Chapter 9

3.

Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. Stanza v. line 2.

It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, etc., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous.

4.

Here, son of Saturn! was thy favourite throne. Stanza x. line 3.

The Temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive; originally there were one hundred and fifty. These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon.

[The Olympieion, or Temple of Zeus Olympius, on the south-east of the Acropolis, some five hundred yards from the foot of the rock, was begun by Pisistratos, and completed seven hundred years later by Hadrian. It was one of the three or four largest temples of antiquity. The cella had been originally enclosed by a double row of twenty columns at the sides, and a triple row of eight columns at each front, making a hundred and four columns in all; but in 1810 only sixteen "lofty Corinthian columns" were standing. Mr. Tozer points out that "'base' is accurate, because Corinthian columns have bases, which Doric columns have not," and notes that the word "'unshaken' implies that the column itself had fallen, but the base remains."--_Childe Harold_, 1888, p. 228.]

5.

And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. Stanza xi. line 9.

The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago.

[The _Mentor_, which Elgin had chartered to convey to England a cargo consisting of twelve chests of antiquities, was wrecked off the Island of Cerigo, in 1803. His secretary, W. R. Hamilton, set divers to work, and rescued four chests; but the remainder were not recovered till 1805.]

6.

To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared. Stanza xii. line 2.

At this moment (January 3, 1810), besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyræus to receive every portable relic. Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in common with many of his countrymen--for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion--thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri[205], is the agent of devastation; and like the Greek _finder_[206] of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of plunder. Between this artist and the French Consul Fauvel[207], who wishes to rescue the remains for his own government, there is now a violent dispute concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the wheel of which--I wish they were both broken upon it!--has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri has laid his complaint before the Waywode. Lord Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of Signer Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far as Sunium (now Cape Colonna),[208] till he accompanied us in our second excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, are most beautiful: but they are almost all unfinished. While he and his patrons confine themselves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their little absurdities are as harmless as insect or fox-hunting, maiden-speechifying, barouche-driving, or any such pastime; but when they carry away three or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy relics that time and barbarism have left to the most injured and most celebrated of cities: when they destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works which have been the admiration of ages, I know no motive which can excuse, no name which can designate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge of Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. The most unblushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; while the wanton and useless defacement of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration.

On this occasion I speak impartially: I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival; but I have some early prepossession in favour of Greece, and do not think the honour of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica.

Another noble Lord [Aberdeen] has done better, because he has done less: but some others, more or less noble, yet "all honourable men," have done _best_, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have done nothing at all. We had such ink-shed, and wine-shed, which almost ended in bloodshed![209] Lord E.'s "prig"--see Jonathan Wild for the definition of "priggism"[210]--quarrelled with another, _Gropius_[211] by name (a very good name too for his business), and muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to remember their squabble, for they wanted to make me their arbitrator.

7.

Her Sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their Mother's pains. Stanza xii. lines 7 and 8.

I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines:--"When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of it, great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Τέλος [Telos]!--I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar.

[Disdar, or Dizdar, i.e. castle-holder--the warden of a castle or fort (_N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Dizdar"). The story is told at greater length in _Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa_, by Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D., 1810-14, Part II. sect. ii. p. 483.]

8.

Where was thine Ægis, Pallas! that appalled Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? Stanza xiv. lines i and 2.

According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis: but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer.--See Chandler.

[Zosimus, _Historiæ_, lib. v. cap. 6, _Corp. Scr. Byz_., 1837, p. 253. As a matter of fact, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, occupied Athens in A.D. 395 without resistance, and carried off the movable treasures of the city, though he did not destroy buildings or works of art.--Note by Rev. E. C. Owen, _Childe Harold_, 1898, p. 162.]

9.

The netted canopy. Stanza xviii. line 2.

To prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action.

10.

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles. Stanza xxix. line 1.

Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso.

[Strabo (Paris, 1853), lib. i. cap. ii. 57 and lib. vii. cap. iii. 50, says that Apollodorus blamed the poet Callimachus, who was a grammarian and ought to have known better, for his contention that Gaudus, i.e. Gozo, was Calypso's isle. Ogygia (_Odyssey_, i. 50) was

"a sea-girt isle, Where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle."

It was surely as a poet, not as a grammarian, that Callimachus was at fault.]

11.

Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged Nurse of savage men! Stanza xxxviii. lines 5 and 6.

Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and the celebrated Scanderbeg[212] (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderbeg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exploits.

Of Albania Gibbon remarks that a country "within sight of Italy is less known than the interior of America." Circumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and with the exception of Major Leake,[213] then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (October, 1809) carrying on war against Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong fortress, which he was then besieging: on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepaleni, his highness's birthplace, and favourite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat; at this juncture the Vizier had made it his headquarters. After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every accommodation, and escorted by one of the Vizier's secretaries, we were nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey which, on our return, barely occupied four. On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper.

On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably precede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him.[214] But some few observations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder climate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound; and their hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbours as the Albanese; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither. Their habits are predatory--all are armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, and Gegdes, are treacherous;[215] the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favourably. I was attended by two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my observation; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service, are rarely to be found. The Infidel was named Basilius; the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of Acarnania to the banks of Achelous, and onward to Messalonghi in Ætolia. There I took him into my own service, and never had occasion to repent it till the moment of my departure.

When, in 1810, after the departure of my friend Mr. Hobhouse for England, I was seized with a severe fever in the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threatened to cut if I was not cured within a given time. To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's prescriptions, I attributed my recovery.[gg] I had left my last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman was as ill as myself, and my poor Arnaouts nursed me with an attention which would have done honour to civilization. They had a variety of adventures; for the Moslem, Dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling with the husbands of Athens; insomuch that four of the principal Turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the Convent on the subject of his having taken a woman from the bath--whom he had lawfully bought, however--a thing quite contrary to etiquette. Basili also was extremely gallant amongst his own persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the church, mixed with the highest contempt of churchmen, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most heterodox manner. Yet he never passed a church without crossing himself; and I remember the risk he ran in entering St. Sophia, in Stambol, because it had once been a place of his worship. On remonstrating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, "Our church is holy, our priests are thieves:" and then he crossed himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas" who refused to assist in any required operation, as was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi[216] of his village. Indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower orders of the Greek clergy.

When preparations were made for my return, my Albanians were summoned to receive their pay. Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters with his bag of piastres. I sent for Dervish, but for some time he was not to be found; at last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti,[217] father to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some other of my Greek acquaintances, paid me a visit. Dervish took the money in his hand, but on a sudden dashed it to the ground; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our efforts to console him only produced this answer, "Μ'αφεινει [M'apheinei]", "He leaves me." Signer Logotheti, who never wept before for anything less than the loss of a para (about the fourth of a farthing), melted; the padre of the convent, my attendants, my visitors--and I verily believe that even Sterne's "foolish fat scullion" would have left her "fish-kettle" to sympathize with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian.[218]

For my own part, when I remembered that, a short time before my departure from England, a noble and most intimate associate had excused himself from taking leave of me because he had to attend a female relation "to a milliner's,"[219] I felt no less surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the past recollection. That Dervish would leave me with some regret was to be expected; when master and man have been scrambling over the mountains of a dozen provinces together, they are unwilling to separate; but his present feelings, contrasted with his native ferocity, improved my opinion of the human heart. I believe this almost feudal fidelity is frequent amongst them. One day, on our journey over Parnassus, an Englishman in my service gave him a push in some dispute about the baggage, which he unluckily mistook for a blow; he spoke not, but sat down leaning his head upon his hands. Foreseeing the consequences, we endeavoured to explain away the affront, which produced the following answer:--"I _have been_ a robber; I _am_ a soldier; no captain ever struck me; _you_ are my master, I have eaten your bread, but by _that_ bread! (a usual oath) had it been otherwise, I would have stabbed the dog, your servant, and gone to the mountains." So the affair ended, but from that day forward he never thoroughly forgave the thoughtless fellow who insulted him. Dervish excelled in the dance of his country, conjectured to be a remnant of the ancient Pyrrhic: be that as it may, it is manly, and requires wonderful agility. It is very distinct from the stupid Romaika,[220] the dull round-about of the Greeks, of which our Athenian party had so many specimens.

The Albanians in general (I do not mean the cultivators of the earth in the provinces, who have also that appellation, but the mountaineers) have a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful women I ever beheld, in stature and in features, we saw _levelling_ the _road_ broken down by the torrents between Delvinachi and Libochabo. Their manner of walking is truly theatrical; but this strut is probably the effect of the capote, or cloak, depending from one shoulder. Their long hair reminds you of the Spartans, and their courage in desultory warfare is unquestionable. Though they have some cavalry amongst the Gegdes, I never saw a good Arnaout horseman; my own preferred the English saddles, which, however, they could never keep. But on foot they are not to be subdued by fatigue.

12.

And passed the barren spot, Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave. Stanza xxxix. lines 1 and 2.

Ithaca.

13.

Actium--Lepanto--fatal Trafalgar. Stanza xl. line 5.

Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention. The battle of Lepanto [October 7, 1571], equally bloody and considerable, but less known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras. Here the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand.

["His [Cervantes'] galley the _Marquesa_, was in the thick of the fight, and before it was over he had received three gun-shot wounds, two in the breast and one on the left hand or arm." In consequence of his wound "he was seven months in hospital before he was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled; he had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the 'Viaje del Parnase,' for the greater glory of the right."--_Don Quixote_, A Translation by John Ormsby, 1885, _Introduction_, i. 13.]

14.

And hailed the last resort of fruitless love. Stanza xli. line 3.

Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself.

[Strabo (lib. x. cap. 2, ed. Paris, 1853, p. 388) gives Menander as an authority for the legend that Sappho was the first to take the "Lover's Leap" from the promontory of Leucate. Writers, he adds, better versed in antiquities ἀρχαιολογικώτεροι [a)rchaiologikô/teroi], prefer the claims of one Cephalus. Another legend, which he gives as a fact, perhaps gave birth to the later and more poetical fiction. The Leucadians, he says, once a year, on Apollo's day, were wont to hurl a criminal from the rock into the sea by way of expiation and propitiation. Birds of all kinds were attached to the victim to break his fall, and, if he reached the sea uninjured, there was a fleet of little boats ready to carry him to other shores. It is possible that dim memories of human sacrifice lingered in the islands, that in course of time victims were transformed into "lovers," and it is certain that poets and commentators, "prone to lie," are responsible for names and incidents.]

15.

Many a Roman chief and Asian King. Stanza xlv. line 4.

It is said, that on the day previous to the battle of Actium, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee.

[Plutarch, in his _Antonius_, gives the names of "six auxiliary kings who fought under his banners," and mentions six other kings who did not attend in person but sent supplies. Shakespeare (_Anthony and Cleopatra_, act iii. sc. 6, lines 68-75), quoting Plutarch almost _verbatim_, enumerates ten kings who were "assembled" in Anthony's train--

"Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus, Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas; King Malchus of Arabia; king of Pont; Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king Of Comagene; Polemon and Amintas, The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, With a more larger list of sceptres."

Other authorities for the events of the campaign and battle of Actium (Dion Cassius, Appian, and Orosius) are silent as to "kings;" but Florus (iv. 11) says that the wind-tossed waters "vomited back" to the shore gold and purple, the spoils of the Arabians and Sabæans, and a thousand other peoples of Asia.]

