Chapter 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Deo Optimo Maximo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Et udam Spernit humum fugiente pennâ."]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Τὸ δὲ γῆρας οὒ σε τείρει [To\ de\ gê~ras ou)\ se tei/rei.].]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[335] [Compare Herodotus, i. 131, Οἱ δὲ νομίζουσι Διἰ μὲν, ἐπὶ τὰ ὑψηλότατα τῶν οὐρέων ἀναβαίνοντες, θυσίας ἕρδειν, τὸν κύκλον πάντα τοῦ ὐρανο Δία καλέοντες. [Oi(de\ nomi/zousi Dii) men, e)pi\ ta\ y(psêlo/tata tô~n ou)re/ôn a)nabai/nontes, thysi/as e(/rdein, ton ky/klon pa/nta tou~ y)rano Di/a kale/ontes.] Perhaps, however, "early Persian" was suggested by a passage in "that drowsy, frowsy poem, _The Excursion_"--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The latter half of the quotation runs thus--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[341] [Compare the _Pervigilium Veneris_--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[la]

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

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.