brand, and plume and scarf," of "gentle courtesy," of "valour,
lion-mettled lord," which the "Introduction to _Marmion_" preludes, had
been already struck in the opening lines of the _Orlando Furioso_--
"Le Donne, i Cavalier', l'arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto."
Scott, we may be assured, was neither disconcerted nor uplifted by the
parallel. Many years before (July 6, 1812), Byron had been at pains to
inform him that so august a critic as the Prince Regent "preferred you
to every bard past and present," and "spoke alternately of Homer and
yourself." Of the "placing" and unplacing of poets there is no end.
Byron had already been sharply rebuked by the _Edinburgh Review_ for
describing _Christabel_ as a "wild and singularly original and beautiful
poem," and his appreciation of Scott provoked the expostulation of a
friendlier critic. "Walter Scott," wrote Francis Hodgson, in his
anonymous _Monitor of Childe Harold_ (1818), "(_credite posteri_, or
rather _praeposteri_), is designated in the Fourth Canto of _Childe
Harold_ as 'the Northern Ariosto,' and (droller still) Ariosto is
denominated 'the Southern Scott.' This comes of mistaking
horse-chestnuts for chestnut horses."]
[421] {361} The two stanzas xlii. and xliii. are, with the exception of
a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja:--"Italia,
Italia, O tu, cui feo la sorte!"--_Poesie Toscane_ 1823, p. 149.
["Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte
Dono infelice di bellezza, ond'hai
Funesta dote d'infiniti guai
Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte:
Deh fossi tu men bella, o almen piu forte,
Onde assai piu ti paventasse, o assai
T'amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai
Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte,
Che or giu dall' Alpi non vedrei torrenti
Scender d'armati, ne di sangue tinta
Bever l'onda del Po gallici armenti;
Ne te vedrei, del non tuo ferro cinta,
Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti,
Per servir sempre, o vincitrice, o vinta."]
[mn]
_And on thy brow in characters of flame_
_To write the words of sorrow and of shame_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[mo]
----_unbetrayed_
_To death by thy vain charms_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[422] {362} The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the
death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path
which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different
journeys and voyages. "On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from
AEgina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the
countries around me: AEgina was behind, Megara before me; Piraeus on the
right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and
flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this
sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we
poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die
or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many
noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."--See Middleton's
_Cicero_, 1823, ii. 144.
[The letter is to be found in Cicero's _Epist. ad Familiares_, iv. 5.
Byron, on his return from Constantinople on July 14, 1810, left Hobhouse
at the Island of Zea, and made his own way to Athens. As the vessel
sailed up the Saronic Gulf, he would observe the "prospect" which
Sulpicius describes.]
[mp] {363} _These carcases of cities_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[423] ["By the events of the years 1813 and 1814, the house of Austria
gained possession of all that belonged to her in Italy, either before or
in consequence of the Peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797). A small
portion of Ferrara, to the north of the Po (which had formed part of the
Papal dominions), was ceded to her, as were the Valteline, Bormio,
Chiavenna, and the ancient republic of Ragusa. The emperor constituted
all these possessions into a separate and particular state, under the
title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _History of Europe_,
p. 234.]
[424] {364} It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon
ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore
nudata, prostrata jaceat, instar Gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque
undique exesi."
[See _De Fortunae Varietate_, ap. _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, ap. Sallengre,
i. 502.]
[425] [Compare Milton, _Sonnet_ xxii.--
" ... my noble task,
Of which all Europe talks from side to side."]
[mq] {365}
_Where Luxury might willingly be born_.
_And buried Learning looks forth into fresher morn_,--
[MS. M. erased.]
[426] [The wealth which permitted the Florentine nobility to indulge
their taste for modern, that is, refined luxury was derived from success
in trade. For example, Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1428), the father of
Cosmo and great-grand-father of Lorenzo de' Medici, was a banker and
Levantine merchant. As for the Renaissance, to say nothing of Petrarch
of Florentine parentage, two of the greatest Italian scholars and
humanists--Ficino, born A.D. 1430, and Poliziano, born 1454--were
Florentines; and Poggio was born A.D. 1380, at Terra Nuova on Florentine
soil.]
[mr] _There, too, the Goddess breathes in stone and fills_.--[MS. M.]
[427] [The statue of Venus de' Medici, which stands in the Tribune of
the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, is said to be a late Greek (first or
second century B.C.) copy of an early reproduction, of the Cnidian
Aphrodite, the work, perhaps, of one of his sons, Kephisodotos or
Timarchos. (See _Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque_, par Maxime
Collignon, Paris, 1897, ii. 641.) In a Catalogue Raissonne of _La
Galerie de Florence_, 1804, in the editor's possession, which opens with
an eloquent tribute to the enlightenment of the Medici, _la fameuse
Venus_ is conspicuous by her absence. She had been deported to Paris by
Napoleon, but when Lord Byron spent a day in Florence in April, 1817,
and returned "drunk with Beauty" from the two galleries, the lovely
lady, thanks to the much-abused "Powers," was once more in her proper
shrine.]
[ms]
----_and we draw_
_As from a fountain of immortal hills_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[428] {366} [Byron's contempt for connoisseurs and dilettanti finds
expression in _English Bards, etc._, lines 1027-1032, and, again, in
_The Curse of Minerva_, lines 183, 184. The "stolen copy" of _The Curse_
was published in the _New Monthly Magazine_ (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.
453) under the title of _The Malediction of Minerva; or, The Athenian
Marble-Market_, a title (see line 7) which must have been invented by
and not for Byron. He returns to the charge in _Don Juan_, Canto 11.
stanza cxviii. lines 5-9--
" ... a statuary,
(A race of mere impostors, when all's done--
I've seen much finer women ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal)."
Even while confessing the presence and power of "triumphal Art" in
sculpture, one of "the two most artificial of the Arts" (see his letter
to Murray, April 26, 1817), then first revealed to him at Florence, he
took care that his enthusiasm should not be misunderstood. He had made
bitter fun of the art-talk of collectors, and he was unrepentant, and,
moreover, he was "not careful" to incur a charge of indifference to the
fine arts in general. Among the "crowd" which found their place in his
complex personality, there was "the barbarian," and there was "the
philistine," and there was, too, the humourist who took a subtle
pleasure in proclaiming himself "a plain man," puzzled by subtleties,
and unable to catch the drift of spirits finer than his own.]
[429] {367}
[Greek: O)phthalmou\s e(stia~n]
"Atque oculos pascat uterque suos."
Ovid., _Amor_., lib. ii. [Eleg. 2, line 6].
[Compare, too, Lucretius, lib. i. lines 36-38--
"Atque ita, suspiciens tereti cervice reposta,
Pascit amore avidos, inhians in te, Dea, visus;
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore;"
and _Measure for Measure_, act ii. sc. 2, line 179--
"And feast upon her eyes."]
[mt] {368} _Glowing and all-diffused_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[430] [As the immortals, for love's sake, divest themselves of their
godhead, so do mortals, in the ecstasy of passion, recognize in the
object of their love the incarnate presence of deity. Love, like music,
can raise a "mortal to the skies" and "bring an angel down." In this
stanza there is, perhaps, an intentional obscurity in the confusion of
ideas, which are "thrown out" for the reader to shape for himself as he
will or can.]
[mu] ----_and our Fate_----[MS. M.]
[431] {369} ["The church of Santa Croce contains much illustrious
nothing. The tombs of Macchiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo Galilei, and
Alfieri make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy" (Letter to Murray, April
26, 1817). Michael Angelo, Alfieri, and Macchiavelli are buried in the
south aisle of the church; Galileo, who was first buried within the
convent, now rests with his favourite pupil, Vincenzo Viviani, in a
vault in the south aisle. Canova's monument to Alfieri was erected at
the expense of his so-called widow, Louise, born von Stolberg, and
(1772-78) consort of Prince Charles Edward.]
[432] [Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803) is one of numerous real and ideal
personages with whom, as he tells us (_Life_, p. 644), Byron was wont to
be compared. Moore perceives and dwells on the resemblance. A passage in
Alfieri's autobiography (_La Vie de V. A. ecrite par Lui-meme_, Paris,
1809, p. 17) may have suggested the parallel--
"Voici une esquisse du caractere que je manifestais dans les
premieres annees de ma raison naissante. Taciturne et tranquille
pour l'ordinaire, mais quelquefois extremement petulant et
babillard, presque toujours dans les extremes, obstine et rebelle a
la force, fort soumis aux avis qu'on me donnait avec amitie,
contenu plutot par la crainte d'etre gronde que par toute autre
chose, d'une timidite excessive, et inflexible quand on voulait me
prendre a rebours."
The resemblance, as Byron admits, "related merely to our apparent
personal dispositions." Both were noble, both were poets, both were
"patrician republicans," and both were lovers of pleasure as well as
lovers and students of literature; but their works do not provoke
comparison. "The quality of 'a narrow elevation' which [Matthew] Arnold
finds in Alfieri," is not characteristic of the author of _Childe
Harold_ and _Don Juan_.
Of this stanza, however, Alfieri's fine sonnet to Florence may have been
the inspiration. I have Dr. Garnett's permission to cite the following
lines of his admirable translation (_Italian Literature_, 1898, p.
321):--
"Was Angelo born here? and he who wove
Love's charm with sorcery of Tuscan tongue,
Indissolubly blent? and he whose song
Laid bare the world below to world above?
And he who from the lonely valley clove
The azure height and trod the stars among?
And he whose searching mind the monarch's wrong,
Fount of the people's misery did prove?"]
[mv] {370} _Might furnish forth a Universe_----.--[MS. M.]
[mw]
_And ruin of thy beauty, shall deny_
_And hath denied, to every other sky_
_Spirits that soar like thine; from thy decay_
{_Still springs some son of the Divinity_}
{_Still springs some work of the Divinity_}--[D.]
_And gilds thy ruins with reviving ray_--
_And what these were of yore--Canova is to-day_.--[MS. M.]
[433] [Compare "Lines on the Bust of Helen by Canova," which were sent
in a letter to Murray, November 25, 1816--
"In this beloved marble view,
Above the works and thoughts of man,
What nature _could_, but _would not_, do,
And Beauty and Canova can."
In _Beppo_ (stanza xlvi.), which was written in October, 1817, there is
a further allusion to the genius of Canova.]
[mx] {371} _Their great Contemporary_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[434] [Dante died at Ravenna, September 14, 1321, and was buried in the
Church of S. Francesco. His remains were afterwards transferred to a
mausoleum in the friars' cemetery, on the north side of the church,
which was raised to his memory by his friend and patron, Guido da
Polenta. The mausoleum was restored more than once, and rebuilt in its
present form in 1780, at the cost of Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. On
the occasion of Dante's sexcentenary, in 1865, it was discovered that at
some unknown period the skeleton, with the exception of a few small
bones which remained in an urn which formed part of Gonzaga's structure,
had been placed for safety in a wooden box, and enclosed in a wall of
the old Braccioforte Chapel, which lies outside the church towards the
Piazza. "The bones found in the wooden box were placed in the mausoleum
with great pomp and exultation, the poet being now considered the symbol
of a united Italy. The wooden box itself has been removed to the public
library."--_Handbook far Northern Italy_, p. 539, note.