16.

Look where the second Cæsar's trophies rose. Stanza xlv. line 6.

Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. These ruins are large masses of brickwork, the bricks of which are joined by interstices of mortar, as large as the bricks themselves, and equally durable.

17.

Acherusia's lake. Stanza xlvii. line 1.

According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina; but Pouqueville is always out.

[The lake of Yanina (Janina or Joannina) was the ancient Pambotis. "At the mouth of the gorge [of Suli], where it suddenly comes to an end, was the marsh, the Palus Acherusia, in the neighbourhood of which was the Oracle."--_Geography of Greece_, by H. F. Tozer, 1873, p. 121.]

18.

To greet Albania's Chief. Stanza xlvii. line 4.

The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's _Travels_. [For note on Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see _Letters_, 1898, i. 246.]

19.

Yet here and there some daring mountain-band Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. Stanza xlvii. lines 7, 8, and 9.

Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece.

[Ali Pasha assumed the government of Janina in 1788, but it was not till December 12, 1803, that the Suliotes, who were betrayed by their leaders, Botzaris and Koutsonika and others, finally surrendered.--Finlay's _History of Greece_, 1877, vi. 45-50.]

20.

Monastic Zitza! etc. Stanza xlviii. line 1.

The convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and, not far from Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and Ætolia may contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior; as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad: I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constantinople; but, from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made.

21.

Here dwells the caloyer. Stanza xlix. line 6.

The Greek monks are so called.

[_Caloyer_ is derived from the late Greek καλόγηρος[kalo/gêros], "good in old age," through the Italian _caloieso_. Hence the accent on the last syllable.--_N. Eng. Dict._]

22.

Nature's volcanic Amphitheatre. Stanza li. line 2.

The Chimariot mountains appear to have been volcanic.

[By "Chimæra's Alps" Byron probably meant the Ceraunian Mountains, which are "woody to the top, but disclose some wide chasms of red rock" (_Travels in Albania_, i. 73) to the north of Jannina,--not the Acroceraunian (Chimariot) Mountains, which run from north to south-west along the coast of Mysia. "The walls of rock (which do not appear to be volcanic) rise in tiers on every side, like the seats and walls of an amphitheatre" (H. F. Tozer). The near distance may have suggested an amphitheatre; but he is speaking of the panorama which enlarged on his view, and uses the word not graphically, but metaphorically, of the entire "circle of the hills."]

23.

Behold black Acheron! Stanza li. line 6.

Now called Kalamas.

24.

In his white capote. Stanza lii. line 7.

Albanese cloak.

[The _capote_ (feminine of _capot_, masculine diminutive of _cope_, cape) was a long shaggy cloak or overcoat, with a hood, worn by soldiers, etc.--_N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Capote."]

25.

The Sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit. Stanza lv. line 1.

Anciently Mount Tomarus.

["Mount Tomerit, or Tomohr," says Mr. Tozer, "lies north-east of Tepalen, and therefore the sun could not set behind it" (_Childe Harold_, 1885, p. 272). But, writing to Drury, May 3, 1810, Byron says that "he penetrated as far as Mount Tomarit." Probably by "Tomarit" he does not mean Mount Tomohr, which lies to the north-east of Berat, but Mount Olytsika, ancient Tomaros (_vide ante_, p. 132, note 1), which lies to the west of Janina, between the valley of Tcharacovista and the sea. "Elle domine," writes M. Carapanos, "toutes les autres montagnes qui l'entourent." "Laos," Mr. Tozer thinks, "is a mere blunder for Aöus, the Viosa (or Voioussa), which joins the Derapuli a few miles south of Tepaleni, and flows under the walls of the city" (_Dodone et ses Ruines_, 1878, p. 8). (For the Aöus and approach to Tepeleni, see _Travels in Albania_, i. 91.)]

26.

And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by. Stanza lv. line 2.

The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it; and, immediately above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at Westminster; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow-traveller. In the summer it must be much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander, nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty.

27.

And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof. Stanza lxvi. line 8.

Alluding to the wreckers of Cornwall.

28.

The red wine circling fast. Stanza lxxi. line 2.

The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and, indeed, very few of the others.

29.

Each Palikar his sabre from him cast. Stanza lxxi. line 7.

Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person, from Παλικαρι [Palikari] [παλληκάρι [pallêka/ri]], a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese, who speak Romaic: it means, properly, "a lad."

30.

While thus in concert, etc. Stanza lxxii. line 9.

As a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of the Illyric, I here insert two of their most popular choral songs, which are generally chanted in dancing by men or women indiscriminately. The first words are merely a kind of chorus without meaning, like some in our own and all other languages.

1. Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, 1. Lo, Lo, I come, I come; Naciarura, popuso. be thou silent.

2. Naciarura na civin 2. I come, I run; open the Ha pen derini ti hin. door that I may enter.

3. Ha pe uderi escrotini 3. Open the door by halves, Ti vin ti mar servetini. that I may take my turban.

4. Caliriote me surme 4. Caliriotes[§] with the dark Ea ha pe pse dua tive. eyes, open the gate that I may enter.

5. Buo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, 5. Lo, Lo, I hear thee, my soul. Gi egem spirta esimiro.

6. Caliriote vu le funde 6. An Arnaout girl, in costly Ede vete tunde tunde. garb, walks with graceful pride.

7. Caliriote me surme 7. Caliriot maid of the dark Ti mi put e poi mi le. eyes, give me a kiss.

8. Se ti puta citi mora 8. If I have kissed thee, what hast thou gained? Si mi ri ni veti udo gia. My soul is consumed with fire.

9. Va le ni il che cadale 9. Dance lightly, more Celo more, more celo. gently, and gently still.

10. Plu hari ti tirete 10. Make not so much dust Plu huron cia pra seti. to destroy your embroidered hose.

[§]The Albanese, particularly the women, are frequently termed "Caliriotes," for what reason I inquired in vain.

The last stanza would puzzle a commentator: the men have certainly buskins of the most beautiful texture, but the ladies (to whom the above is supposed to be addressed) have nothing under their little yellow boots and slippers but a well-turned and sometimes very white ankle. The Arnaout girls are much handsomer than the Greeks, and their dress is far more picturesque. They preserve their shape much longer also, from being always in the open air. It is to be observed, that the Arnaout is not a _written_ language: the words of this song, therefore, as well as the one which follows, are spelt according to their pronunciation. They are copied by one who speaks and understands the dialect perfectly, and who is a native of Athens.

1. Ndi sefda tinde ulavossa 1. I am wounded by thy love, and Vettimi upri vi lofsa. have loved but to scorch myself.

2. Ah vaisisso mi privi lofse 2. Thou hast consumed me! Ah, maid! Si mi rini mi la vosse. thou has struck me to the heart.

3. Uti tasa roba stua 3. I have said I wish no dowry, Sitti eve tulati dua. but thine eyes and eyelashes.

4. Roba stinori ssidua 4. The accursed dowry I Qu mi sini vetti dua. want not, but thee only.

5. Qurmini dua civileni 5. Give me thy charms, and Roba ti siarmi tildi eni. let the portion feed the flames.

6. Utara pisa vaisisso me 6. I have loved thee, maid, simi rin ti hapti with a sincere soul, but Eti mi bire a piste si gui thou hast left me like dendroi tiltati. a withered tree.

7. Udi vura udorini udiri 7. If I have placed my hand on cicova cilti mora thy bosom, what have I gained? Udorini talti hollna u ede my hand is withdrawn, but caimoni mora. retains the flame.

I believe the two last stanzas, as they are in a different measure, ought to belong to another ballad. An idea something similar to the thought in the last lines was expressed by Socrates, whose arm having come in contact with one of his "ὑpokolpioi [hupokolpioi]," Critobulus or Cleobulus, the philosopher complained of a shooting pain as far as his shoulder for some days after, and therefore very properly resolved to teach his disciples in future without touching them.

31.

Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy 'larum afar. Song, stanza 1, line 1.

These stanzas are partly taken from different Albanese songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition of the Albanese in Romaic and Italian.

32.

Remember the moment when Previsa fell. Song, stanza 8, line 1.

It was taken by storm from the French [October, 1798].

33.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth! etc. Stanza lxxiii. line 1.

Some thoughts on this subject will be found in the subjoined papers, pp. 187-208.

34.

Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train. Stanza lxxiv. lines 1 and 2.

Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains: it was seized by Thrasybulus, previous to the expulsion of the Thirty.

[Byron and Hobhouse caught their first glance of Athens from this spot, December 25, 1809. (See Byron's note.) "The ruins," says Hobhouse, "are now called Bigla Castro, or The Watchtower."]

35.

Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest. Stanza lxxvii. line 4.

When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. See Gibbon. [From A.D. 1204 to 1261.]

36.

The Prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil. Stanza lxxvii. line 6.

Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. [_Vide supra_, p. 151.]

37.

Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow. Stanza lxxxv. line 3.

On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter.

[This feature of Greek scenery, in spring, may, now and again, be witnessed in our own country in autumn--a blue lake, bordered with summer greenery in the foreground, with a rear-guard of "hills of snow" glittering in the October sunshine.]

38.

Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave. Stanza lxxxvi. lines 1 and 2.

Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time.

[Mendeli is the ancient Pentelicus. "The white lines marking the projecting veins" of marble are visible from Athens (_Geography of Greece_, by H.F. Tozer, 1873, p. 129).]

39.

When Marathon became a magic word. Stanza lxxxix. line 7.

"Siste Viator--heroa calcas!" was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci;[221]--what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, etc. were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon[222] was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas!--"Expende[223]--quot _libras_ in duce summo--invenies!"--was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by _weight_.

PAPERS REFERRED TO BY NOTE 33.

I.[224]

Before I say anything about a city of which every body, traveller or not, has thought it necessary to say something, I will request Miss Owenson,[225] when she next borrows an Athenian heroine for her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a "Disdar Aga" (who by the by is not an Aga), the most impolite of petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny[226] Athens ever saw (except Lord E.), and the unworthy occupant of the Acropolis, on a handsome annual stipend of 150 piastres (eight pounds sterling), out of which he has only to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated Ottoman Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause of the husband of "Ida of Athens" nearly suffering the bastinado; and because the said "Disdar" is a turbulent husband, and beats his wife; so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance in behalf of "Ida." Having premised thus much, on a matter of such import to the readers of romances, I may now leave Ida to mention her birthplace.

Setting aside the magic of the name, and all those associations which it would be pedantic and superfluous to recapitulate, the very situation of Athens would render it the favourite of all who have eyes for art or nature. The climate, to me at least, appeared a perpetual spring; during eight months I never passed a day without being as many hours on horseback: rain is extremely rare, snow never lies in the plains, and a cloudy day is an agreeable rarity. In Spain, Portugal, and every part of the East which I visited, except Ionia and Attica, I perceived no such superiority of climate to our own; and at Constantinople, where I passed May, June, and part of July (1810), you might "damn the climate, and complain of spleen," five days out of seven.[227]

The air of the Morea is heavy and unwholesome, but the moment you pass the isthmus in the direction of Megara the change is strikingly perceptible. But I fear Hesiod will still be found correct in his description of a Boeotian winter.[228]

We found at Livadia an "esprit fort" in a Greek bishop, of all free-thinkers! This worthy hypocrite rallied his own religion with great intrepidity (but not before his flock), and talked of a mass as a "coglioneria."[229] It was impossible to think better of him for this; but, for a Boeotian, he was brisk with all his absurdity. This phenomenon (with the exception indeed of Thebes, the remains of Chæronea, the plain of Platea, Orchomenus, Livadia, and its nominal cave of Trophonius) was the only remarkable thing we saw before we passed Mount Cithæron.

The fountain of Dirce turns a mill: at least my companion (who, resolving to be at once cleanly and classical, bathed in it) pronounced it to be the fountain of Dirce,[230] and any body who thinks it worth while may contradict him. At Castri we drank of half a dozen streamlets, some not of the purest, before we decided to our satisfaction which was the true Castalian, and even that had a villanous twang, probably from the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic fever, like poor Dr. Chandler.[231]

From Fort Phyle, of which large remains still exist, the plain of Athens, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the Ægean, and the Acropolis, burst upon the eye at once; in my opinion, a more glorious prospect than even Cintra or Istambol. Not the view from the Troad, with Ida, the Hellespont, and the more distant Mount Athos, can equal it, though so superior in extent.

I heard much of the beauty of Arcadia, but excepting the view from the Monastery of Megaspelion (which is inferior to Zitza in a command of country), and the descent from the mountains on the way from Tripolitza to Argos, Arcadia has little to recommend it beyond the name.

"Sternitur, et _dulces_ moriens reminiscitur Argos." _Æneid_, x. 782.

Virgil could have put this into the mouth of none but an Argive, and (with reverence be it spoken) it does not deserve the epithet. And if the Polynices of Statius, "In mediis audit duo litora campis" (_Thebaidos_, i. 335), did actually hear both shores in crossing the isthmus of Corinth, he had better ears than have ever been worn in such a journey since.

"Athens," says a celebrated topographer, "is still the most polished city of Greece."[232] Perhaps it may of _Greece_, but not of the _Greeks_; for Joannina in Epirus is universally allowed, amongst themselves, to be superior in the wealth, refinement, learning, and dialect of its inhabitants. The Athenians are remarkable for their cunning; and the lower orders are not improperly characterised in that proverb, which classes them with the "Jews of Salonica, and the Turks of the Negropont."

Among the various foreigners resident in Athens, French, Italians, Germans, Ragusans, etc., there was never a difference of opinion in their estimate of the Greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with great acrimony.

M. Fauvel, the French Consul, who has passed thirty years principally at Athens, and to whose talents as an artist, and manners as a gentleman, none who have known him can refuse their testimony, has frequently declared in my hearing, that the Greeks do not deserve to be emancipated; reasoning on the grounds of their "national and individual depravity!" while he forgot that such depravity is to be attributed to causes which can only be removed by the measure he reprobates.

M. Roque,[233] a French merchant of respectability long settled in Athens, asserted with the most amusing gravity, "Sir, they are the same _canaille_ that existed _in the days of Themistocles!_" an alarming remark to the "Laudator temporis acti." The ancients banished Themistocles; the moderns cheat Monsieur Roque; thus great men have ever been treated!

In short, all the Franks who are fixtures, and most of the Englishmen, Germans, Danes, etc., of passage, came over by degrees to their opinion, on much the same grounds that a Turk in England would condemn the nation by wholesale, because he was wronged by his lacquey, and overcharged by his washerwoman.

Certainly it was not a little staggering when the Sieurs Fauvel and Lusieri, the two greatest demagogues of the day, who divide between them the power of Pericles and the popularity of Cleon, and puzzle the poor Waywode with perpetual differences, agreed in the utter condemnation, "nulla virtute redemptum" (Juvenal, lib. i. _Sat._ iv. line 2), of the Greeks in general, and of the Athenians in particular. For my own humble opinion, I am loth to hazard it, knowing as I do, that there be now in MS. no less than five tours of the first magnitude, and of the most threatening aspect, all in typographical array, by persons of wit and honour, and regular common-place books: but, if I may say this, without offence, it seems to me rather hard to declare so positively and pertinaciously, as almost everybody has declared, that the Greeks, because they are very bad, will never be better.

Eton and Sonnini[234] have led us astray by their panegyrics and projects; but, on the other hand, De Pauw and Thornton[235] have debased the Greeks beyond their demerits.

The Greeks will never be independent; they will never be sovereigns as heretofore, and God forbid they ever should! but they may be subjects without being slaves. Our colonies are not independent, but they are free and industrious, and such may Greece be hereafter.

At present, like the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews throughout the world, and such other cudgelled and heterodox people, they suffer all the moral and physical ills that can afflict humanity. Their life is a struggle against truth; they are vicious in their own defence. They are so unused to kindness, that when they occasionally meet with it they look upon it with suspicion, as a dog often beaten snaps at your fingers if you attempt to caress him. "They are ungrateful, notoriously, abominably ungrateful!"--this is the general cry. Now, in the name of Nemesis! for what are they to be grateful? Where is the human being that ever conferred a benefit on Greek or Greeks? They are to be grateful to the Turks for their fetters, and to the Franks for their broken promises and lying counsels. They are to be grateful to the artist who engraves their ruins, and to the antiquary who carries them away; to the traveller whose janissary flogs them, and to the scribbler whose journal abuses them. This is the amount of their obligations to foreigners.

II.

Franciscan Convent, Athens, _January_ 23, 1811.[236]

Amongst the remnants of the barbarous policy of the earlier ages, are the traces of bondage which yet exist in different countries; whose inhabitants, however divided in religion and manners, almost all agree in oppression.

The English have at last compassionated their negroes, and under a less bigoted government, may probably one day release their Catholic brethren; but the interposition of foreigners alone can emancipate the Greeks, who, otherwise, appear to have as small a chance of redemption from the Turks, as the Jews have from mankind in general.

Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough; at least the younger men of Europe devote much of their time to the study of the Greek writers and history, which would be more usefully spent in mastering their own. Of the moderns, we are perhaps more neglectful than they deserve; and while every man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out his youth, and often his age, in the study of the language and of the harangues of the Athenian demagogues in favour of freedom, the real or supposed descendants of these sturdy republicans are left to the actual tyranny of their masters, although a very slight effort is required to strike off their chains.

To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising again to their pristine superiority, would be ridiculous: as the rest of the world must resume its barbarism, after reasserting the sovereignty of Greece: but there seems to be no very great obstacle, except in the apathy of the Franks, to their becoming an useful dependency, or even a free state, with a proper guarantee;--under correction, however, be it spoken, for many and well-informed men doubt the practicability even of this.

The Greeks have never lost their hope, though they are now more divided in opinion on the subject of their probable deliverers. Religion recommends the Russians; but they have twice been deceived and abandoned by that power, and the dreadful lesson they received after the Muscovite desertion in the Morea has never been forgotten. The French they dislike; although the subjugation of the rest of Europe will, probably, be attended by the deliverance of continental Greece. The islanders look to the English for succour, as they have very lately possessed themselves of the Ionian republic, Corfu excepted.[237] But whoever appear with arms in their hands will be welcome; and when that day arrives, Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans; they cannot expect it from the Giaours.

But instead of considering what they have been, and speculating on what they may be, let us look at them as they are.

And here it is impossible to reconcile the contrariety of opinions: some, particularly the merchants, decrying the Greeks in the strongest language; others, generally travellers, turning periods in their eulogy, and publishing very curious speculations grafted on their former state, which can have no more effect on their present lot, than the existence of the Incas on the future fortunes of Peru.

One very ingenious person terms them the "natural allies of Englishmen;" another no less ingenious, will not allow them to be the allies of anybody, and denies their very descent from the ancients; a third, more ingenious than either, builds a Greek empire on a Russian foundation, and realises (on paper) all the chimeras of Catharine II. As to the question of their descent, what can it import whether the Mainotes[238] are the lineal Laconians or not? or the present Athenians as indigenous as the bees of Hymettus, or as the grasshoppers, to which they once likened themselves? What Englishman cares if he be of a Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Trojan blood? or who, except a Welshman, is afflicted with a desire of being descended from Caractacus?

The poor Greeks do not so much abound in the good things of this world, as to render even their claims to antiquity an object of envy; it is very cruel, then, in Mr. Thornton to disturb them in the possession of all that time has left them; viz. their pedigree, of which they are the more tenacious, as it is all they can call their own. It would be worth while to publish together, and compare, the works of Messrs. Thornton and De Pauw, Eton and Sonnini; paradox on one side, and prejudice on the other. Mr. Thornton conceives himself to have claims to public confidence from a fourteen years' residence at Pera; perhaps he may on the subject of the Turks, but this can give him no more insight into the real state of Greece and her inhabitants, than as many years spent in Wapping into that of the Western Highlands.

The Greeks of Constantinople live in Fanal;[239] and if Mr. Thornton did not oftener cross the Golden Horn than his brother merchants are accustomed to do, I should place no great reliance on his information. I actually heard one of these gentlemen boast of their little general intercourse with the city, and assert of himself, with an air of triumph, that he had been but four times at Constantinople in as many years.

As to Mr. Thornton's voyages in the Black Sea with Greek vessels, they gave him the same idea of Greece as a cruise to Berwick in a Scotch smack would of Johnny Groat's house. Upon what grounds then does he arrogate the right of condemning by wholesale a body of men of whom he can know little? It is rather a curious circumstance that Mr. Thornton, who so lavishly dispraises Pouqueville on every occasion of mentioning the Turks, has yet recourse to him as authority on the Greeks, and terms him an impartial observer. Now, Dr. Pouqueville is as little entitled to that appellation as Mr. Thornton to confer it on him.

The fact is, we are deplorably in want of information on the subject of the Greeks, and in particular their literature; nor is there any probability of our being better acquainted, till our intercourse becomes more intimate, or their independence confirmed. The relations of passing travellers are as little to be depended on as the invectives of angry factors; but till something more can be attained, we must be content with the little to be acquired from similar sources.[240]

However defective these may be, they are preferable to the parodoxes of men who have read superficially of the ancients, and seen nothing of the moderns, such as De Pauw; who, when he asserts that the British breed of horses is ruined by Newmarket, and that the Spartans[241] were cowards in the field,[242] betrays an equal knowledge of English horses and Spartan men. His "philosophical observations" have a much better claim to the title of "poetical." It could not be expected that he who so liberally condemns some of the most celebrated institutions of the ancient, should have mercy on the modern Greeks; and it fortunately happens, that the absurdity of his hypothesis on their forefathers refutes his sentence on themselves.

Let us trust, then, that, in spite of the prophecies of De Pauw, and the doubts of Mr. Thornton, there is a reasonable hope of the redemption of a race of men, who, whatever may be the errors of their religion and policy, have been amply punished by three centuries and a half of captivity.

III.[243]

Athens, Franciscan Convent, _March_ 17, 1811.