The house which Byron occupied during his first visit to Ravenna--June 8
to August 9, 1819--is close to the Cappella Braccioforte. In January,
1820, when he wrote the Fourth Canto of _Don Juan_ ("I pass each day
where Dante's bones are laid," stanza civ.), he was occupying a suite of
apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli, No. 328 in the Via di Porta
Adriana. Compare Rogers's _Italy_, "Bologna," _Poems_, ii. 118--
"Ravenna! where from Dante's sacred tomb
He had so oft, as many a verse declares,
Drawn inspiration."]
[435] [The story is told in Livy, lib. xxxviii. cap. 53. "Thenceforth no
more was heard of Africanus. He passed his days at Liternum [on the
shore of Campania], without thought or regret of Rome. Folk say that
when he came to die he gave orders that he should be buried on the spot,
and that there, and not at Rome, a monument should be raised over his
sepulchre. His country had been ungrateful--no Roman funeral for him."
It is said that his sepulchre bore the inscription: "Ingrata patria,
cineres meos non habebis." According to another tradition, he was buried
with his family at the Porta Capena, by the Caelian Hill.]
[436] [Compare Lucan, _Pharsalia_, i. I--"Bella per Emathios plusquam
civilia campos."]
[437] [Petrarch's _Africa_ brought him on the same day (August 23, 1340)
offers of the laurel wreath of poetry from the University of Paris and
from the Senate of Rome. He chose in favour of Rome, and was crowned on
the Capitol, Easter Day, April 8, 1341. "The poet appeared in a royal
mantle ... preceded by twelve noble Roman youths clad in scarlet, and
the heralds and trumpeters of the Roman Senate."--_Petrarch_, by Henry
Reeve, p. 92.]
[438] {372} [Tomasini, in the _Petrarca Redivivus_ (pp. 168-172, ed.
1650), assigns the outrage to a party of Venetians who "broke open
Petrarch's tomb, in 1630, and took away some of his bones, probably with
the object of selling them." Hobhouse, in _note_ ix., says, "that one of
the arms was stolen by a Florentine," but does not quote his authority.
(See the notes to H. F. Tozer's _Childe Harold_, p. 302.)]
[439] [Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris (or Certaldo) in 1313,
passed the greater part of his life at Florence, died and was buried at
Certaldo, whence his family are said to have sprung, in 1375. His
sepulchre, which stood in the centre of the Church of St. Michael and
St. James, known as the Canonica, was removed in 1783, on the plea that
a recent edict forbidding burial in churches applied to ancient
interments. "The stone that covered the tomb was broken, and thrown
aside as useless into the adjoining cloisters" (_Handbook for Central
Italy_, p. 171). "Ignorance," pleads Hobhouse, "may share the crime with
bigotry." But it is improbable that the "hyaena bigots," that is, the
ecclesiastical authorities, were ignorant that Boccaccio was a bitter
satirist of Churchmen, or that "he transferred the functions and
histories of Hebrew prophets and prophetesses, and of Christian saints
and apostles, nay, the highest mysteries and most awful objects of
Christian Faith, to the names and drapery of Greek and Roman
mythology."--(Unpublished MS. note of S. T. Coleridge, written in his
copy of Boccaccio's _Opere_, 4 vols. 1723.) They had their revenge on
Boccaccio, and Byron has had his revenge on them.]
[my]
_Boccaccio to his parent earth, bequeathed_
_The dust derived from thence--doth it not lie_
_With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed_
_O'er him who formed the tongue of Italy_
_That music in itself whose harmony_
_Asks for no tune to make it song; No--torn_
_From earth--and scattered while the silent sky_
_Hushed its indignant Winds--with quiet scorn_
_The Hyaena bigots thus forbade a World to mourn_.--
[D. erased.]
[440] {374} [Compare _Beppo_, stanza xliv.--
"I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South."
Compare, too, the first sentence of a letter which Byron wrote "on a
blank leaf of the volume of 'Corinne,'" which Teresa [Guiccioli] left in
forgetfulness in a garden in Bologna: "Amor Mio,--How sweet is this word
in your Italian language!" (_Life of Lord Byron_, by Emilio Castelar, P.
145).]
[441] [By "Caesar's pageant" Byron means the pageant decreed by Tiberius
Caesar. Compare _Don Juan_, Canto XV. stanza xlix.--
"And this omission, like that of the bust
Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius."
At the public funeral of Junia, wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus,
A.D. 22, the busts of her husband and brother were not allowed to be
carried in the procession, because they had taken part in the
assassination of Julius Caesar. But none the less, "Praefulgebant Brutus
et Cassius eo ipso quod effigies eorum non videbantur" (Tacitus, _Ann._,
iii. 76). Their glory was conspicuous in men's minds, because their
images were withheld from men's eyes. As Tacitus says elsewhere (iv.
26), "Negatus honor gloriam intendit."]
[mz] {375} _Shelter of exiled Empire_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[442] [The inscription on Ricci's monument to Dante, in the Church of
Santa Croce--"A majoribus ter frustra decretum" --refers to the vain
attempts which Florence had made to recover the remains of her exiled
and once-neglected poet.]
[443] ["I also went to the Medici chapel--fine frippery in great slabs
of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten
carcasses. It is unfinished, and will remain so" (Letter to Murray,
April 26, 1817). The bodies of the grand-dukes lie in the crypt of the
Cappella dei Principi, or Medicean Chapel, which forms part of the
Church of San Lorenzo. The walls of the chapel are encrusted with rich
marbles and "stones of price, to garniture the edifice." The monuments
to Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, son and grandson of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, with Michael Angelo's allegorical figures of Night and
Morning, Aurora and Twilight, are in the adjoining Cappella dei
Depositi, or Sagrestia Nuova.]
[444] {376} [The Duomo, crowned with Brunelleschi's cupola, and rich in
sculpture and stained glass, is, as it were, a symbol of Florence, the
shrine of art. Browning, in his inspired vision of St. Peter's at Rome
in _Christmas Eve_, catches Byron's note to sound a loftier strain--
"Is it really on the earth
This miraculous dome of God?"
"It is somewhere mentioned that Michael Angelo, when he set out from
Florence to build the dome of St. Peter's, turned his horse round in the
road to contemplate that of the cathedral, as it rose in the grey of the
morning from among the pines and cypresses of the city, and that he
said, after a pause, 'Come te non voglio! Meglio di te non posso.' He
never, indeed, spoke of it but with admiration; and, if we may believe
tradition, his tomb, by his own desire, was to be so placed in the Santa
Croce as that from it might be seen, when the doors of the church stood
open, that noble work of Brunelleschi."--Rogers's _Italy: Poems_, ii.
315, note to p. 133, line 5--"Beautiful Florence."]
[445] {377} [Byron, contrary to traditional use (see Wordsworth's
sonnet, "Near the Lake of Thrasymene;" and Rogers's _Italy_, see note,
p. 378), sounds the final vowel in Thrasym[=e]ne. The Greek, Latin, and
Italian equivalents bear him out; but, most probably, he gave Thrasymene
and himself an extra syllable "vel metri vel euphoniae causa."]
[na] _Where Courage perished in unyielding files_.--[MS. M.]
[446] ["Tantusque fuit ardor armorum, adeo intentus pugnae animus, ut eum
motum terrae, qui multarum urbium Italiae magnas partes, prostravit,
avertitque cursu rapidos amnes, marce fluminibus invexit, montes lapsu
ingenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit" (Livy, xxii. 5). Polybius
says nothing about an earthquake; and Ihne (_Hist, of Rome_, ii.
207-210) is also silent; but Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, ii. 84) and Coelius
Antipater (ap. Cic., _De Div._, i. 35), who wrote his _Annales_ about a
century after the battle of Lake Thrasymenus (B.C. 217), synchronize the
earthquake and the battle. Compare, too, Rogers's _Italy_, "The
Pilgrim:" _Poems_, 1852, ii. 152--
"From the Thrasymene, that now
Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold,
And from the shore that once, when armies met,
Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible
The rage, the slaughter, I had turned away."
Compare, too, Wordsworth's sonnet (No. xii.), "Near the Lake of
Thrasymene" (_Works_, 1888, p. 756)--
"When here with Carthage Rome to conflict came,
An earthquake, mingling with the battle's shock,
Checked not its rage; unfelt the ground did rock,
Sword dropped not, javelin kept its deadly aim,--
Now all is sun-bright peace."]
[nb]
_Fly to the clouds for refuge and withdraw_
_From their unsteady nests_----.--[MS. M.]
[nc] {379} _Made fat the earth_----.--[MS. M. erased]
[447] No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the
Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in
Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation
of this temple, the reader is referred to _Historical Illustrations of
the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold_, p. 35.
[448] [Compare Virgil, _Georg_., ii. 146--
"Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges et maxuma taurus
Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro."
The waters of certain rivers were supposed to possess the quality of
making the cattle which drank from them white. (See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._,
ii. 103; and compare Silius Italicus, _Pun._, iv. 545, 546--
" ...et patulis Clitumnus in arvis
Candentes gelido perfundit flumine tauros.")
For a charming description of Clitumnus, see Pliny's letter "Romano
Suo," _Epist._, viii. 8: "At the foot of a little hill covered with old
and shady cypress trees, gushes out a spring, which bursts out into a
number of streamlets, all of different sizes. Having struggled, so to
speak, out of its confinement, it opens out into a broad basin, so clear
and transparent, that you may count the pebbles and little pieces of
money which are thrown into it.... The banks are clothed with an
abundance of ash and poplar, which are so distinctly reflected in the
clear water that they seem to be growing at the bottom of the river, and
can easily be counted.... Near it stands an ancient and venerable
temple, in which is a statue of the river-god Clitumnus."--_Pliny's
Letters_, by the Rev. A. Church and the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, 1872, p.
127.]
[449] {380} [The existing temple, now used as a chapel (St. Salvatore),
can hardly be Pliny's _templum priscum_. Hobhouse, in his _Historical
Illustrations_, pp. 37-41, defends the antiquity of the "facade, which
consists of a pediment supported by four columns and two Corinthian
piers, two of the columns with spiral fluting, the others covered with
fish-scaled carvings" (_Handbook for Central Italy_, p. 289); but in the
opinion of modern archaeologists the whole of the structure belongs to
the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era. It is, of course,
possible, indeed probable, that ancient materials were used when the
building was reconstructed. Pliny says the "numerous chapels" dedicated
to other deities were scattered round the shrine of Clitumnus.]
[nd] _Upon a green declivity_----.--[MS. M.]
[450] {381} ["On my way back [from Rome], close to the temple by its
banks, I got some famous trout out of the river Clitumnus, the prettiest
little stream in all poesy."--Letter to Murray, June 4, 1817.]
[ne] _There is a course where Lovers' evening tales_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[451] [By "disgust," a prosaic word which seems to mar a fine stanza,
Byron does not mean "distaste," aversion from the nauseous, but
"tastelessness," the inability to enjoy taste. Compare the French "Avoir
du degout pour la vie," "To be out of conceit with life." Byron was "a
lover of Nature," but it was seldom that he felt her "healing power," or
was able to lose himself in his surroundings. But now, for the moment,
he experiences that sudden uplifting of the spirit in the presence of
natural beauty which brings back "the splendour in the grass, the glory
in the flower!"]
[nf] {382} _Making it as an emerald_----.--[D.]
[ng] _Leaps on from rock to rock--with mighty bound_.--[MS. M.]