"I must have some talk with this learned Theban."[244]

Some time after my return from Constantinople to this city I received the thirty-first number of the _Edinburgh Review_[245] as a great favour, and certainly at this distance an acceptable one, from the captain of an English frigate off Salamis. In that number, Art. 3, containing the review of a French translation of Strabo,[246] there are introduced some remarks on the modern Greeks and their literature, with a short account of Coray, a co-translator in the French version. On those remarks I mean to ground a few observations; and the spot where I now write will, I hope, be sufficient excuse for introducing them in a work in some degree connected with the subject. Coray, the most celebrated of living Greeks, at least among the Franks, was born at Scio (in the _Review_, Smyrna is stated, I have reason to think, incorrectly), and besides the translation of Beccaria and other works mentioned by the Reviewer, has published a lexicon in Romaic and French, if I may trust the assurance of some Danish travellers lately arrived from Paris; but the latest we have seen here in French and Greek is that of Gregory Zolikogloou.[247] Coray has recently been involved in an unpleasant controversy with M. Gail,[248] a Parisian commentator and editor of some translations from the Greek poets, in consequence of the Institute having awarded him the prize for his version of Hippocrates' "Περὶ ὑδάτων [Peri\ y(da/tôn]," etc., to the disparagement, and consequently displeasure, of the said Gail. To his exertions, literary and patriotic, great praise is undoubtedly due; but a part of that praise ought not to be withheld from the two brothers Zosimado (merchants settled in Leghorn), who sent him to Paris and maintained him, for the express purpose of elucidating the ancient, and adding to the modern, researches of his countrymen. Coray, however, is not considered by his countrymen equal to some who lived in the two last centuries; more particularly Dorotheus of Mitylene,[249] whose Hellenic writings are so much esteemed by the Greeks, that Meletius[250] terms him "Μετὰ τὸν Θουκυδίδην καὶ Ξενοφώντα ἄριστος Ἑλλήνων [Meta\ to Thoukydi/dên kai\ Xenophô/nta a)/ristos E(llê/nôn]" (p. 224, _Ecclesiastical History_, iv.).

Panagiotes Kodrikas, the translator of Fontenelle, and Kamarases,[251] who translated Ocellus Lucanus on the Universe into French, Christodoulus,[252] and more particularly Psalida,[253] whom I have conversed with in Joannina, are also in high repute among their literati. The last-mentioned has published in Romaic and Latin a work on _True Happiness_, dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois,[254] who is stated by the Reviewer to be the only modern except Coray who has distinguished himself by a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the Polyzois Lampanitziotes of Yanina, who has published a number of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less than an itinerant vender of books; with the contents of which he had no concern beyond his name on the title page, placed there to secure his property in the publication; and he was, moreover, a man utterly destitute of scholastic acquirements. As the name, however, is not uncommon, some other Polyzois may have edited the Epistles of Aristænetus.

It is to be regretted that the system of continental blockade has closed the few channels through which the Greeks received their publications, particularly Venice and Trieste. Even the common grammars for children are become too dear for the lower orders. Amongst their original works the Geography of Meletius, Archbishop of Athens, and a multitude of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets, are to be met with; their grammars and lexicons of two, three, and four languages are numerous and excellent. Their poetry is in rhyme. The most singular piece I have lately seen is a satire in dialogue between a Russian, English, and French traveller, and the Waywode of Wallachia (or Blackbey, as they term him), an archbishop, a merchant,[255] and Cogia Bachi (or primate), in succession; to all of whom under the Turks the writer attributes their present degeneracy. Their songs are sometimes pretty and pathetic, but their tunes generally unpleasing to the ear of a Frank; the best is the famous "Δεύτε, παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων [Deu/te, pai~des tô~n E(llê/nôn]," by the unfortunate Riga.[256] But from a catalogue of more than sixty authors, now before me, only fifteen can be found who have touched on any theme except theology.

I am intrusted with a commission by a Greek of Athens named Marmarotouri to make arrangements, if possible, for printing in London a translation of Barthelemi's _Anacharsis_ in Romaic, as he has no other opportunity, unless he dispatches the MS. to Vienna by the Black Sea and Danube.

The Reviewer mentions a school established at Hecatonesi,[257] and suppressed at the instigation of Sebastiani:[258] he means Cidonies, or, in Turkish, Haivali; a town on the continent, where that institution for a hundred students and three professors still exists. It is true that this establishment was disturbed by the Porte, under the ridiculous pretext that the Greeks were constructing a fortress instead of a college; but on investigation, and the payment of some purses to the Divan, it has been permitted to continue. The principal professor, named Ueniamin (i.e. Benjamin), is stated to be a man of talent, but a freethinker. He was born in Lesbos, studied in Italy, and is master of Hellenic, Latin, and some Frank languages: besides a smattering of the sciences.

Though it is not my intention to enter farther on this topic than may allude to the article in question, I cannot but observe that the Reviewer's lamentation over the fall of the Greeks appears singular, when he closes it with these words: "_The change is to be attributed to their misfortunes rather than to any 'physical degradation.'_" It may be true that the Greeks are not physically degenerated, and that Constantinople contained on the day when it changed masters as many men of six feet and upwards as in the hour of prosperity; but ancient history and modern politics instruct us that something more than physical perfection is necessary to preserve a state in vigour and independence; and the Greeks, in particular, are a melancholy example of the near connexion between moral degradation and national decay.

The Reviewer mentions a plan "_we believe_" by Potemkin[259] for the purification of the Romaic; and I have endeavoured in vain to procure any tidings or traces of its existence. There was an academy in St. Petersburg for the Greeks; but it was suppressed by Paul, and has not been revived by his successor.

There is a slip of the pen, and it can only be a slip of the pen, in p. 58, No. 31, of the _Edinburgh Review_, where these words occur: "We are told that when the capital of the East yielded to _Solyman_"--It may be presumed that this last word will, in a future edition, be altered to Mahomet II.[260] The "ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that period spoke a dialect, "which would not have disgraced the lips of an Athenian." I do not know how that might be, but am sorry to say that the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, are much altered; being far from choice either in their dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are barbarous to a proverb:--

"Ὠ Ἀθῆναι, πρώτη χώρα [Ô) A)thê~nai, prô/tê chô/ra], Τί γαιδάρους τρέφεις τώρα [Ti/ gaida/rous tre/pheis tô/ra];"[261]

In Gibbon, vol. x. p. 161, is the following sentence:--"The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the church and palace sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be asserted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the "ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Cæsar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Comnena[262] wrote, three centuries before: and those royal pages are not esteemed the best models of composition, although the princess γλῶτταν εἶχεν ἈΚΡΙΒΩΕ Ἀττικιϛούσαν [glô~ttan ei~)chen A)KRIBÔE A)ttikisou/san].[263] In the Fanal, and in Yanina, the best Greek is spoken: in the latter there is a flourishing school under the direction of Psalida.

There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making a tour of observation through Greece: he is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow-commoner of most colleges. I mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant among the Greeks.

The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright,[264] the author of the beautiful poem _Horæ Ionicæ_, as qualified to give details of these nominal Romans and degenerate Greeks; and also of their language: but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian dialect of the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hellenic; for the Albanians speak a Romaic as notoriously corrupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. Yanina, (where, next to the Fanal, the Greek is purest,) although the capital of Ali Pacha's dominions, is not in Albania, but Epirus; and beyond Delvinachi in Albania Proper up to Argyrocastro and Tepaleen (beyond which I did not advance) they speak worse Greek than even the Athenians. I was attended for a year and a half by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mother tongue is Illyric, and I never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have seen, not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the army of Vely Pacha[265]) praised for their Greek, but often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms.

I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, amongst which some from the Bey of Corinth, written to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, and others by the dragoman of the Caimacam[266] of the Morea (which last governs in Vely Pacha's absence), are said to be favourable specimens of their epistolary style. I also received some at Constantinople from private persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true antique character.

The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue in its past and present state, to a paradox (page 59) on the great mischief the knowledge of his own language has done to Coray, who, it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient Greek, because he is perfect master of the modern! This observation follows a paragraph, recommending, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as "a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also to the classical scholar; in short, to every body except the only person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses; and by a parity of reasoning, our own language is conjectured to be probably more attainable by "foreigners" than by ourselves! Now, I am inclined to think, that a Dutch Tyro in our tongue (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly perplexed with "Sir Tristram,"[267] or any other given "Auchinleck MS." with or without a grammar or glossary; and to most apprehensions it seems evident that none but a native can acquire a competent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollett's Lismahago,[268] who maintains that the purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible; but if he does, the fault is in the man rather than in his mother tongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the native student.--Here the Reviewer proceeds to business on Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks.

Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberdeen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole,[269] and many others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen people. The few observations I have offered I should have left where I made them, had not the article in question, and above all the spot where I read it, induced me to advert to those pages, which the advantage of my present situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make the attempt.

I have endeavoured to waive the personal feelings which rise in despite of me in touching upon any part of the _Edinburgh Review_; not from a wish to conciliate the favour of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a disquisition of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE TURKS.

The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished, of late years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of sullen civility very comfortable to voyagers.

It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live amongst them twenty years without acquiring information, at least from themselves. As far as my own slight experience carried me, I have no complaint to make; but am indebted for many civilities (I might almost say for friendship), and much hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Vely Pacha of the Morea, and several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a _bon vivant_, and as social a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. During the carnival, when our English party were masquerading, both himself and his successor were more happy to "receive masks" than any dowager in Grosvenor-square.[270]

On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend and visitor, the Cadi[271] of Thebes, was carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in Christendom; while the worthy Waywode himself triumphed in his fall.

In all money transactions with the Moslems, I ever found the strictest honour, the highest disinterestedness. In transacting business with them, there are none of those dirty peculations, under the name of interest, difference of exchange, commission, etc., etc., uniformly found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera.

With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar value--a horse, or a shawl.

In the capital and at court the citizens and courtiers are formed in the same school with those of Christianity; but there does not exist a more honourable, friendly, and high-spirited character than the true Turkish provincial Aga, or Moslem country gentleman. It is not meant here to designate the governors of towns, but those Agas who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less extent, in Greece and Asia Minor.

The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rabble in countries with greater pretensions to civilisation. A Moslem, in walking the streets of our country-towns, would be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar situation in Turkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress.

The best accounts of the religion and different sects of Islamism may be found in D'Ohsson's[272] French; of their manners, etc., perhaps in Thornton's English. The Ottomans, with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal at least to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can at least say what they are _not_: they are _not_ treacherous, they are _not_ cowardly, they do _not_ burn heretics, they are _not_ assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to _their_ capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, and devout to their God without an inquisition. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Russians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question whether Europe would gain by the exchange. England would certainly be the loser.

With regard to that ignorance of which they are so generally, and sometimes justly accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in what useful points of knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the common arts of life? In their manufactures? Is a Turkish sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Spaniard? Are their Pachas worse educated than a Grandee? or an Effendi[273] than a Knight of St. Jago? I think not.

I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking whether my fellow-traveller and myself were in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now, this question from a boy of ten years old proved that his education had not been neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age knows the difference of the Divan from a College of Dervises; but I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded as he had been entirely by his Turkish tutors, had learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament, it were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his instructors did not confine his studies to the Koran.

In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended; and the poor are taught without the church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the system is not yet printed (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, and books printed on the late military institution of the Nizam Gedidd);[274] nor have I heard whether the Mufti and the Mollas have subscribed, or the Caimacan and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous youth of the turban should be taught not to "pray to God their way." The Greeks also--a kind of Eastern Irish papists--have a college of their own at Maynooth,--no, at Haivali; where the heterodox receive much the same kind of countenance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the English legislature. Who shall then affirm that the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and orthodox of all possible kingdoms? But though they allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to participate in their privileges: no, let them fight their battles, and pay their haratch (taxes), be drubbed in this world, and damned in the next. And shall we then emancipate our Irish Helots? Mahomet forbid! We should then be bad Mussulmans, and worse Christians: at present we unite the best of both--jesuitical faith, and something not much inferior to Turkish toleration.

APPENDIX.

Amongst an enslaved people, obliged to have recourse to foreign presses even for their books of religion, it is less to be wondered at that we find so few publications on general subjects than that we find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to discover any nation with so great a proportion of books and their authors as the Greeks of the present century. "Aye," but say the generous advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, "ay, but these are mostly, if not all, ecclesiastical tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well! and pray what else can they write about? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government of his own country; or a Frenchman, who may abuse every government except his own, and who may range at will over every philosophical, religious, scientific, sceptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and cannot touch on science for want of instruction; if he doubts he is excommunicated and damned; therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern philosophy; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks! there are no such things. What then is left him, if he has a turn for scribbling? Religion and holy biography; and it is natural enough that those who have so little in this life should look to the next. It is no great wonder then, that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen should have touched on anything but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius' _Ecclesiastical History_.

[The above forms a preface to an Appendix, headed "Remarks on the Romaic or Modern Greek Language, with Specimens and Translations," which was printed at the end of the volume, after the "Poems," in the first and successive editions of _Childe Harold_. It contains (1) a "List of Romaic Authors;" (2) the "Greek War-Song," Δεῦτε, Παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων [Deu~te, Pai~des tô~n E(llê/nôn]; (3) "Romaic Extracts," of which the first, "a Satire in dialogue" (_vide_ Note III. _supra_), is translated (see _Epigrams, etc._, vol. vi. of the present issue); (4) scene from Ο Καφενὲς [O Kaphene\s] (the Café), translated from the Italian of Goldoni by Spiridion Vlanti, with a "Translation;" (5) "Familiar Dialogues" in Romaic and English; (6) "Parallel Passages from St. John's Gospel;" (7) "The Inscriptions at Orchomenos from Meletius" (see _Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 224); (8) the "Prospectus of a Translation of Anacharsis into Romaic, by my Romaic master, Marmarotouri, who wished to publish it in England;" (9) "The Lord's Prayer in Romaic" and in Greek.

The Excursus, which is remarkable rather for the evidence which it affords of Byron's industry and zeal for acquiring knowledge, than for the value or interest of the subject-matter, has been omitted from the present issue. The "Remarks," etc., are included in the "Appendix" to _Lord Byron's Poetical Works_, 1891, pp. 792-797. (See, too, letter to Dallas, September 21, 1811: _Letters_, ii. 43.)]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[202] {166} ["Owls and serpents" are taken from _Isa._ xiii. 21, 22; "foxes" from _Lam._ v. 18, "Zion is desolate, the foxes walk upon it."]

[203] [For Herr Gropius, _vide post_, note 6.]

[204] [The Parthenon was converted into a church in the sixth century by Justinian, and dedicated to the _Divine Wisdom_. About 1460 the church was turned into a mosque. After the siege in 1687 the Turks erected a smaller mosque within the original enclosure. "The only relic of the mosque dedicated by Mohammed the Conqueror (1430-1481) is the base of the minaret ... at the south-west corner of the Cella" (_Handbook for Greece_, p. 319).]

[205] {168} ["Don Battista Lusieri, better known as Don Tita," was born at Naples. He followed Sir William Hamilton "to Constantinople, in 1799, whence he removed to Athens." "It may be said of Lusieri, as of Claude Lorraine, 'If he be not the _poet_, he is the historian of nature.'"--_Travels, etc_., by E. D. Clarke, 1810-1823, Part II. sect. ii. p. 469, note. See, too, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 455.]

[206] ["Mirandum in modum (canes venaticos diceres) ita odorabantur omnia et pervestigabant, ut, ubi quidque esset, aliqua ratione invenirent" (Cicero, _In Verrem_, Act. II. lib. iv. 13). Verres had two _finders_: Tlepolemus a worker in wax, and Hiero a painter. (See _Introduction to The Curse of Minerva: Poems_, 1898, i. 455.)]

[207] [M. Fauvel was born in Burgundy, circ. 1754. In 1787 he was attached to the suite of the Count Choiseul-Gouffier, French Ambassador at Constantinople, and is said to have prepared designs and illustrations for his patron's _Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce_, vol. i. 1787, vol. ii. 1809. He settled at Athens, and was made vice-consul by the French Government. In his old age, after more than forty years' service at Athens, he removed finally to Smyrna, where he was appointed consul-general.--_Biographic des Contemporains_ (Rabbe), 1834, art. "(N.) Fauvel."]

[208] {169} In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna.[§1] To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the Ægean deep:" but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's[§2] shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell:--

"Here in the dead of night, by Lonna's steep,[§3] The seaman's cry was heard along the deep."

This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there

"The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque."

See Hodgson's _Lady Jane Grey_, etc.[§4][1809, p. 214].

But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances.

[§1] [This must have taken place in 1811, after Hobhouse returned to England.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 373, note.]

[§2] [William Falconer (1732-1769), second mate of a vessel in the Levant trade, was wrecked between Alexandria and Venice. Only three of the crew survived. His poem, _The Shipwreck_, was published in 1762. It was dedicated to the Duke of York, and through his intervention he was "rated as a midshipman in the Royal Navy." Either as author or naval officer, he came to be on intimate terms with John Murray the first, who thought highly of his abilities, and offered him (October 16, 1768) a partnership in his new bookselling business in Fleet Street. In September, 1769, he embarked for India as purser of the _Aurora_ frigate, which touched at the Cape, but never reached her destination. See _Memoir_, by J. S. Clarke; _The Shipwreck_, 1804, pp. viii.-xlvi.]

[§3] _Yes, at the dead of night_, etc.--_Pleasures of Hope_, lines 149, 150.

[§4] [The quotation is from Hodgson's "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country," _vide ante_, Canto I., p. 20, note.]

[209] {171} ["It was, however, during our stay in the place, to be lamented that a war, more than civil, was raging on the subject of Lord Elgin's pursuits in Greece, and had enlisted all the French settlers and the principal Greeks on one side or the other of the controversy. The factions of Athens were renewed."--_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 243.]

[210] This word, in the cant language, signifies thieving.--Fielding's _History of Jonathan Wild_, i. 3, note.

[211] This Sr. Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels: but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri.--A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a moment's pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it.--[_Note to Third Edition._]

[According to Bryant's _Dict. of Painters_, and other biographical dictionaries, Karl Wilhelm Gropius (whom Lamartine, in his _Voyage en Orient_, identifies with the Gropius "injustement accusé par lord Byron dans ses notes mordantes sur Athènes") was born at Brunswick, in 1793, travelled in Italy and Greece, making numerous landscape and architectural sketches, and finally settled at Berlin in 1827, where he opened a diorama, modelled on that of Daguerre, "in connection with a permanent exhibition of painting.... He was considered the first wit in Berlin, where he died in 1870." In 1812, when Byron wrote his note to the third edition of _Childe Harold_, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.]

[212] {173} [George Castriota (1404-1467) (Scanderbeg, or Scander Bey), the youngest son of an Albanian chieftain, was sent with his four brothers as hostage to the Sultan Amurath II. After his father's death in 1432 he carried on a protracted warfare with the Turks, and finally established the independence of Albania. "His personal strength and address were such as to make his prowess in the field resemble that of a knight of romance." He died at Lissa, in the Gulf of Venice, and when the island was taken by Mohammed II., the Turks are said to have dug up his bones and hung them round their necks, either as charms against wounds or "amulets to transfer his courage to themselves." (Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_; Gorton's _Biog. Dict._, art. "Scanderbeg.")]

[213] {174} [William Martin Leake (1777-1860), traveller and numismatist, published (_inter alia_) _Researches in Greece_, in 1814. He was "officially resident" in Albania, February, 1809-March, 1810.]

[214] [_A Journey through Albania during the Years 1809-10_, London, 1812.]

[215] {175} [The inhabitants of Albania, of the Shkipetar race, consist of two distinct branches: the Gueghs, who belong to the north, and are for the most part Catholics; and the Tosks of the south, who are generally Mussulmans (Finlay's _History of Greece_, i. 35).]

[gg] _I laughed so much as to induce a violent perspiration to which ... I attribute my present individuality_.--[D.]

[216] {176} [The mayor of the village; in Greek, προεστός [proestos].]

[217] [The father of the Consulina Teodora Macri, and grandfather of the "Maid of Athens."]

[218] [_Tristram Shandy_, 1775, iv. 44.]

[219] [See _Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, 1824, p.64.]

[220] {177} [Compare _The Waltz_, line 125--"O say, shall dull _Romaika's_ heavy sound." _Poems_, 1898, i. 492.]

[221] {186} [François Mercy de Lorraine, who fought against the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, was mortally wounded at the battle of Nordlingen, August 3, 1645.]

[222] {187} [Byron and Hobhouse visited Marathon, January 25, 1810. The unconsidered trifle of the "plain" must have been offered to Byron during his second residence at Athens, in 1811.]

[223] ["Expende Annibalem--quot libras," etc. (Juvenal, x. 147), is the motto of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, which was written April 10, 1814.--_Journal_, 1814; _Life_, p. 325.]

[224] [Compare letter to Hodgson, September 25, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 45.]

[225] [Miss Owenson (Sydney, Lady Morgan), 1783-1859, published her _Woman, or Ida of Athens_, in 4 vols., in 1812. Writing to Murray, February 20, 1818, Byron alludes to the "cruel work" which an article (attributed to Croker but, probably, written by Hookham Frere) had made with her _France_ in the _Quarterly Review_ (vol. xvii. p. 260); and in a note to _The Two Foscari_, act iii. sc. 1, he points out that his description of Venice as an "Ocean-Rome" had been anticipated by Lady Morgan in her "fearless and excellent work upon Italy." The play was completed July 9, 1821, but the work containing the phrase, "Rome of the Ocean," had not been received till August 16 (see, too, his letter to Murray, August 23, 1821). His conviction of the excellence of Lady Morgan's work was, perhaps strengthened by her outspoken eulogium.]

[226] {188} [For the Disdar's extortions, see _Travels in Albania_, i. 244.]

[227] ["The poor ...when once abroad, Grow sick, and damn the climate like a lord." Pope, _Imit. of Horace_, Ep. 1, lines 159, 160.]

[228] [_Works and Days_, v. 493, _et seq.; Hesiod. Carm._, C. Goettlingius (1843), p. 215.]

[229] Nonsense; humbug.

[230] {189} [Hobhouse pronounced it to be the Fountain of Ares, the Paraporti Spring, "which serves to swell the scanty waters of the Dirce." The Dirce flows on the west; the Ismenus, which forms the fountain, to the east of Thebes. "The water was tepid, as I found by bathing in it" (_Travels in Albania_, i. 233; _Handbook for Greece_, p. 703).]