[452] {383} I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice, at different
periods--once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the
valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller
has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or
below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put
together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, etc.,
are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I
cannot speak, not yet having seen it.
[The Falls of Reichenbach are at Rosenlaui, between Grindelwald and
Meiringen; the Salanfe or Pisse-Vache descends into the valley of the
Rhone near Martigny; the Nant d'Arpenaz falls into the Arve near
Magland, on the road between Cluses and Sallanches.]
[453] Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the reader
will see a short account, in a note to _Manfred_.[Sec.1] The fall looks so
much like "the Hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded
to by the gulf in which Alecto[Sec.2] plunged into the infernal regions. It
is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be
artificial--this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is
strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little
lake called _Pie' di Lup_. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe
(Cicer., _Epist. ad Attic._, lib. iv. 15), and the ancient naturalists
["In lacu Velino nullo non die apparere arcus"] (Plin., _Hist. Nat._,
lib. ii. cap. lxii.), amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the
daily rainbows of the lake Velinus. A scholar of great name has devoted
a treatise to this district alone. See Ald. Manut., _De Reatina Urb
Agroque_, ap. Sallengre, _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, 1735, tom. i. p.773,
_sq._
[The "Falls of the Anio," which passed over a wall built by Sixtus V.,
and plunged into the Grotto of Neptune, were greatly diminished in
volume after an inundation which took place in 1826. The New Falls were
formed in 1834.]
[[Sec.1] _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 1, note. This Iris is formed by the rays of
the sun on the lower part of the Alpine torrents; it is exactly like a
rainbow come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into
it: this effect lasts till noon.]
[[Sec.2] "This is the gulf through which Virgil's Alecto shoots herself
into hell; for the very place, the great reputation of it, the fall of
waters, the woods that encompass it, with the smoke and noise that arise
from it, are all pointed at in the description ...
"'Est locus Italiae ...
... densis hunc frondibus atrum
Urguet utrimque latus nemoris, medioque fragosus
Dat sonitum saxis et torto vertice torrens.
Hic specus horrendum et saevi spiracula Ditis
Monstrantur, ruptoque ingens Acheronte vorago
Pestiferas aperit fauces.'
_AEneid_, vii. 563-570.
It was indeed the most proper place in the world for a Fury to make her
exit ... and I believe every reader's imagination is pleased when he
sees the angry Goddess thus sinking, as it were, in a tempest, and
plunging herself into Hell, amidst such a scene of horror and
confusion."--_Remarks on several Parts of Italy_, by Joseph Addison,
Esq., 1761, pp. 100. 101.
[nh] {385}
_Dares not ascend the summit_----
or, _Clothes a more rocky summit_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[454] In the greater part of Switzerland, the avalanches are known by
the name of lauwine.
[Byron is again at fault with his German. "Lawine" (see Schiller,
_Wilhelm Tell_, act iii. sc. 3) signifies an avalanche, not avalanches.
In stanza xii. line 7 a similar mistake occurs. It may seem strange
that, for the sake of local colouring, or for metrical purposes, he
should substitute a foreign equivalent which required a note, for a fine
word already in vogue. But in 1817 "avalanche" itself had not long been
naturalized. Fifty years before, the Italian _valanca_ and _valanche_
had found their way into books of travel, but "avalanche" appears first
(see _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Avalanche") in 1789, in Coxe's _Trav.
Switz._, xxxviii. ii. 3, and in poetry, perhaps, in Wordsworth's
_Descriptive Sketches_, which were written in 1791-2. Like "canon" and
"veldt" in our own day, it might be regarded as on probation. But the
fittest has survived, and Byron's unlovely and misbegotten "lauwine" has
died a natural death.]
[ni] _But I have seen the virgin Jungfrau rear_.--[D.]
[455] {386} These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign
Northerton's remarks, "D--n Homo," etc.;[Sec.] but the reasons for our
dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, that we become
tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by
rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and
the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the
didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand
the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life,
as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same
reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest
passages of Shakspeare ("To be or not to be," for instance), from the
habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an
exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so that when we are old enough to
enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of
the continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do
not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak
on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my
education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one
could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and
with reason;--a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my
life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury, was the best and
worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but
too well, though too late when I have erred,--and whose counsels I have
but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect
record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind
him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration--of
one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more
closely following his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his
instructor.
[[Sec.] "'Don't pretend to more ignorance than you have, Mr. Northerton; I
suppose you have heard of the Greeks and Trojans, though, perhaps, you
have never read Pope's Homer.'--'D--n Homer with all my heart,' says
Northerton: 'I have the marks of him ... yet. There's Thomas of our
regiment always carries a Homo in his pocket.'"--_The History of Tom
Jones_, by H. Fielding, vii. 12.]
[456] [The construction is somewhat involved, but the meaning is
obvious. As a schoolboy, the Horatian Muse could not tempt him to take
the trouble to construe Horace; and, even now, Soracte brings back
unwelcome memories of "confinement's lingering hour," say, "3 quarters
of an hour past 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 3rd school" (see _Life_, p.
28). Moore says that the "interlined translations" on Byron's
school-books are "a proof of the narrow extent of his classical
attainments." He must soon have made up for lost time, and "conquered
for the poet's sake," as numerous poetical translations from the
classics, including the episode of Nisus and Euryalus, evidently a
labour of love, testify. Nor, too, does the trouble he took and the
pride he felt in _Hints from Horace_ correspond with this profession of
invincible distaste.]
[nj] {388} _My mind to analyse_----.--[MS. M.]
[nk] _Yet such the inveterate impression_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[nl] ----_but what it then abhorred must still abhor_.--[MS. M.]
[nm] {389} ----_in her tearless woe_.--[MS. M.]
[457] [The tomb of the Scipios, by the Porta Latina, was discovered by
the brothers Sassi, in May, 1780. It consists of "several chambers
excavated in the tufa." One of the larger chambers contained the famous
sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of Scipio
Africanus, which is now in the Vatican in the Atrio Quadrate. When the
sarcophagus was opened, in 1780, the skeleton was found to be entire.
The bones were collected and removed by Angelo Quirini to his villa at
Padua. The chambers contained numerous inscriptions, which were detached
and removed to the Vatican. Hobhouse (_Hist. Illust_., pp. 169-171) is
at pains to point out that the discovery of 1780 confirmed the
authenticity of an inscription to Lucius, son of Barbatus Scipio, which
had been brought to light in 1615, and rejected by the Roman antiquaries
as a forgery. He prints two of the inscriptions (_Handbook for Rome_,
pp. 278, 350, 351, ed. 1899).]
[458] [The sepulchres were rifled, says Hobhouse (_ibid_., p. 173),
"either to procure the necessary relics for churches dedicated to
Christian saints or martyrs, or" (a likelier hypothesis) "with the
expectation of finding the ornaments ... buried with the dead. The
sarcophagi were sometimes transported from their site and emptied for
the reception of purer ashes." He instances those of Innocent II. and
Clement XII., "which were certainly constructed for heathen tenants."]
[459] {390} [The reference is to the historical inundations of the
Tiber, of which a hundred and thirty-two have been recorded from the
foundation of the city down to December, 1870, when the river rose to
fifty-six feet--thirty feet above its normal level.]
[460] [The Goths besieged and sacked Rome under Alaric, A.D. 410, and
Totila, 546. Other barbarian invaders--Genseric, a Vandal, 455; Ricimer,
a Sueve, 472; Vitiges, a Dalmatian, 537; Arnulph, a Lombard, 756--may
come under the head of "Goth." "The Christian," "from motives of
fanaticism"--Theodosius, for instance, in 426; and Stilicho, who burned
the Sibylline books--despoiled, mutilated, and pulled down temples.
Subsequently, popes, too numerous to mention, laid violent hands on the
temples for purposes of repair, construction, and ornamentation of
Christian churches. More than once ancient structures were converted
into cannon-balls. There were, too, Christian invaders and sackers of
Rome: Robert Guiscard (Hofmann calls him Wiscardus), in 1004; Frederic
Barbarossa, in 1167; the Connetable de Bourbon, in 1527, may be
instanced. "Time and War" speak for themselves. For "Flood," _vide
supra_. As for "Fire," during the years 1082-84 the Emperor Henry IV.
burnt "a great part of the Leonine city;" and Guiscard "burnt the town
from the Flaminian gate to the Antonine column, and laid waste the
Esquiline to the Lateran; thence he set fire to the region from that
church to the Coliseum and the Capitol." Of earthquakes Byron says
nothing; but there were earthquakes, e.g. in 422 and 1349. Another foe,
a destroying angel who "wasteth at noonday," modern improvement, had not
yet opened a seventh seal. (See _Historical Illustrations_, pp.
91-168.)]
[nn] {391} _She saw her glories one by one expire_.--[MS. M.]
[461] [Compare Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_, "Prophecy of Capys,"
stanza xxx.--
"Blest and thrice blest the Roman
Who sees Rome's brightest day,
Who sees that long victorious pomp
Wind down the Sacred Way,
And through the bellowing Forum,
And round the Suppliant's Grove,
Up to the everlasting gates
Of Capitolian Jove."]
[no] _The double night of Ruin_----.--[MS. M.]
[462] [The construction is harsh and puzzling. Apparently the subject of
"hath wrapt" is the "double night of ages;" the subjects of "wrap," the
"night of ages" and the "night of Ignorance;" but, even so, the sentence
is ambiguous. Not less amazing is the confusion of metaphors. Rome is a
"desert," through which we steer, mounted, presumably, on a camel--the
"ship of the desert." Mistaken associations are, as it were,
stumbling-blocks; and no sooner have we verified an association,
discovered a ruined temple in the exact site which Livy's "pictured
page" has assigned to it--a discovery as welcome to the antiquarian as
water to the thirsty traveller--than our theory is upset, and we
perceive that we have been deluded by a mirage.]
[463] {392} Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs [i.e. from
Romulus to the double triumph of Vespasian and Titus (_Hist._, vii. 9)].
He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern
writers.
[np]
_Alas, for Tully's voice, and Titus' sway_
_And Virgil's verse; the first and last must be_
_Her Resurrection_----.--[MS. M.]
[464] Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla,
alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed
by any admirable quality. The _atonement_ of his voluntary resignation
of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied
the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There
could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought,
like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and
that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of
soul.--("Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idees, de la facon dont je
vous vois agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucun
amour pour la gloire; je voyois bien que votre ame etoit haute; mais je
ne soupconnois pas qu'elle fut grande."--_Dialogue de Sylla et
d'Eucrate_.) _Considerations ... de la Grandeur des Romains, etc._,
Paris, 1795, ii. 219. By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.
[Stanza lxxxiii. indicates the following events in the life of Sulla. In
B.C. 81 he assumed the name of Felix (or, according to Plutarch,
Epaphroditus, Plut, _Vitae_, 1812, iv. 287), (line 1). Five years before
this, B.C. 86, during the consulship of Marius and Cinna, his party had
been overthrown, and his regulations annulled; but he declined to return
to Italy until he had brought the war against Mithridates to a
successful conclusion, B.C. 83 (lines 3-6). In B.C. 81 he was appointed
dictator (line 7), and B.C. 79 he resigned his dictatorship and retired
into private life (line 9).]