[231] [_Travels in Greece_, ch. lxvii.]

[232] [Gell's _Itinerary of Greece_ (1810), Preface, p. xi.]

[233] {190} [For M. Roque, see _Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem: Oeuvres Chateaubriand_, Paris, 1837, ii. 258-266.]

[234] {191} [William Eton published (1798-1809) _A Survey of the Turkish Empire_, in which he advocated the cause of Greek independence. Sonnini de Manoncourt (1751-1812), another ardent phil-Hellenist, published his _Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie_ in 1801.]

[235] [Cornelius de Pauw (1739-1799), Dutch historian, published, in 1787, _Recherches philosophiques sur les Grecs_. Byron reflects upon his paradoxes and superficiality in Note II., _infra_. Thomas Thornton published, in 1807, a work entitled _Present State of Turkey_ (see Note II., _infra_).]

[236] {192} [The MSS. of _Hints from Horace_ and _The Curse of Minerva_ are dated, "Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12 and March 17, 1811." Proof B of _Hints from Horace_ is dated, "Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 12, 1811." Writing to Hodgson, November 14, 1810, he says, "I am living alone in the Franciscan monastery with one 'fri_ar_' (a Capuchin of course) and one 'fri_er_' (a bandy-legged Turkish cook)" (_Letters_, 1898, i. 307).]

[237] {193} [The Ionian Islands, with the exception of Corfù and Paxos, fell into the hands of the English in 1809, 1810. Paxos was captured in 1814, but Corfù, which had been blockaded by Napoleon, was not surrendered till the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815.]

[238] [The Mainotes or Mainates, who take their name from Maina, near Cape Tænaron, were the Highlanders of the Morea, "remarkable for their love of violence and plunder, but also for their frankness and independence." "Pedants have termed the Mainates descendants of the ancient Spartans," but "they must be either descended from the Helots, or from the Perioikoi.... To an older genealogy they can have no pretension."--Finlay's History of Greece, 1877, v. 113; vi. 26.]

[239] {194} [The Fanal, or Phanár, is to the left, Pera to the right, of the Golden Horn. "The water of the Golden Horn, which flows between the city and the suburbs, is a line of separation seldom transgressed by the Frank residents."--_Travels in Albania_, ii. 208.]

[240] {195} A word, _en passant_, with Mr. Thornton and Dr. Pouqueville, who have been guilty between them of sadly clipping the Sultan's Turkish.[§1]

Dr. Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of "_Suleyman Yeyen_" i.e. quoth the Doctor, "_Suleyman the eater of corrosive sublimate_." "Aha," thinks Mr. Thornton (angry with the Doctor for the fiftieth time), "have I caught you?"[§2]--Then, in a note, twice the thickness of the Doctor's anecdote, he questions the Doctor's proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity in his own.--"For," observes Mr. Thornton (after inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb), "it means nothing more than '_Suleyman the eater_,' and quite cashiers the supplementary '_sublimate_.'" Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr. Thornton, when he next resides "fourteen years in the factory," will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will discover that "_Suleyma'n yeyen_," put together discreetly, mean the "_Swallower of sublimate_" without any "Suleyman" in the case: "_Suleyma_" signifying "_corrosive sublimate_" and not being a proper name on this occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough with the addition of _n_. After Mr. Thornton's frequent hints of profound Orientalism, he might have found this out before he sang such pæans over Dr. Pouqueville.

After this, I think "Travellers _versus_ Factors" shall be our motto, though the above Mr. Thornton has condemned "hoc genus omne," for mistake and misrepresentation. "Ne Sutor ultra crepidam," "No merchant beyond his bales." N.B. For the benefit of Mr. Thornton, "Sutor" is not a proper name.

[§1][For Pouqueville's story of the "thériakis" or opium-eaters, see _Voyage en Morée_, 1805, ii. 126.]

[§2][Thornton's _Present State of Turkey_, ii. 173.]

[241] _Recherches Philosophiques sur les Grecs_, 1787, i. 155.

[242] {196} [De Pauw (_Rech. Phil. sur les Grecs_, 1788, ii. 293), in repeating Plato's statement (_Laches_, 191), that the Lacedæmonians at Platæa first fled from the Persians, and then, when the Persians were broken, turned upon them and won the battle, misapplies to them the term θρασύδειλοι [thrasy/deiloi] (Arist., _Eth. Nic._, iii. 9.7)--men, that is, who affect the hero, but play the poltroon.]

[243] [Attached as a note to line 562 _of Hints from Horace_ (MS. M.).]

[244] ["I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban." Shakespeare, _King Lear_, act iii. sc. 4, line 150.]

[245] [For April, 1810: vol. xvi. pp. 55, _sq_.]

[246] [Diamant or Adamantius Coray (1748-1833), scholar and phil-Hellenist, declared his views on the future of the Greeks in the preface to a translation of Beccaria Bonesani's treatise, _Dei Delitti e delle Pene_ (1764), which was published in Paris in 1802. He began to publish his _Bibliothèque Hellénique_, in 17 vols., in 1805. He was of Chian parentage, but was born at Smyrna. Κοραη Αὐτοβιογραφια [Koraê Au)tobiographia], Athens, 1891.]

[247] I have in my possession an excellent lexicon "τρίγλωσσον [tri/glôsson]" which I received in exchange from S. G----, Esq., for a small gem: my antiquarian friends have never forgotten it or forgiven me.

[Λεξικὸν τρίγλωσσον τῆς Γαλλικῆς [Lexiko\n tri/glôsson tê~s Gallikê~s], Ἰταλικῆς, καὶ 'Ρωμαικῆς διαλέκτου, κ.τ.λ. [I)talikê~s, kai\ 'Rômaikê~s diale/ktou, k.t.l.], 3 vols., Vienna, 1790. By Georgie Vendoti (Bentotes, or Bendotes) of Joanina. The book was in Hobhouse's possession in 1854.]

[248] In Gail's pamphlet against Coray, he talks of "throwing the insolent Hellenist out of the windows." On this a French critic exclaims, "Ah, my God! throw an Hellenist out of the window! what sacrilege!" It certainly would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics: but I have quoted the passage merely to prove the similarity of style among the controversialists of all polished countries; London or Edinburgh could hardly parallel this Parisian ebullition.

[Jean Baptiste Gail (1755-1829), Professor of Greek in the Collége de France, published, in 1810, a quarto volume entitled, _Réclamations de J. B. Gail, ... et observations sur l'opinion en virtu de laquelle le juri--propose de décerner un prix à M. Coray, à l'exclusion de la chasse de Xénophon, du Thucydide, etc., grec-latin-français, etc._]

[249] {198} Dorotheus of Mitylene (fl. sixteenth century), Archbishop of Monembasia (Anglicè "Malmsey"), on the south-east coast of Laconia, was the author of a _Universal History_ (Βιβλιον Ἱστορικόν, κ.τ.λ. [Biblion I(storiko/n, k.t.l.]), edited by A. Tzigaras, Venice, 1637, 4to.

[250] Meletius of Janina (1661-1714) was Archbishop of Athens, 1703-14. His principal work is _Ancient and Modern Geography_, Venice, 1728, fol. He also wrote an Ecclesiastical History, in four vols., Vienna, 1783-95.

[251] Panagios (Panagiotes) Kodrikas, Professor of Greek at Paris, published at Vienna, in 1794, a Greek translation of Fontenelle's _Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes_. John Camarases, a Constantinopolitan, translated into French the apocryphal treatise, _De Universi Natura_, attributed to Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who is said to have flourished in Lucania in the fifth century B.C.

[252] Christodoulos, an Acarnanian, published a work, Περὶ Φιλοσόφου, Φιλοσοφίας, Φυσιῶν, Μεταφυσικῶν, κ.τ.λ. [Peri\ Philoso/phou, Philosophi/as, Physiô~n, Metaphysikô~n, k.t.l.], at Vienna, in 1786.

[253] Athanasius Psalidas published, at Vienna, in 1791, a sceptical work entitled, _True Felicity_ (Ἀληθὴς Εὐδαιμονία [A)lêthê\s Eu)daimoni/a]). "Very learned, and full of quotations, but written in false taste."--_MS. M._ He was a schoolmaster at Janina, where Byron and Hobhouse made his acquaintance--"the only person," says Hobhouse, "I ever saw who had what might be called a library, and that a very small one" (_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 508).

[254] Hobhouse mentions a patriotic poet named Polyzois, "the new Tyrtæus," and gives, as a specimen of his work, "a war-song of the Greeks in Egypt, fighting in the cause of Freedom."--_Travels in Albania, etc._, i. 507; ii. 6, 7.

[255] {199} [By Blackbey is meant Bey of Vlack, i.e. Wallachia. (See a _Translation_ of this "satire in dialogue"--"Remarks on the Romaic," etc., _Poetical Works_, 1891, p. 793.)]

[256] [Constantine Rhigas (born 1753), the author of the original of Byron's "Sons of the Greeks, arise," was handed over to the Turks by the Austrians, and shot at Belgrade in 1793, by the orders of Ali Pacha.]

[257] {200} [The Hecatonnesi are a cluster of islands in the Gulf of Adramyttium, over against the harbour and town of Aivali or Aivalik. Cidonies may stand for ἡ πόλις κυδωνὶς [ê( po/lis kydôni\s], the quince-shaped city. "At Haivali or Kidognis, opposite to Mytilene, there is a sort of university for a hundred students and three professors, now superintended by a Greek of Mytilene, who teaches not only the Hellenic, but Latin, French, and Italian."--_Travels in Albania_, _etc._, i. 509, 510.]

[258] [François Horace Bastien, Conte Sebastiani (1772-1851), was ambassador to the _Sublime Porte_, May, 1806-June, 1807.]

[259] [Gregor Alexandrovitch Potemkin (1736-1791), the favourite of the Empress Catherine II.]

[260] {201} In a former number of the _Edinburgh Review_, 1808, it is observed: "Lord Byron passed some of his early years in Scotland, where he might have learned that _pibroch_ does not mean a _bagpipe_, any more than _duet_ means a _fiddle_." Query,--Was it in Scotland that the young gentlemen of the _Edinburgh Review_ _learned_ that _Solyman_ means _Mahomet II._ any more than _criticism_ means _infallibility_?--but thus it is,

"Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis." Persius, _Sat._ iv. 42.

The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great _similarity_ of the two words, and the _total absence of error_ from the former pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the _Edinburgh Review_ much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The _gentlemen_, having enjoyed many a _triumph_ on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a slight _ovation_ for the present.

[At the end of the review of _Childe Harold_, February, 1812 (xix., 476), the editor inserted a ponderous retort to this harmless and good-natured "chaff:" "To those strictures of the noble author we feel no inclination to trouble our readers with any reply ... we shall merely observe that if we viewed with astonishment the immeasurable fury with which the minor poet received the innocent pleasantry and moderate castigation of our remarks on his first publication, we now feel nothing but pity for the strange irritability of temperament which can still cherish a private resentment for such a cause, or wish to perpetuate memory of personalities as outrageous as to have been injurious only to their authors."]

[261] ["O Athens, first of all lands, why in these latter days dost thou nourish asses?"]

[262] [Anna Comnena (1083-1148), daughter of Alexis I., wrote the _Alexiad_, a history of her father's reign.]