[nq] {394}
----_how supine_
_Into such dust deserted Rome should fade,_
or, _In self-woven sackcloth Rome should thus be laid_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[nr]
_The Earth beneath her shadow and displayed_
_Her wings as with the horizon and was hailed,_
or, _The rushings of his wings and was Almighty hailed_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ns]
_Sylla supreme of Victors--save our own_
_The ablest of Usurpers--Cromwell--he_
_Who swept off Senates--while he hewed the Throne_
_Down to a block--immortal Villain! See_
_What crimes, etc_.--[MS. M.]
[465] On the 3rd of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar
[1650]; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester
[1651]; and a few years after [1658], on the same day, which he had ever
esteemed the most fortunate for him, died.
[466] {395} [The statue of Pompey in the Sala dell' Udinanza of the
Palazzo Spada is no doubt a portrait, and belongs to the close of the
Republican period. It cannot, however, with any certainty be identified
with the statue in the Curia, at whose base "great Caesar fell." (See
_Antike Bildwerke in Rom._, F. Matz, F. von Duhn, i. 309.)]
[467] {396} [The bronze "Wolf of the Capitol" in the Palace of the
Conservators is unquestionably ancient, belonging to the end of the
sixth or beginning of the fifth century B.C., and probably of
Graeco-Italian workmanship. The twins, as Winckelmann pointed out (see
Hobhouse's _note_), are modern, and were added under the impression that
this was the actual bronze described by Cicero, _Cat._, iii. 8, and
Virgil, _AEn._, viii. 631. (See _Monuments de l'Art Antique_, par Olivier
Rayet, Paris, 1884, Livraison II, Planche 7.)]
[468] [The Roman "things" whom the world feared, set the fashion of
shedding their blood in the pursuit of glory. The nations, of modern
Europe, "bastard" Romans, have followed their example.]
[469] {397} [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, v.--"The king of kings, and
yet of slaves the slave."]
[470] [In _Comparison of the Present State of France with that of Rome_,
etc., published in the _Morning Post_, September 21, 1802, Coleridge
speaks of Buonaparte as the "new Caesar," but qualifies the expression in
a note: "But if reserve, if darkness, if the employment of spies and
informers, if an indifference to all religions, except as instruments of
state policy, with a certain strange and dark superstition respecting
fate, a blind confidence in his destinies,--if these be any part of the
Chief Consul's character, they would force upon us, even against our
will, the name and history of Tiberius."--_Essays on His Own Times_, ii.
481.]
[471] [According to Suetonius, i. 37, the famous words, _Veni Vidi,
Vici_, were blazoned on litters in the triumphal procession which
celebrated Caesar's victory over Pharnaces II., after the battle of Zela
(B.C. 47).]
[472] {398} [By "flee" in the "Gallic van," Byron means "fly towards,
not away from, the foe." He was, perhaps, thinking of the Biblical
phrases, "flee like a bird" (_Ps_. xi. 1), and "flee upon horses"
(_Isa_. xxx. 16); but he was not careful to "tame down" words to his own
use and purpose.]
[nt] _Of pettier passions which raged angrily_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[nu] _At what? can he reply? his lusting is unnamed_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[nv] ----_How oft--how long, oh God!_--[MS. M. erased.]
[473] {399} ----"Omnes poene veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percipi,
nihil sciri posse dixerunt; augustos sensus, imbecillos animos, brevia
curricula vitar, et (ut Democritus) in profundo veritatem esse demersam;
opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui:
deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt."--_Academ._, lib. I.
cap. 12. The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero
wrote this, have not removed any of the imperfections of humanity: and
the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or
affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday.
[474] [Compare Gray's _Elegy_, stanza xv.--
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear."]
[nw] _And thus they sleep in some dull certainty_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[475] [Compare _As You Like It_, act ii. sc. 7, lines 26-28--
"And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale."]
[nx] {400}
_For such existence is as much to die_.--[MS. M. erased.]
or, _Bequeathing their trampled natures till they die_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[476] [In his speech _On the Continuance of the War with France_, which
Pitt delivered in the House of Commons, February 17, 1800, he described
Napoleon as "the child and champion of Jacobinism." At least the phrase
occurs in the report which Coleridge prepared for the _Morning Post_ of
February 18, 1800, and it appears in the later edition in the Collection
of Pitt's speeches. "It does not occur in the speech as reported by the
_Times_." It is curious that in the jottings which Coleridge,
Parliamentary reporter _pro hac vice_, scrawled in pencil in his
note-book, the phrase appears as "the nursling and champion of
Jacobinism;" and it is possible that the alternative of the more
rhetorical but less forcible "child" was the poet's handiwork. It became
a current phrase, and Coleridge more than once reverts to it in the
articles which he contributed to the _Morning Post_ in 1802. (See
_Essays on His Own Times_, ii. 293, and iii. 1009-1019; and _Letters of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 1895, i. 327, note.)]
[ny] {401} _Deep in the lone Savannah_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[nz] _Too long hath Earth been drunk with blood and crime_.--[MS. M.
erased.]
[oa]
_Her span of freedom hath but fatal been_
_To that of any coming age or clime_.--[MS. M.]
[477] {402} [By the "base pageant" Byron refers to the Congress of
Vienna (September, 1815); the "Holy Alliance" (September 26), into which
the Duke of Wellington would not enter; and the Second Treaty of Paris,
November 20, 1815.]
[478] [Compare Shelley's _Hellas: Poems_, 1895, ii. 358--
"O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime,
Killing its flowers, and leaving its thorns bare!"]
[479] [Shelley chose the first two lines of this stanza as the motto for
his _Ode to Liberty_.]
[480] Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Capo di Bove.
[Four words, and two initials, compose the whole of the transcription
which, whatever was its ancient position, is now placed in front of this
towering sepulchre: "CAECILIAE. Q. CRETICI. F. METELLAE. CRASSI."
"The Savelli family were in possession of the fortress in 1312, and the
German army of Henry VII. marched from Rome, attacked, took, and burnt
it, but were unable to make themselves, by force, masters of the
citadel--that is, the tomb." The "fence of stone" refers to the
quadrangular basement of concrete, on which the circular tower rests.
The tower was originally coated with marble, which was stripped off for
the purpose of making lime. The work of destruction is said to have been
carried out during the interval between Poggio's (see his _De Fort.
Var._, ap. Sall., _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, 1735, i. 501, _sq._) first and
second visits to Rome. (See Hobhouse's _Hist. Illust._, pp. 202, 203;
_Handbook for Rome_, p. 360.)]
[ob] {403} _So massily begirt--what lay?_----.--[MS. M.]
[oc] {404} _Love from her duties--still a conqueress in the war_.--[MS.
M. erased.]
[481]
[Greek: On oi(theoi\ philou~sin a)pothne/skei ne/os]
[Greek: To\ ga\r thanei~n ou)ch ai)schro\n, a)ll' ai)schro~s thanei~n].
_Gnomici Poetae Graeci_, R. F. P. Brunck, 1784, p. 231.
[482] {405} ["It is more likely to have been the pride than the love of
Crassus which raised so superb a memorial to a wife whose name is not
mentioned in history, unless she be supposed to be that lady whose
intimacy with Dolabella was so offensive to Tullia, the daughter of
Cicero, or she who was divorced by Lentulus Spinther, or she, perhaps
the same person, from whose ear the son of AEsopus transferred a precious
jewel to enrich his daughter (_vide_ Hor., _Sat._, ii. 3. 239)" (_Hist.
Illust._, p. 200). The wealth of Crassus was proverbial, as his
_agnomen_, Dives, testifies (Plut., _Crassus_, ii., iii., Lipsiae, 1813,
v. 156, _sq._).]
[od] {406}
_Till I had called forth even from the mind_.--[MS. M. erased.]
----_with heated mind_.--[MS. M.]
[oe] _I have no home_----.--[MS. M.]
[483] {407} [Compare Rogers's _Italy:_ "Rome" (_Poems_, 1852), ii. 169--
"Or climb the Palatine,
* * * * *
Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness; and inscribe my name--
My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf
That shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,
When his voice faltered and a mother wept
Tears of delight!"[Sec.]
And compare Shelley's _Poetical Works_, 1895, iii. 276--
"Rome has fallen; ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying."]
[Sec.] [At the words _Tu Marcellus eris, etc_. (_vide_ Tib. Cl. Donatus,
_Life of Virgil_ (Virg., _Opera_), Leeuwarden, 1627, vol. i.).]
[of]
----_wherein have creeped_
_The Reptiles which_.----
or, _Scorpion and blindworm_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[484] The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side
towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled
brickwork. Nothing has been told--nothing can be told--to satisfy the
belief of any but the Roman antiquary. [The Palatine was the site of the
successive "Domus" of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, and of the
_Domus Transitoria_ of Nero, which perished when Rome was burnt. Later
emperors--Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius Severus--added to the splendour
of the name-giving Palatine. "The troops of Genseric," says Hobhouse
(_Hist. Illust._, p. 206), "occupied the Palatine, and despoiled it of
all its riches... and when it again rises, it rises in ruins."
Systematic excavations during the last fifty years have laid bare much
that was hidden, and "learning and research" have in parts revealed the
"obliterated plan;" but, in 1817, the "shapeless mass of ruins" defied
the guesses of antiquarians. "Your walks in the Palatine ruins ... will
be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the
brambles in the corridors, or burst unawares through the hole of some
shivered fragments into one of the half-buried chambers, which the
peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jackasses, or as
huts for those who watch the gardens" (_Hist. Illust._, p. 212).]
[485] {408} The author of the _Life of Cicero_, speaking of the opinion
entertained of Britain by that orator and his contemporary Romans, has
the following eloquent passage:--"From their railleries of this kind, on
the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on
the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how Rome, once the
mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies
sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty; enslaved to the most cruel as
well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and religious
imposture; while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of
the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and
letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet
running, perhaps, the same course which Rome itself had run before it,
from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to
an impatience of discipline and corruption of morals: till, by a total
degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall
a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty,
losing everything that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its
original barbarism." (See _Life of M. Tullius Cicero_, by Conyers
Middleton, D.D., 1823, sect. vi. vol. i. pp. 399, 400.)
[og] {409} _Oh, ho, ho, ho--thou creature of a Man_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[oh]
_And show of Glory's gewgaws in the van_
_And the Sun's rays with flames more dazzling filled_.--[MS. M.]
[486] [The "golden roofs" were those of Nero's _Domus Aurea_, which
extended from the north-west corner of the Palatine to the Gardens of
Maecenas, on the Esquiline, spreading over the sites of the Temple of
Vesta and Rome on the platform of the Velia, the Colosseum, and the
Thermae of Titus, as far as the Sette Sale. "In the fore court was the
colossal statue of Nero. The pillars of the colonnade, which measured a
thousand feet in length, stood three deep. All that was not lake, or
wood, or vineyard, or pasture, was overlaid with plates of gold, picked
out with gems and mother-of-pearl" (Suetonius, vi. 31; Tacitus, _Ann._,
xv. 42). Substructions of the _Domus Aurea_ have been discovered on the
site of the Baths of Titus and elsewhere, but not on the Palatine
itself. Martial, _Epig._ 695 (_Lib. Spect._, ii.), celebrates
Vespasian's restitution of the _Domus Aurea_ and its "policies" to the
people of Rome.
"Hic ubi sidereus propius videt astra colossus
Et crescunt media pegmata celsa via,
Invidiosa feri radiabant atria regis
Unaque jam tola stabat in urbe domus."
"Here where the Sun-god greets the Morning Star,
And tow'ring scaffolds block the public way,
Fell Nero's loathed pavilion flashed afar,
Erect and splendid 'mid the town's decay."]
[487] {410} [By the "nameless" column Byron means the column of Phocas,
in the Forum. But, as he may have known, it had ceased to be nameless
when he visited Rome in 1817. During some excavations which were carried
out under the auspices of the Duchess of Devonshire, in 1813, the soil
which concealed the base was removed, and an inscription, which
attributes the erection of the column to the Exarch Smaragdus, in honour
of the Emperor Phocas, A.D. 608, was brought to light. The column was
originally surmounted by a gilded statue, but it is probable that both
column and statue were stolen from earlier structures and rededicated to
Phocas. Hobhouse (_Hist. Illust._, pp. 240-242) records the discovery,
and prints the inscription _in extenso._]
[oi] ----_all he doth deface_.--[MS. M.]
[488] The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Aurelius
by St. Paul. (See _Hist. Illust._, p. 214.)
[The column was excavated by Paul III. in the sixteenth century. In 1588
Sixtus V. replaced the bronze statue of Trajan holding a gilded globe,
which had originally surmounted the column, by a statue of St. Peter, in
gilt bronze. The legend was that Trajan's ashes were contained in the
globe. They are said to have been deposited by Hadrian in a golden urn
in a vault under the column. It is certain that when Sixtus V. opened
the chamber he found it empty. A medal was cast in honour of the
erection of the new statue, inscribed with the words of the Magnificat,
"_Exaltavit humiles_."]
[489] {411} Trajan was _proverbially_ the best of the Roman princes; and
it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite
characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed
to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion,
"he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none
of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction;
he honoured all the good, and he advanced them: and on this account they
could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened
to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from
unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man
than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful
to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with
dread but the enemies of his country." (See Eutrop., _Hist. Rom. Brev._
lib. viii. cap. v.; Dion, _Hist. Rom._, lib. lxiii. caps, vi., vii.)
[M. Ulpius Trajanus (A.D. 52-117) celebrated a triumph over the Dacians
in 103 and 106. It is supposed that the column which stands at the north
end of the Forum Trajanum commemorated the Dacian victories. In 115-16
he conquered the Parthians, and added the province of Armenia Minor to
the empire. It was not, however, an absolute or a final victory. The
little desert stronghold of Atrae, or Hatra, in Mesopotamia, remained
uncaptured; and, instead of incorporating the Parthians in the empire,
he thought it wiser to leave them to be governed by a native prince
under the suzerainty of Rome. His conquests were surrendered by Hadrian,
and henceforth the tide of victory began to ebb. He died on his way back
to Rome, at Selinus, in Cilicia, in August, 117.
Trajan's "moderation was known unto all men." Pliny, in his
_Panegyricus_ (xxii.), describes his first entry into Rome. He might
have assumed the state of a monarch or popular hero, but he walked
afoot, conspicuous, pre-eminent, a head and shoulders above the crowd--a
triumphal entry; but it was imperial arrogance, not civil liberty, over
which he triumphed. "You were our king," he says, "and we your subjects;
but we obeyed you as the embodiment of our laws." Martial (_Epig._, x.
72) hails him not as a tyrant, but an emperor--yea, more than an
emperor--as the most righteous of lawgivers and senators, who had
brought back plain Truth to the light of day; and Claudian (viii. 318)
maintains that his glory will live, not because the Parthians had been
annexed, but because he was "mitis patriae." The divine honours which he
caused to be paid to his adopted father, Nerva, he refused for himself.
"For just reasons," says Pliny, "did the Senate and people of Rome
assign thee the name and title of Optimus." Another honour awaited him:
"Il est seul Empereur," writes M. De La Berge, "dont les restes aient
repose dans l'enceinte de la ville Eternelle." (See Pliny's
_Panegyricus, passim;_ and _Essai sur le regne de Trajan_, Bibliotheque
de L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1877.)]
[490] {412} [The archaeologists of Byron's day were unable to fix the
exact site of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline.
"On which side," asks Hobhouse (_Hist. Illust._, p. 224), "stood the
citadel, on what the great temple of the Capitol; and did the temple
stand in the citadel?" Excavations which were carried on in 1876-7 by
Professors Jordan and Lanciani enabled them to identify with "tolerable
certainty" the site of the central temple and its adjacent wings, with
the site of the Palazzo Caffarelli and its dependencies which occupy the
south-east section of the Mons Capitolinus. There are still, however,
rival Tarpeian Rocks--one (in the Vicolo della Rupe Tarpea) on the
western edge of the hill facing the Tiber, and the other (near the Casa
Tarpea) on the south-east towards the Palatine. But if Dionysius, who
describes the "Traitor's Leap" as being in sight of the Forum, is to be
credited, the "actual precipice" from which traitors (and other
criminals, e.g. "bearers of false witness") were thrown must have been
somewhere on the southern and now less precipitous escarpment of the
mount.]
[oj] {413} _The State Leucadia_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[491] [M. Manlius, who saved the Capitol from the Gauls in B.C. 390, was
afterwards (B.C. 384) arraigned on a charge of high treason by the
patricians, condemned, and by order of the tribunes thrown down the
Tarpeian Rock. Livy (vi. 20) credits him with a "foeda cupiditas
regni"--a "depraved ambition for assuming the kingly power."]
[ok]
_There first did Tully's burning accents glow?_
_Yes--eloquently still--the echoes tell me so_.--[D.]
[492] [Compare Gray's _Odes_, "The Progress of Poesy," iii. 3, line
4--"Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."]
[493] {414} [Nicolas Gabrino di' Rienzo, or Rienzi, commonly called Cola
di' Rienzi, was born in 1313. The son of a Roman innkeeper, he owed his
name and fame to his own talents and natural gifts. His mission, or,
perhaps, ambition, was to free Rome from the tyranny and oppression of
the great nobles, and to establish once more "the good estate," that is,
a republic. This for a brief period Rienzi accomplished. On May 20,
1347, he was proclaimed tribune and liberator of the Holy Roman Republic
"by the authority of the most merciful Lord Jesus Christ." Of great
parts, and inspired by lofty aims, he was a poor creature at heart--a
"bastard" Napoleon--and success seems to have turned his head. After
eight months of royal splendour, purchased by more than royal exactions,
the tide of popular feeling turned against him, and he was forced to
take refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo (December 15, 1347). Years of
wandering and captivity followed his first tribunate; but at length, in
1354, he was permitted to return to Rome, and, once again, after a rapid
and successful reduction of the neighbouring states, he became the chief
power in the state. But an act of violence, accompanied by treachery,
and, above all, the necessity of imposing heavier taxes than the city
could bear, roused popular discontent; and during a revolt (October 8,
1354), after a dastardly attempt to escape and conceal himself, he was
recognized by the crowd and stabbed to death.
Petrarch first made his acquaintance in 1340, when he was summoned to
Rome to be crowned as poet laureate. Afterwards, when Rienzi was
imprisoned at Avignon, Petrarch interceded on his behalf with the pope,
but, for a time, in vain. He believed in and shared his enthusiasms; and
it is probable that the famous Canzone, "Spirto gentil, che quelle
membra reggi," was addressed to the Last of the Tribunes.
Rienzi's story forms the subject of a tragedy by Gustave Drouineau,
which was played at the Odeon, January 28, 1826; of Bulwer Lytton's
novel _The Last of the Tribunes_, which was published in 1835; and of an
opera (1842) by Richard Wagner.
(See _Encyc. Met._, art. "Rome," by Professor Villari; La Rousse, _G.
Dict. Univ._, art. "Rienzi;" and a curious pamphlet by G. W. Meadley,
London, 1821, entitled _Two Pairs of Historical Portraits_, in which an
attempt is made to trace a minute resemblance between the characters and
careers of Rienzi and the First Napoleon.)]
[494] {415} [The word "nympholepsy" may be paraphrased as "ecstatic
vision." The Greeks feigned that one who had seen a nymph was henceforth
possessed by her image, and beside himself with longing for an
impossible ideal. Compare stanza cxxii. line 7--"The unreached Paradise
of our despair." Compare, too, _Kubla Khan_, lines 52, 53--
"For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."]
[ol] _The lovely madness of some fond despair_.--[MS. M.]
[495] {416} [Byron is describing the so-called Grotto of Egeria, which
is situated a little to the left of the Via Appia, about two miles to
the south-east of the Porta di Sebastiano: "Here, beside the Almo
rivulet [now the Maranna d. Caffarella], is a ruined nymphaeum ... which
was called the 'Grotto of Egeria,' till ... the discovery of the true
site of the Porta Capena fixed that of the grotto within the walls....
It is now known that this nymphaeum ... belonged to the suburban villa
called Triopio of Herodes Atticus." The actual site of Egeria's fountain
is in the grounds of the Villa Mattei, to the south-east of the Caelian,
and near the Porta Metronia. "It was buried, in 1867, by the military
engineers, while building their new hospital near S. Stefano Rotondo"
(Prof. Lanciani).
In lines 5-9 Byron is recalling Juvenal's description of the valley of
Egeria, under the mistaken impression that here, and not by "dripping
Capena," was the trysting-place of Numa and the goddess. Juvenal has
accompanied the seer Umbritius, who was leaving Rome for Capua, as far
as the Porta Capena; and while the one waggon, with its slender store of
goods, is being loaded, the friends take a stroll--
"In vallem Egeriae; descendimus et speluncas
Dissimiles veris. Quanto praestantius esset
Numen aquae, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum?"
_Sat._ I. iii. 17-20.
The grove and shrine of the sacred fountain, which had been let to the
Jews (lines 13-16), are not to be confounded with the "artificial
caverns" near Herod's Nymphaeum, which Juvenal thought were in bad taste,
and Byron rejoiced to find reclaimed and reclothed by Nature.]
[496] {417} [Compare Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_, act iv. (_Poetical
Works_, 1893, ii. 97)--
"As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds."]
[497] {418} [Compare _Kubla Khan_, lines 12, 13--
"But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!"]
[498] [Compare _Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 1, line 292--"This most excellent
canopy the Air."]
[om]
_Feel the quick throbbing of a human heart_
_And the sweet sorrows of its deathless dying_.--[MS. M. erased.]
or, _And the sweet sorrow which exults in dying_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[on] {419}
_Oh Love! thou art no habitant of Earth_
_An unseen Seraph we believe in thee_
_And can point out thy time and place of birth_.--[D. erased.]
[499] [M. Darmesteter traces the sentiment to a maxim (No. 76) of La
Rochefoucauld: "Il est du veritable amour comme de l'apparition des
esprits: tout le monde en parle, mais pen de gens en out vu."]
[500] {420} [Compare Dryden on Shaftesbury (_Absalom and Achitophel_,
pt. i. lines 156-158)--
"A fiery soul which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay."]
[501] [The Romans had more than one proverb to this effect; e.g.
"Amantes Amentes sunt" (_Adagia Veterum_, 1643, p. 52); "Amare et sapere
vix Deo conceditur" (Syri _Sententiae_. 1818, p. 5).]
[oo] {421} _For all are visions with a separate name_.--[D. erased.]
[502] [Circumstance is personified as halting Nemesis--"Pede poena
claudo." Hor., _Odes_, III. ii. 32.