[263] [Zonaras (_Annales_, B 240), lib. viii. cap. 26, A 4. Venice, 1729.]

[264] [See _English Bards, etc._, line 877: _Poems_, 1898, i. 366, _note 1._]

[265] {203} [For Vely Pacha, the son of Ali Pacha, Vizier of the Morea, see _Letters_, 1898, i. 248, note 1.]

[266] [The Caimacam was the deputy or lieutenant of the grand Vizier.]

[267] [Scott published "_Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance of the Thirteenth Century_, by Thomas of Ercildoun," in 1804.]

[268] [Captain Lismahago, a paradoxical and pedantic Scotchman, the favoured suitor of Miss Tabitha Bramble, in Smollett's _Expedition of Humphry Clinker_.]

[269] {204} [Sir William Drummond (1780?-1828) published, _inter alia_, _A Review of the Government of Athens and Sparta_, in 1795; and _Herculanensia, an Archæological and Philological Dissertation containing a Manuscript found at Herculaneum_, in conjunction with the Rev. Robert Walpole (see letter to Harness, December 8, 1811. See _Letters_, 1898, ii. 79, note 3).

For Aberdeen and Hamilton, see _English Bards, etc._, line 509: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 336, note 2, and _Childe Harold_, Canto II. supplementary stanzas, _ibid._, ii. 108.

Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. (1769-1822), published _Travels in Various Countries_, 1810-1823 (_vide ante_, p. 172, note 7).

For Leake, _vide ante_, p. 174, note 1.

For Gell, see _English Bards, etc._, line 1034, note 1: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 379.

The Rev. Robert Walpole (1781-1856), in addition to his share in _Herculanensia_, completed the sixth volume of Clarke's _Travels_, which appeared in 1823.]

[270] {205} [Compare English Bards, etc., line 655, note 2: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 349.]

[271] [The judge of a town or village--the Spanish _alcalde_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cadi."]

[272] {206} [Mouradja D'Ohsson (1740-1804), an Armenian by birth, spent many years at Constantinople as Swedish envoy. He published at Paris (1787-90, two vols. fol.) his _Tableau général de l'empire Othoman_, a work still regarded as the chief authority on the subject.]

[273] ["Effendi," derived from the Greek αὐθέντης [au)the/ntês], through the Romaic ἀφέντης [a)phe/ntês], an "absolute master," is a title borne by distinguished civilians.

The Spanish order of St. James of Compostella was founded circ. A.D. 1170.]

[274] {207} [The "Nizam Gedidd," or new ordinance, which aimed at remodelling the Turkish army on a quasi-European system, was promulgated by Selim III in 1808.

A "mufti" is an expounder, a "molla" or "mollah" a superior judge, of the sacred Moslem law. The "tefterdars" or "defterdars" were provincial registrars and treasurers under the supreme defterdar, or Chancellor of the Exchequer.]

* * * * *

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO THE THIRD.

"Afin que cette application vous forcât à penser à autre chose. Il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps."--_Lettres du Roi de Prusse et de M. D'Alembert_.[275] [_Lettre_ cxlvi. Sept. 7, 1776.]

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD CANTO.

The Third Canto of _Childe Harold_ was begun early in May, and finished at Ouchy, near Lausanne, on the 27th of June, 1816. Byron made a fair copy of the first draft of his poem, which had been scrawled on loose sheets, and engaged the services of "Claire" (Jane Clairmont) to make a second transcription. Her task was completed on the 4th of July. The fair copy and Claire's transcription remained in Byron's keeping until the end of August or the beginning of September, when he consigned the transcription to "his friend Mr. Shelley," and the fair copy to Scrope Davies, with instructions to deliver them to Murray (see Letters to Murray, October 5, 9, 15, 1816). Shelley landed at Portsmouth, September 8, and on the 11th of September he discharged his commission.

"I was thrilled with delight yesterday," writes Murray (September 12), "by the announcement of Mr. Shelley with the MS. of _Childe Harold_. I had no sooner got the quiet possession of it than, trembling with auspicious hope, ... I carried it ... to Mr. Gifford.... He says that what you have heretofore published is nothing to this effort.... Never, since my intimacy with Mr. Gifford, did I see him so heartily pleased, or give one fiftieth part of the praise, with one thousandth part of the warmth."

The correction of the press was undertaken by Gifford, not without some remonstrance on the part of Shelley, who maintained that "the revision of the proofs, and the retention or alteration of certain particular passages had been entrusted to his discretion" (Letter to Murray, October 30, 1816).

When, if ever, Mr. Davies, of "inaccurate memory" (Letter to Murray, December 4, 1816), discharged his trust is a matter of uncertainty. The "original MS." (Byron's "fair copy") is not forthcoming, and it is improbable that Murray, who had stipulated (September 20) "for all the original MSS., copies, and scraps," ever received it. The "scraps" were sent (October 5) in the first instance to Geneva, and, after many wanderings, ultimately fell into the possession of Mrs. Leigh, from whom they were purchased by the late Mr. Murray.

The July number of the _Quarterly Review_ (No. XXX.) was still in the press, and, possibly, for this reason it was not till October 29 that Murray inserted the following advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle:_ "Lord Byron's New Poems. On the 23^d of November will be published The Prisoners (_sic_) of Chillon, a Tale and other Poems. A Third Canto of Childe Harold...." But a rival was in the field. The next day (October 30), in the same print, another advertisement appeared: "_The R. H. Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land...._ Printed for J. Johnston, Cheapside.... Of whom may be had, by the same author, a new ed. (the third) of _Farewell to England: with three other poems...._" It was, no doubt, the success of his first venture which had stimulated the "Cheapside impostor," as Byron called him, to forgery on a larger scale.

The controversy did not end there. A second advertisement (_Morning Chronicle_, November 15) of "Lord Byron's Pilgrimage," etc., stating that "the copyright of the work was consigned" to the Publisher "exclusively by the Noble Author himself, and for which he gives 500 guineas," precedes Murray's second announcement of _The Prisoners of Chillon_, and the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, in which he informs "the public that the poems lately advertised are not written by Lord Byron. The only bookseller at present authorised to print Lord Byron's poems is Mr. Murray...." Further precautions were deemed necessary. An injunction in Chancery was applied for by Byron's agents and representatives (see, for a report of the case in the _Morning Chronicle_, November 28, 1816, _Letters_, vol. iv., Letter to Murray, December 9, 1816, note), and granted by the Chancellor, Lord Eldon. Strangely enough, Sir Samuel Romilly, whom Byron did not love, was counsel for the plaintiff.

In spite of the injunction, a volume entitled "_Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land_, a Poem in Two Cantos. To which is attached a fragment, _The Tempest_," was issued in 1817. It is a dull and, apparently, serious production, suggested by, but hardly an imitation of, _Childe Harold_. The notes are descriptive of the scenery, customs, and antiquities of Palestine. _The Tempest_, on the other hand, is a parody, and by no means a bad parody, of Byron at his worst; e.g.--

"There was a sternness in his eye, Which chilled the soul--one knew not why-- But when returning vigour came, And kindled the dark glare to flame, So fierce it flashed, one well might swear, A thousand souls were centred there."

It is possible that this _Pilgrimage_ was the genuine composition of some poetaster who failed to get his poems published under his own name, or it may have been the deliberate forgery of John Agg, or Hewson Clarke, or C. F. Lawler, the _pseudo_ Peter Pindar--"Druids" who were in Johnston's pay, and were prepared to compose pilgrimages to any land, holy or unholy, which would bring grist to their employer's mill. (See the _Advertisements_ at the end of _Lord Byron's Pilgrimage, etc._)

The Third Canto was published, not as announced, on the 23rd, but on the 18th of November. Murray's "auspicious hope" of success was amply fulfilled. He "wrote to Lord Byron on the 13th of December, 1816, informing him that at a dinner at the Albion Tavern, he had sold to the assembled booksellers 7000 of his Third Canto of _Childe Harold_...." The reviews were for the most part laudatory. Sir Walter Scott's finely-tempered eulogium (_Quart. Rev_., No. xxxi., October, 1816 [published February 11, 1817]), and Jeffrey's balanced and cautious appreciation (_Edin. Rev_., No. liv., December, 1816 [published February 14, 1817]) have been reprinted in their collected works. Both writers conclude with an aspiration--Jeffrey, that

"This puissant spirit Yet shall reascend, Self-raised, and repossess its native seat!"

Scott, in the "tenderest strain" of Virgilian melody--

"I decus, i nostrum, melioribus utere fatis!"

NOTE ON MSS. OF THE THIRD CANTO.

[The following memorandum, in Byron's handwriting, is prefixed to the Transcription:--

"This copy is to be printed from--subject to comparison with the original MS. (from which this is a transcription) in such parts as it may chance to be difficult to decypher in the following. The notes in this copy are more complete and extended than in the former--and there is also _one stanza more_ inserted and added to this, viz. the 33d. B. Byron. July 10th, 1816. Diodati, near y^e Lake of Geneva."

The "original MS." to which the memorandum refers is not forthcoming (_vide ante_, p. 212), but the "scraps" (MS.) are now in Mr. Murray's possession. Stanzas i.-iii., and the lines beginning, "The castled Crag of Drachenfels," are missing.

Claire's Transcription (C.) occupies the first 119 pages of a substantial quarto volume. Stanzas xxxiii. and xcix.-cv. and several of the notes are in Byron's handwriting. The same volume contains _Sonnet on Chillon_, in Byron's handwriting; a transcription of the _Prisoners_ (_sic_) _of Chillon_ (so, too, the advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle_, October 29, 1816); _Sonnet_, "Rousseau," etc., in Byron's handwriting, and transcriptions of _Stanzas to_----, "Though the day of my destiny's over;" _Darkness_; _Churchill's Grave_; _The Dream_; _The Incantation_ (_Manfred_, act ii. sc. 1); and _Prometheus_.]

CANTO THE THIRD.

I.

Is thy face like thy mothers, my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?[276] When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then we parted,--not as now we part, But with a hope.-- Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.[gh]

II.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more![277] And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider.[278] Welcome to their roar! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale,[gi] Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

III.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;[279] Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life,--where not a flower appears.

IV.

Since my young days of passion--joy, or pain-- Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string-- And both may jar: it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing[gj]: Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling; So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness--so it fling Forgetfulness around me--it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.

He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years,[280] piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him--nor below Can Love or Sorrow, Fame, Ambition, Strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance--he can tell Why Thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell Still unimpaired, though old, in the Soul's haunted cell.[gk]

VI.

'Tis to create, and in creating live[281] A being more intense that we endow[gl] With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now-- What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow-- Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth.

VII.

Yet must I think less wildly:--I _have_ thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:[gm] And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poisoned.[282] 'Tis too late: Yet am I changed; though still enough the same In strength to bear what Time can not abate,[gn] And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

VIII.

Something too much of this:--but now 'tis past, And the spell closes with its silent seal--[283] Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel,[go] Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And Life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

IX.

His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deemed its spring perpetual--but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

X.

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed[gp] Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation--such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.[gq]

XI.