Perhaps, too, there is the underlying thought of his own lameness, of
Mary Chaworth, and of all that might have been, if the "unspiritual God"
had willed otherwise.]
[503] {422} [Compare Milton's _Samson Agonistes_, lines 617-621--
"My griefs not only pain me
As a lingering disease,
But, finding no redress, ferment and rage;
Nor less than wounds immedicable
Rankle."]
[504] "At all events," says the author of the _Academical Questions_
[Sir William Drummond], "I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own
speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought
to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the
theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of
Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then
forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in
the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices?
This is not the way to defend the cause of truth. It was not thus that
our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history.
Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of
time, while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into
a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself.
Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other: he, who will not
reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is
a slave."--Vol. i. pp. xiv., xv.
[For Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 79, note
3. Byron advised Lady Blessington to read _Academical Questions_ (1805),
and instanced the last sentence of this passage "as one of the best in
our language" (_Conversations_, pp. 238, 239).]
[505] {423} [Compare _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 4, lines 24, 25--
"But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears."]
[506] [Compare _The Deformed Transformed_, act i. sc. 2, lines 49, 50--
"Those scarce mortal arches,
Pile above pile of everlasting wall."
The first, second, and third stories of the Flavian amphitheatre or
Colosseum were built upon arches. Between the arches, eighty to each
story or tier, stood three-quarter columns. "Each tier is of a different
order of architecture, the lowest being a plain Roman Doric, or perhaps,
rather, Tuscan, the next Ionic, and the third Corinthian." The fourth
story, which was built by the Emperor Gordianus III., A.D. 244, to take
the place of the original wooden gallery (_manianum summum in ligneis_),
which was destroyed by lightning, A.D. 217, was a solid wall faced with
Corinthian pilasters, and pierced by forty square windows or openings.
It has been conjectured that the alternate spaces between the pilasters
were decorated with ornamental metal shields. The openings of the outer
arches of the second and third stories were probably decorated with
statues. The reverse of an _aureus_ of the reign of Titus represents the
Colosseum with these statues and a quadriga in the centre. About
one-third of the original structure remains _in situ_. The prime agent
of destruction was probably the earthquake ("Petrarch's earthquake") of
September, 1349, when the whole of the western side fell towards the
Caelian, and gave rise to a hill or rather to a chain of hills of loose
blocks of travertine and tufa, which supplied Rome with building
materials for subsequent centuries. As an instance of wholesale
spoliation or appropriation, Professor Lanciani refers to "a document
published by Muentz, in the _Revue Arch._, September, 1876," which
"certifies that one contractor alone, in the space of only nine months,
in 1452, could carry off 2522 cartloads" of travertine (Smith's _Dict.
of Gr. and Rom. Ant._, art. "Amphitheatrum;" _Ruins and Excavations of
Ancient Rome_, by R. Lanciani, 1897, p. 375).]
[507] {424} [For a description of the Colosseum by moonlight, see
Goethe's letter from Rome, February 2, 1787 (_Travels in Italy_, 1883,
p. 159): "Of the beauty of a walk through Rome by moonlight, it is
impossible to form a conception ... Peculiarly beautiful at such a time
is the Coliseum." See, too, _Corinne, ou L'Italie_, xv. 4, 1819, iii.
32--
"Ce n'est pas connaitre l'impression du Colisee que de ne l'avoir vu que
de jour ... la lune est l'astre des ruines. Quelque fois, a travers les
ouvertures de l'amphitheatre, qui semble s'elever jusqu'aux nues, une
partie de la voute du ciel parait comme un rideau d'un bleu sombre place
derriere l'edifice."
For a fine description of the Colosseum by starlight, see _Manfred_, act
iii. sc. 4, lines 8-13.]
[508] {425} [When Byron visited Rome, and for long afterwards, the ruins
of the Colosseum were clad with a multitude of shrubs and wild flowers.
Books were written on the "Flora of the Coliseum," which were said to
number 420 species. But, says Professor Lanciani, "These materials for a
_hortus siccus_, so dear to the visitors of our ruins, were destroyed by
Rosa in 1871, and the ruins scraped and shaven clean, it being feared by
him that the action of roots would accelerate the disintegration of the
great structure." If Byron had lived to witness these activities, he
might have devoted a stanza to the "tender mercies" of this zealous
archaeologist.]
[509] {426} [The whole of this appeal to Nemesis (stanzas
cxxx.-cxxxviii.) must be compared with the "Domestic Poems" of 1816, the
Third Canto of _Childe Harold_ (especially stanzas lxix.-lxxv., and
cxi.-cxviii.), and with the "Invocation" in the first act of _Manfred_.
It has been argued that Byron inserted these stanzas with the deliberate
purpose of diverting sympathy from his wife to himself. The appeal, no
doubt, is deliberate, and the plea is followed by an indictment, but the
sincerity of the appeal is attested by its inconsistency. Unlike
Orestes, who slew his mother to avenge his father, he will not so deal
with the "moral Clytemnestra of her lord," requiting murder by murder,
but is resolved to leave the balancing of the scale to the omnipotent
Time-spirit who rights every wrong and will redress his injuries. But in
making answer to his accusers he outruns Nemesis, and himself enacts the
part of a "moral" Orestes. It was true that his hopes were "sapped" and
"his name blighted," and it was natural, if not heroic, first to
persuade himself that his suffering exceeded his fault, that he was more
sinned against than sinning, and, so persuaded, to take care that he
should not suffer alone. The general purport of plea and indictment is
plain enough, but the exact interpretation of his phrases, the
appropriation of his dark sayings, belong rather to the biography of the
poet than to a commentary on his poems. (For Lady Byron's comment on the
"allusions" to herself in _Childe Harold, vide ante_, p. 288, note 1.)]
[op] {427} _Or for my fathers' faults_-----.-[MS. M.]
[oq] {428}
'tis not that now
And if my voice break forth--{-it is not that-}
I shrink from what is suffered--let him speak
decline upon my
Who {-humbler in-}
{-What-} hath beheld {-me quiver on my-} brow
seen my mind's convulsion leave it {-blenched or-} weak?
Or {-my internal spirit changed or weak-}
{-found my mind convulsed-}
a
But in this page {-the-} record {-which-} I seek
will
{-from out of the deep-}
{-stands and-} {-of that remorse-}
{-Shall stand and when that hour shall come and come-}
{-Shall come--though I be ashes--and shall pile heap-}
{-It will-} {-come and wreak-}
{-In fire the measure-}
{-The fiery prophecy-}
{-The fullness of my-}
{-The fullness of my prophecy or heap-}
{-The mountain of my curse-}
Not in the air shall these my words disperse
{-'Tis written that an hour of deep remorse-}
Though I be ashes {-a deep-} far hour shall wreak
{-The fullness Thee-} this
The deep prophetic fullness of {-my-} verse
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse.--[MS. M.]
[or] {429}
If to forgive be "heaping coals of Fire"
As God hath spoken--on the heads of foes
Mine should lie a Volcano-and rise higher
Than o'er the Titans crushed Olympus rose
Than Athos soars, or blazing AEtna glows:
True--they who stung were petty things--but what
Than serpent's sting produce more deadly throes.
The Lion may be tortured by the Gnat--
Who sucks the slumberer's blood--the Eagle? no, the Bat.[Sec.]--
[MS. M.]
[Sec.] [The "Bat" was "a sobriquet by which Lady Caroline Lamb was well
known in London society." An Italian translation of her novel,
_Glenarvon_, was at this time in the press at Venice (see letter to
Murray, August 7, 1817), and it is probable that Byron, who declined to
interdict its publication, took his revenge in a petulant stanza, which,
on second thoughts, he decided to omit. (See note by Mr. Richard
Edgcumbe, _Notes and Queries_ eighth series, 1895, viii. 101.)]
[510] [Compare "Lines on hearing that Lady Byron was ill," lines 53-55.]
[511] {431} Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a
laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winckelmann's criticism, has
been stoutly maintained; or whether it be a Greek herald, as that great
antiquary positively asserted;[Sec.] or whether it is to be thought a
Spartan or barbarian shieldbearer, according to the opinion of his
Italian editor; it must assuredly seem _a copy_ of that masterpiece of
Ctesilaus which represented "a wounded man dying, who perfectly
expressed what there remained of life in him." Montfaucon and Maffei
thought it the identical statue; but that statue was of bronze. The
Gladiator was once in the Villa Ludovisi, and was bought by Clement XII.
The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo.
[There is no doubt that the statue of the "Dying Gladiator" represents a
dying Gaul. It is to be compared with the once-named "Arria and Paetus"
of the Villa Ludovisi, and with other sculptures in the museums of
Venice, Naples, and Rome, representing "Gauls and Amazons lying fatally
wounded, or still in the attitude of defending life to the last," which
belong to the Pergamene school of the second century B.C. M. Collignon
hazards a suggestion that the "Dying Gaul" is the trumpet-sounder of
Epigonos, in which, says Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, xxxiv. 88), the sculptor
surpassed all his previous works ("omnia fere praedicta imitatus
praecessit in tubicine"); while Dr. H. S. Urlichs (see _The Elder Pliny's
Chapters on the History of Art_, translated by K. Jex-Blake, with
Commentary and Historical Illustrations, by E. Sellers, 1896, p. 74,
note) falls back on Winckelmann's theory that the "statue ... may have
been simply the votive-portrait of the winner in the contest of heralds,
such as that of Archias of Hybla in Delphoi." (See, too, Helbig's _Guide
to the Collection of Public Antiquities in Rome_, Engl. transl., 1895.
i. 399; _History of Greek Sculpture_, by A. S. Murray, L.L.D., F.S.A.,
1890, ii. 381-383.)]
[Sec.] Either Polyphontes, herald of Laius, killed by Oedipus; or Kopreas,
herald of Eurystheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to
drag the Heraclidae from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they
instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or
Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never
recovered the impiety. [See _Hist, of Ancient Art_, translated by G. H.
Lodge, 1881, ii. 207.]
[os] Leaning upon his hand, his mut[e] brow Yielding to death but
conquering agony.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ot] {432} _From the red gash fall bigly_----.--[MS. M.]
[ou] _Like the last of a thunder-shower_----.--[MS. M.]
[ov] _The earth swims round him_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ow] {433} _Slaughtered to make a Roman holiday_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ox] _Was death and life_----.--[MS. M.]
[oy] _My voice is much_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[oz] _Yet the colossal skeleton ye pass_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pa] {434} _The ivy-forest, which its walls doth wear_.--[MS. M.
erased.]
[512] Suetonius [Lib. i. cap. xlv.] informs us that Julius Caesar was
particularly gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to
wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious not to show
that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. A
stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed at the motive, nor should we
without the help of the historian.
[pb] _The Hero race who trod--the imperial dust ye tread_.--[MS. M.
erased.]
[513] This is quoted in the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, as a
proof that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon
pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth,
century. A notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the _Historical
Illustrations_, p. 263.
["'Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Colyseus, cadet
Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.' (Beda in 'Excerptis seu
Collectaneis,' apud Ducange, _Glossarium ad Scriptores Med., et Infimae
Latinitatis_, tom. ii. p. 407, edit. Basil.) This saying must be
ascribed to the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome before the year
735, the aera of Bede's death; for I do not believe that our venerable
monk ever passed the sea."--Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, 1855, viii. 281, note.]
[514] {435} "Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which
was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated
fires; though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the
rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so well preserved as this
rotundo. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the
present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian
altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced
their design as a model in the Catholic church."--Forsyth's _Italy_,
1816, p. 137.
[The Pantheon consists of two parts, a porch or _pronaos_ supported by
sixteen Corinthian columns, and behind it, but "obviously disjointed
from it," a rotunda or round temple, 143 feet high, and 142 feet in
diameter. The inscription on the portico (M. AGRIPPA, L. F. Cos.
tertium. Fecit.) affirms that the temple was built by Agrippa (M.
Vipsanius), B.C. 27.
It has long been suspected that with regard to the existing building the
inscription was "historically and artistically misleading;" but it is
only since 1892 that it has been known for certain (from the stamp on
the bricks in various parts of the building) that the rotunda was built
by Hadrian. Difficulties with regard to the relations between the two
parts of the Pantheon remain unsolved, but on the following points
Professor Lanciani claims to speak with certainty:--
(1) "The present Pantheon, portico included, is not the work of Agrippa,
but of Hadrian, and dates from A.D. 120-124.
(2) "The columns, capital, and entablature of the portico, inscribed
with Agrippa's name, may be original, and may date from 27-25 B.C., but
they were first removed and then put together by Hadrian.
(3) "The original structure of Agrippa was rectangular instead of round,
and faced the south instead of the north."--_Ruins and Excavations,
etc._, by R. Lanciani, 1897, p. 483.]
[pc] {436} ----_the pride of proudest Rome_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[515] {437} The Pantheon has been made a receptacle for the busts of
modern great, or, at least, distinguished men. The flood of light which
once fell through the large orb above on the whole circle of divinities,
now shines on a numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or two of whom
have been almost deified by the veneration of their countrymen.
["The busts of Raphael, Hannibal Caracci, Pierrin del Vaga, Zuccari, and
others ... are ill assorted with the many modern contemporary heads of
ancient worthies which now glare in all the niches of the
Rotunda."--_Historical Illustrations_, p. 293.]
[516] This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of the Roman
daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the site, or pretended
site, of that adventure, now shown at the Church of St. Nicholas _in
Carcere_. The difficulties attending the full belief of the tale are
stated in _Historical Illustrations_, p. 295.
[The traditional scene of the "Caritas Romana" is a cell forming part of
the substructions of the Church of S. Nicola in Carcere, near the Piazza
Montanara. Festus (_De Verb. Signif._, lib. xiv., A. J. Valpy, 1826, ii.
594), by way of illustrating Pietas, tells the story in a few words: "It
is said that AElius dedicated a temple to Pietas on the very spot where a
woman dwelt of yore. Her father was shut up in prison, and she kept him
alive by giving him the breast by stealth, and, as a reward for her
deed, obtained his forgiveness and freedom." In Pliny (Hist. Nat., vii.
36) and in Valerius Maximus (V. 4) it is not a father, but a mother,
whose life is saved by a daughter's piety.]
[pd] {438} _Two isolated phantoms_----.--[MS. M.]
[pe] _With her unkerchiefed neck_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pf]
_Or even the shrill impatient_ [_cries that brook_].
or, _Or even the shrill small cry_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pg] _No waiting silence or suspense_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[517] {439} [It was fabled of the Milky Way that when Mercury held up
the infant Hercules to Juno's breast, that he might drink in divinity,
the goddess pushed him away, and that drops of milk fell into the void,
and became a multitude of tiny stars. The story is told by Eratosthenes
of Cyrene (B.C. 276), in his _Catasterismi_ (Treatise on Star Legends),
No. 44: _Opusc. Mythol._, Amsterdam, 1688, p. 136.]
[ph]
_To its original fountain but repierce_
_Thy sire's heart_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[518] The castle of St. Angelo. (See _Historical Illustrations._)
[Hadrian's mole or mausoleum, now the Castle of St. Angelo, is situated
on the banks of the Tiber, on the site of the "Horti Neronis." "It is
composed of a square basement, each side of which measures 247 feet....
A grand circular mole, nearly 1000 feet in circumference, stands on the
square basement," and, originally, "supported in its turn a cone of
earth covered with evergreens, like the mausoleum of Augustus." A spiral
way led to a central chamber in the interior of the mole, which
contained, presumably, the porphyry sarcophagus in which Antoninus Pius
deposited the ashes of Hadrian, and the tomb of the Antonines. Honorius
(A.D. 428) was probably the first to convert the mausoleum into a
fortress. The bronze statue of the Destroying Angel, which is placed on
the summit, dates from 1740, and is the successor to five earlier
statues, of which the first was erected in 1453. The conception and
execution of the Moles Hadriana are entirely Roman, and, except in size
and solidity, it is in no sense a mimic pyramid.--_Ruins and
Excavations, etc._, by R. Lanciani, 1897, p. 554, _sq._]
[pi] {440}
_The now spectator with a sanctioned mirth_
_To view the vast design_----.--[MS. M.]
[519] This and the next six stanzas have a reference to the Church of
St. Peter's. (For a measurement of the comparative length of this
basilica and the other great churches of Europe, see the pavement of St.
Peter's, and the _Classical Tour through Italy_, ii. 125, _et seq._,
chap, iv.)
[pj] _Look to the dome_----.--[MS. M.]
[520] [Compare _The Prophecy of Dante_, iv. 49-53--
"While still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome, its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,
Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in--"
Compare, too, Browning's _Christmas Eve_, sect, x.--
"Is it really on the earth,
This miraculous dome of God?
Has the angel's measuring-rod
Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,
'Twixt the gates of the new Jerusalem,
Meted it out,--and what he meted,
Have the sons of men completed?
--Binding ever as he bade,
Columns in the colonnade,
With arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race?"]
[pk] {441} _Lo Christ's great dome_----.--[MS.M.]
[521] [The ruins which Byron and Hobhouse explored, March 25, 1810
(_Travels in Albania_, ii. 68-71), were not the ruins of the second
Temple of Artemis, the sixth wonder of the world (_vide_ Philo
Byzantius, _De Septem Orbis Miraculis_), but, probably, those of "the
great gymnasium near the port of the city." In 1810, and for long
afterwards, the remains of the temple were buried under twenty feet of
earth, and it was not till 1870 that the late Mr. J. T. Wood, the agent
of the Trustees of the British Museum, had so far completed his
excavations as to discover the foundations of the building on the exact
spot which had been pointed out by Guhl in 1843. Fragments of the famous
sculptured columns, thirty-six in number, says Pliny (_Hist. Nat._,
xxxvi. 95), were also brought to light, and are now in the British
Museum. (See _Modern Discoveries on the Site of Ancient Ephesus_, by J.
T. Wood, 1890; _Hist. of Greek Sculpture_, by A. S. Murray, ii. 304.)]
[522] [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 2--"I have heard
them in the Ephesian ruins howl."]
[pl] {442} ----_round roofs swell_.--[MS. M., D.]
[pm] _Their glittering breastplate in the sun_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[523] [Compare Canto II. stanza lxxix. lines 2, 3--
"Oh Stamboul! once the Empress of their reign,
Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine."]
[524] [The emphasis is on the word "fit." The measure of "fitness" is
the entirety of the enshrinement or embodiment of the mortal aspiration
to put on immortality. The vastness and the sacredness of St. Peter's
make for and effect this embodiment. So, too, the living temple "so
defined," great with the greatness of holiness, may become the
enshrinement and the embodiment of the Spirit of God.]
[pn] {443} _His earthly palace_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[525] [This stanza may be paraphrased, but not construed. Apparently,
the meaning is that as the eye becomes accustomed to the details and
proportions of the building, the sense of its vastness increases. Your
first impression was at fault, you had not begun to realize the almost
inconceivable vastness of the structure. You had begun to climb the
mountain, and the dazzling peak seemed to be close at your head, but as
you ascend, it recedes. "Thou movest," but the building expands; "thou
climbest," but the Alp increases in height. In both cases the eye has
been deceived by gigantic elegance, by the proportion of parts to the
whole.]
[po] And fair proportions which beguile the eyes.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pp]
_Painting and marble of so many dyes_--
_And glorious high altar where for ever burn_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pq]
_Its Giant's limbs and by degrees_----
or, _The Giant eloquence and thus unroll_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pr]
----_our narrow sense_
_Cannot keep pace with mind_----[MS. M. erased.]
[ps] {445} _What Earth nor Time--nor former Thought could frame_.--[MS.
M. erased.]
[pt] _Before your eye--and ye return not as ye came_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pu] _In that which Genius did, what great Conceptions can_.--[MS. M.
erased.]
[526] [Pliny tells us (_Hist. Nat._, xxxvi. 5) that the Laocoon which
stood in the palace of Titus was the work of three sculptors, natives of
Rhodes; and it is now universally admitted that the statue which was
found (January 14, 1516) in the vineyard of Felice de' Freddi, not far
from the ruins of the palace, and is now in the Vatican, is the statue
which Pliny describes. M. Collignon, in his _Histoire de la Sculpture
Grecque_, gives reasons for assigning the date of the Laocoon to the
first years of the first century B.C. It follows that the work is a
century later than the frieze of the great altar of Pergamos, which
contains the figure of a young giant caught in the toils of Athena's
serpent--a theme which served as a model for later sculptors of the same
school. In 1817 the Laocoon was in the heyday of its fame, and was
regarded as the supreme achievement of ancient art. Since then it has
been decried and dethroned. M. Collignon protests against this excessive
depreciation, and makes himself the mouthpiece of a second and more
temperate reaction: "On peut ... gouter mediocrement le melodrame, sans
meconnaitre pour cela les reelles qualites du groupe. La composition est
d'une structure irreprochable, d'une harmonie de lignes qui defie toute
critique. Le torse du Laocoon trahit une science du nu pen commune"
(_Hist. de la Sculp. Grecque_, 1897, ii. 550, 551).]
[pv] {446} ----_the writhing boys_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[pw] _Shackles its living rings, and_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[527] [In his description of the Apollo Belvidere, Byron follows the
traditional theory of Montorsoli, the pupil of Michael Angelo, who
restored the left hand and right forearm of the statue. The god, after
his struggle with the python, stands forth proud and disdainful, the
left hand holding a bow, and the right hand falling as of one who had
just shot an arrow. The discovery, in 1860, of a bronze statuette in the
Stroganoff Collection at St. Petersburg, which holds something like an
aegis and a mantle in the left hand, suggested to Stephani a second
theory, that the Belvidere Apollo was a copy of a statue of Apollo
Boedromios, an _ex-voto_ offering on the rout of the Gauls when they
attacked Delphi (B.C. 278). To this theory Furtwaengler at one time
assented, but subsequently came to the conclusion that the Stroganoff
bronze was a forgery. His present contention is that the left hand held
a bow, as Montorsoli imagined, whilst the right grasped "a branch of
laurel, of which the leaves are still visible on the trunk which the
copyist added to the bronze original." The Apollo Belvidere is, he
concludes, a copy of the Apollo Alexicacos of Leochares (fourth century
B.C.), which stood in the Cerameicos at Athens. M. Maxime Collignon, who
utters a word of warning as to the undue depreciation of the statue by
modern critics, adopts Furtwaengler's later theory (_Masterpieces of
Ancient Greek Sculpture_, by A. Furtwaengler, 1895, ii. 405, _sq._).]
[528] {447} [The "delicate" beauty of the statue recalled the features
of a lady whom he had once thought of making his wife. "The Apollo
Belvidere," he wrote to Moore (May 12, 1817), "is the image of Lady
Adelaide Forbes. I think I never saw such a likeness."]
[529] [It is probable that lines 1-4 of this stanza contain an allusion
to a fact related by M. Pinel, in his work, _Sur l'Insanite_, which
Milman turned to account in his _Belvidere Apollo_, a Newdigate Prize
Poem of 1812--
"Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep,
'Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
Yet on that form in wild delirious trance
With more than rev'rence gazed the Maid of France,
Day after day the love-sick dreamer stood
With him alone, nor thought it solitude!
To cherish grief, her last, her dearest care,
Her one fond hope--to perish of despair."
Milman's _Poetical Works_, Paris, 1829, p. 180.
Compare, too, Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_, lines 14-16--
"A savage place, as holy and enchanted,
As e'er beneath a wailing moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover."
_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 94.]
[px] {448} _Before its eyes unveiled to image forth a God!_--[MS. M.
erased.]
[530] [The fire which Prometheus stole from heaven was the living soul,
"the source of all our woe." (Compare Horace, _Odes_, i. 3. 29-31--
"Post ignem aetheria domo
Subductum, Macies et nova Febrium
Terris incubuit cohors.")]
[py] {449} _The phantom fades away into the general mass_.--[MS. M.
erased.]
[531] {450} [Compare _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1, line 76--"Who would these
fardels bear?"]
[532] [Charlotte Augusta (b. January 7, 1796), only daughter of the
Prince Regent, was married to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, May 2, 1816, and
died in childbirth, November 6, 1817.
Other poets produced their dirges; but it was left to Byron to deal
finely, and as a poet should, with a present grief, which was felt to be
a national calamity.
Southey's "Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte of Wales" was only
surpassed in feebleness by Coleridge's "Israel's Lament." Campbell
composed a laboured elegy, which was "spoken by Mr ... at Drury Lane
Theatre, on the First Opening of the House after the Death of the
Princess Charlotte, 1817;" and Montgomery wrote a hymn on "The Royal
Infant, Still-born, November 5, 1817."
Not a line of these lamentable effusions has survived; but the poor,
pitiful story of common misfortune, with its tragic irony, uncommon
circumstance, and far-reaching consequence, found its _vates sacer_ in
the author of _Childe Harold_.]
[pz] {451}
_Her prayers for thee and in thy coming power_
_Beheld her Iris--Thou too lonely Lord_
_And desolate Consort! fatal is thy dower_,
_The Husband of a year--the Father of an_----[? _hour_].--
[D. erased.]
[533] {452} [Compare Canto III. stanza xxxiv. lines 6, 7--
"Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,
All ashes to the taste."]
[534] [Mr. Tozer traces the star simile to Homer (_Iliad_, viii.
559)--[Greek: Pa/nta de/ t' ei)/detai a)/stra, ge/gethe de/ te phre/na
poime/n]]
[535] [Compare _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 2, lines 22, 23--
"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."]
[536] [Compare _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 121, 122--
"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens."]
[537] {453} Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth, of a broken heart;
Charles V., a hermit; Louis XIV., a bankrupt in means and glory;
Cromwell, of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a
prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added
of names equally illustrious and unhappy.
[qa] _Which sinks_----.--[MS. M.]
[538] [The simile of the "earthquake" was repeated in a letter to
Murray, dated December 3, 1817: "The death of the Princess Charlotte has
been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home.... The
death of this poor Girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty
or so, in childbed--of a _boy_ too, a present princess and future queen,
and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes
which she inspired."]
[539] {454} The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria,
and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved
to this day its distinctive appellation of _The Grove_. Nemi is but an
evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.
[The basin of the Lago di Nemi is the crater of an extinct volcano.
Hence the comparison to a coiled snake. Its steel-blue waters are
unruffled by the wind which lashes the neighbouring ocean into fury.
Hence its likeness to "cherished hate," as contrasted with "generous and
active wrath."]
[qb] _And calm as speechless hate_----.--[MS. M.]
[540] [The spectator is supposed to be looking towards the Mediterranean
from the summit of Monte Cavo. Tusculum, where "Tully reposed," lies to
the north of the Alban Hills, on the right; but, as Byron points to a
spot "beneath thy right," he probably refers to the traditional site of
the Villa Ciceronis at Grotta Ferrata, and not to an alternative site at
the Villa Ruffinella, between Frascati and the ruins of Tusculum.
Horace's Sabine farm, on the bank of Digentia's "ice-cold rivulet," is
more than twenty miles to the north-east of the Alban Hills. The
mountains to the south and east of Tusculum intercept the view of the
valley of the Licenza (Digentia), where the "farm was tilled." Childe
Harold had bidden farewell to Horace, once for all, "upon Soracte's
ridge," but recalls him to keep company with Virgil and Cicero.]
[qc] {455}
_Of girdling mountains circle on the sight_
_The Sabine farm was tilled, the wearied Bard's delight_.--
[MS. M.]
[541] ["Calpe's rock" is Gibraltar (compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II.
stanza xxii. line i). "Last" may be the last time that Byron and Childe
Harold saw the Mediterranean together. Byron had last seen it--"the
Midland Ocean"--by "Calpe's rock," on his return journey to England in
1811. Or by "last" he may mean the last time that it burst upon his
view. He had not seen the Mediterranean on his way from Geneva to
Venice, in October-November, 1816, or from Venice to Rome, April--May,
1817; but now from the Alban Mount the "ocean" was full in view.]
[qd] {456} ----_much suffering and some tears_.--[MS. M.]
[542] ["After the stanza (near the conclusion of Canto 4th) which ends
with the line--
"'As if there was no man to trouble what is clear,'
insert the two following stanzas (clxxvii., clxxviii.). Then go on to
the stanza beginning, 'Roll on thou,' etc., etc. You will find the place
of insertion near the conclusion--just before the address to the Ocean.
"These _two stanzas_ will just make up the number of 500 stanzas to the
whole poem.
"Answer when you receive this. I sent back the packets yesterday, and
hope they will arrive in safety."--D.]
[543] [His desire is towards no light o' love, but for the support and
fellowship of his sister. Compare the opening lines of the _Epistle to
Augusta_--
"My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same--
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,--
A world to roam through and a home with thee.
"The first were nothing--had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness."]
[544] {457} [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxii. lines 8,
9; and _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xi.]
[qe] {458} ----_unearthed, uncoffined, and unknown_.--[MS. M.]
[545] [Compare _Ps_. cvii. 26, "They mount up to the heaven, they go
down again to the depths."]
[qf] _And dashest him to earth again: there let him lay!_--[D.]
[546] ["Lay" is followed by a plainly marked period in both the MSS. (M.
and D.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. For instances of the
same error, compare "The Adieu," stanza 10, line 4, and ["Pignus
Amoris"], stanza 3, line 3 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 232, note, and p.
241). It is to be remarked that Hobhouse, who pencilled a few
corrections on the margin of his own MS. copy, makes no comment on this
famous solecism. The fact is that Byron wrote as he spoke, with the
"careless and negligent ease of a man of quality," and either did not
know that "lay" was not an intransitive verb or regarded himself as
"super grammaticam."]
[547] {459}
[Compare Campbell's _Battle of the Baltic_ (stanza ii. lines 1, 2)--
"Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine."]
[qg] _These oaken citadels which made and make_.--[MS. M. erased.]
[548] The Gale of wind which succeeded the battle of Trafalgar destroyed
the greater part (if not all) of the prizes--nineteen sail of the
line--taken on that memorable day. I should be ashamed to specify
particulars which should be known to all--did we not know that in France
the people were kept in ignorance of the event of this most glorious
victory in modern times, and that in England it is the present fashion
to talk of Waterloo as though it were entirely an English triumph--and a
thing to be named with Blenheim and Agincourt--Trafalgar and Aboukir.
Posterity will decide; but if it be remembered as a skilful or as a
wonderful action, it will be like the battle of Zama, where we think of
Hannibal more than of Scipio. For assuredly we dwell on this action, not
because it was gained by Blucher or Wellington, but because it was lost
by Buonaparte--a man who, with all his vices and his faults, never yet
found an adversary with a tithe of his talents (as far as the expression
can apply to a conqueror) or his good intentions, his clemency or his
fortitude.
Look at his successors throughout Europe, whose imitation of the worst
parts of his policy is only limited by their comparative impotence, and
their positive imbecility.--[MS. M.]
[549] {460} ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no doubt, the
following passage in Boswell's _Johnson_ floating in his mind.... 'The
grand object of all travelling is to see the shores of the
Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the
world--the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman' (_Life of
Johnson_, 1876, p. 505)."--Note to _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza
clxxxii. ed. 1891.]
[550] [See letter to Murray, September 24, 1818: "What does 'thy waters
_wasted_ them' mean (in the Canto)? _That is not me_. Consult the MS.
_always_." Nevertheless, the misreading appeared in several editions.
(For a correspondence on the subject, see _Notes and Queries_, first
series, vol. i. pp. 182, 278, 324, 508; vol. ix. p. 481; vol. x. pp.
314, 434.)]
[qh] _Thy waters wasted them while they were free_.--[Editions 1818,
1819, 1823, and Galignani, 1825.]
[qi] _Unchangeable save calm thy tempests ply_.--[MS. M., D.]
[qj] {461}
_The image of Eternity and Space_
_For who hath fixed thy limits_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[551] [Compare Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, lv. stanza 6--
"Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him."]
[552] ["While at Aberdeen, he used often to steal from home unperceived;
sometimes he would find his way to the seaside" (_Life_, p. 9). For an
account of his feats in swimming, see _Letters_, 1898, i. 263, note 1;
and letter to Murray, February 21, 1821. See, too, for a "more perilous,
but less celebrated passage" (from Old Lisbon to Belem Castle), _Travels
in Albania_, ii. 195.]
[553] ["It was a thought worthy of the great spirit of Byron, after
exhibiting to us his Pilgrim amidst all the most striking scenes of
earthly grandeur and earthly decay ... to conduct him and us at last to
the borders of 'the Great Deep.' ... The image of the wanderer may well
be associated, for a time, with the rock of Calpe, the shattered temples
of Athens, or the gigantic fragments of Rome; but when we wish to think
of this dark personification as of a thing which is, where can we so
well imagine him to have his daily haunt as by the roaring of the waves?
It was thus that Homer represented Achilles in his moments of
ungovernable and inconsolable grief for the loss of Patroclus. It was
thus he chose to depict the paternal despair of Chryseus--
"[Greek: Be/ d' a)ke/on para\ thi~na polyphloi/sboio thala/sses]"
Note by Professor Wilson, ed. 1837.]
[qk] {462}
_Is dying in the echo--it is time_
_To break the spell of this protracted dream_
_And what will be the fate of this my rhyme_
_May not be of my augury_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ql] _Fatal--and yet it shakes me not--farewell._--[MS. M.]
[qm] _Ye! who have traced my Pilgrim to the scene._--[MS. M.]
[554] {463} At end--
Laus Deo!
Byron.
July 19th, 1817.
La Mira, near Venice.
Laus Deo!
Byron.
La Mira, near Venice,
Sept. 3, 1817.
* * * * *
NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.