But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek[gr] To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of Beauty's cheek, Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?[gs] Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star[284] which rises o'er her steep, nor climb? Harold, once more within the vortex, rolled On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his Youth's fond prime.[gt][285]

XII.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit[gu] Of men to herd with Man, with whom he held Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled, He would not yield dominion of his mind To Spirits against whom his own rebelled, Proud though in desolation--which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

XIII.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;[gv] Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.

XIV.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,[gw] Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, And human frailties, were forgotten quite: Could he have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.[gx]

XV.

But in Man's dwellings he became a thing[gy] Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing, To whom the boundless air alone were home: Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his wiry dome Till the blood tinge his plumage--so the heat Of his impeded Soul would through his bosom eat.

XVI.

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,[286] With nought of Hope left--but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild,--as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck,-- Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.

XVII.

Stop!--for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?[287] Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but _the moral's truth_ tells simpler so.--[gz][288] As the ground was before, thus let it be;--[ha] How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! And is this all the world has gained by thee, Thou first and last of Fields! king-making Victory?

XVIII.

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo![hb] How in an hour the Power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!-- In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew,[1.B.] Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,[hc] Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; Ambition's life and labours all were vain-- He wears the shattered links of the World's broken chain.[hd]

XIX.

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit And foam in fetters;--but is Earth more free?[289] Did nations combat to make _One_ submit? Or league to teach all Kings true Sovereignty?[he] What! shall reviving Thraldom again be The patched-up Idol of enlightened days? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to Thrones? No! _prove_ before ye praise!

XX.

If not, o'er one fallen Despot boast no more! In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before The trampler of her vineyards; in vain, years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions: all that most endears Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a Sword, Such as Harmodius[2.B.] drew on Athens' tyrant Lord.

XXI.

There was a sound of revelry by night,[290] And Belgium's Capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry--and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;[hf] A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell;[3.B.] But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

XXII.

Did ye not hear it?--No--'twas but the Wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet-- But hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer--clearer--deadlier than before![hg] Arm! Arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar![hh]

XXIII.

Within a windowed niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated Chieftain; he did hear[291] That sound the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well[hi] Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell; He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

XXIV.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro-- And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,[hj] And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness-- And there were sudden partings, such as press[hk] The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise![hl]

XXV.

And there was mounting in hot haste--the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war-- And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the Morning Star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,[hm] Or whispering, with white lips--"The foe! They come! they come!"

XXVI.

And wild and high the "Cameron's Gathering" rose! The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes;-- How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan's--Donald's[4.B.] fame rings in each clansman's ears!

XXVII.

And Ardennes[5.B.] waves above them her green leaves,[hn] Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass-- Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,--alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living Valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high Hope, shall moulder cold and low.

XXVIII.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;-- Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay; The Midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The Morn the marshalling in arms,--the Day Battle's magnificently-stern array! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse,--friend,--foe,--in one red burial blent!

XXIX.

Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his Sire some wrong,[292] And partly that bright names will hallow song;[ho] And his was of the bravest, and when showered The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, Even where the thickest of War's tempest lowered, They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard![293]

XXX.

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, And mine were nothing, had I such to give; But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, And saw around me the wide field revive With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring[294] Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.[6.B.]

XXXI.

I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake; The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake The fever of vain longing, and the name So honoured but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

XXXII.

They mourn, but smile at length--and, smiling, mourn: The tree will wither long before it fall; The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;[hp] The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness; the ruined wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; The bars survive the captive they enthral; The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;[hq] And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:[295]

XXXIII.

Even as a broken Mirror,[296] which the glass In every fragment multiplies--and makes A thousand images of one that was, The same--and still the more, the more it breaks; And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Living in shattered guise; and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.

XXXIV.

There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison,--a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were As nothing did we die; but Life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,[7.B.] All ashes to the taste: Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years of life,--say, would he name threescore?

XXXV.

The Psalmist numbered out the years of man: They are enough; and if thy tale be _true_,[hr] Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,[297] More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo! Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say-- "Here, where the sword united nations drew,[hs] Our countrymen were warring on that day!" And this is much--and all--which will not pass away.

XXXVI.

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, Whose Spirit, antithetically mixed, One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixed;[ht] Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; For Daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st[hu][298] Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,[299] And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

XXXVII.

Conqueror and Captive of the Earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name[hv] Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who wooed thee once, thy Vassal, and became[hw] The flatterer of thy fierceness--till thou wert A God unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

XXXVIII.

Oh, more or less than man--in high or low-- Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield; An Empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skilled, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of War, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest Star.

XXXIX.

Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide With that untaught innate philosophy, Which, be it Wisdom, Coldness, or deep Pride,[hx] Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled[hy] With a sedate and all-enduring eye;-- When Fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.

XL.

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them[hz] Ambition steeled thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn, which could contemn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow: 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

XLI.

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, _Their_ admiration thy best weapon shone; The part of Philip's son was thine, not then (Unless aside thy Purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at men-- For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a den.[8.B.]

XLII.

But Quiet to quick bosoms is a Hell, And _there_ hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the Soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire[ia] Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

XLIII.

This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,[ib] And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach Mankind the lust to shine or rule:

XLIV.

Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast[ic] With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below.[id] Though high _above_ the Sun of Glory glow, And far _beneath_ the Earth and Ocean spread, _Round_ him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head,[ie] And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be[if] Within its own creation, or in thine, Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,[ig] Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? There Harold gazes on a work divine, A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine, And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.[ih]

XLVII.

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, All tenantless, save to the crannying Wind, Or holding dark communion with the Cloud There was a day when they were young and proud; Banners on high, and battles[300] passed below; But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,[ii] And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

XLVIII.

Beneath these battlements, within those walls, Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state Each robber chief upheld his arméd halls, Doing his evil will, nor less elate Than mightier heroes of a longer date. What want these outlaws conquerors should have[ij][9.B.] But History's purchased page to call them great? A wider space--an ornamented grave? Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.[ik]

XLIX.

In their baronial feuds and single fields, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,[301] With emblems well devised by amorous pride, Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide; But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on Keen contest and destruction near allied, And many a tower for some fair mischief won, Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run.

L.

But Thou, exulting and abounding river! Making thy waves a blessing as they flow Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever Could man but leave thy bright creation so, Nor its fair promise from the surface mow[il] With the sharp scythe of conflict, then to see Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know[302] Earth paved like Heaven--and to seem such to me,[im] Even now what wants thy stream?--that it should Lethe be.

LI.

A thousand battles have assailed thy banks, But these and half their fame have passed away, And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks: Their very graves are gone, and what are they?[303] Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glassed, with its dancing light, the sunny ray;[in] But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.

LII.

Thus Harold inly said, and passed along, Yet not insensible to all which here Awoke the jocund birds to early song In glens which might have made even exile dear: Though on his brow were graven lines austere, And tranquil sternness, which had ta'en the place Of feelings fierier far but less severe-- Joy was not always absent from his face, But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.

LIII.

Nor was all Love shut from him, though his days Of Passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though Disgust[io] Hath weaned it from all worldlings: thus he felt, For there was soft Remembrance, and sweet Trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.[304]

LIV.

And he had learned to love,--I know not why, For this in such as him seems strange of mood, The helpless looks of blooming Infancy, Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued, To change like this, a mind so far imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know; But thus it was; and though in solitude Small power the nipped affections have to grow, In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.

LV.

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said,[ip] Which unto his was bound by stronger ties Than the church links withal; and--though unwed, _That_ love was pure--and, far above disguise,[iq] Had stood the test of mortal enmities Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes;[305] But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour![ir]

1.

The castled Crag of Drachenfels[306][10.B.] Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossomed trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scattered cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine, Have strewed a scene, which I should see With double joy wert _thou_ with me.

2.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, And hands which offer early flowers, Walk smiling o'er this Paradise; Above, the frequent feudal towers Through green leaves lift their walls of gray; And many a rock which steeply lowers, And noble arch in proud decay, Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers; But one thing want these banks of Rhine,-- Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

3.

I send the lilies given to me-- Though long before thy hand they touch, I know that they must withered be, But yet reject them not as such; For I have cherished them as dear, Because they yet may meet thine eye, And guide thy soul to mine even here, When thou behold'st them drooping nigh, And know'st them gathered by the Rhine, And offered from my heart to thine!

4.

The river nobly foams and flows-- The charm of this enchanted ground, And all its thousand turns disclose Some fresher beauty varying round: The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Through life to dwell delighted here; Nor could on earth a spot be found To Nature and to me so dear-- Could thy dear eyes in following mine Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!

LVI.

By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, There is a small and simple Pyramid, Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; Beneath its base are Heroes' ashes hid-- Our enemy's--but let not that forbid Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb[is] Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

LVII.

Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,-- His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes; And fitly may the stranger lingering here Pray for his gallant Spirit's bright repose;-- For he was Freedom's Champion, one of those, The few in number, who had not o'erstept[307] The charter to chastise which she bestows On such as wield her weapons; he had kept The whiteness of his soul--and thus men o'er him wept.[11.B.]

LVIII.

Here Ehrenbreitstein,[12.B.] with her shattered wall Black with the miner's blast, upon her height Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball Rebounding idly on her strength did light:-- A Tower of Victory! from whence the flight Of baffled foes was watched along the plain: But Peace destroyed what War could never blight, And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain-- On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain.[308]

LIX.

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted The stranger fain would linger on his way! Thine is a scene alike where souls united Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey[it] On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,[iu] Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year.[309]

LX.

Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; The mind is coloured by thy every hue; And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! 'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise; More mighty spots may rise--more glaring shine,[iv] But none unite in one attaching maze The brilliant, fair, and soft,--the glories of old days,

LXI.

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom[310] Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between,-- The wild rocks shaped, as they had turrets been, In mockery of man's art; and these withal A race of faces happy as the scene, Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them fall.

LXII.

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, The Palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,[iw] And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold Sublimity, where forms and falls[311] The Avalanche--the thunderbolt of snow! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

LXIII.

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, There is a spot should not be passed in vain,-- Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain; Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, A bony heap, through ages to remain, Themselves their monument;[312]--the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.[ix][313][13.B.]

LXIV.

While Waterloo with Cannæ's carnage vies,[314] Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; They were true Glory's stainless victories, Won by the unambitious heart and hand Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, All unbought champions in no princely cause Of vice-entailed Corruption; they no land[iy] Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws Making Kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

LXV.

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days; 'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze Of one to stone converted by amaze, Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands Making a marvel that it not decays, When the coeval pride of human hands, Levelled Aventicum,[14.B.] hath strewed her subject lands.

LXVI.

And there--oh! sweet and sacred be the name!-- Julia--the daughter--the devoted--gave Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave The life she lived in--but the Judge was just-- And then she died on him she could not save.[iz] Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,[ja] And held within their urn one mind--one heart--one dust.[15.B.]

LXVII.

But these are deeds which should not pass away, And names that must not wither, though the Earth Forgets her empires with a just decay, The enslavers and the enslaved--their death and birth; The high, the mountain-majesty of Worth Should be--and shall, survivor of its woe, And from its immortality, look forth In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,[16.B.] Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

LXVIII.

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue:[jb] There is too much of Man here,[315] to look through With a fit mind the might which I behold; But soon in me shall Loneliness renew Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold.

LXIX.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind: All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil[jc][316] In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.[jd]

LXX.

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years[317] In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own Soul turn all our blood to tears, And colour things to come with hues of Night; The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness: on the sea The boldest steer but where their ports invite-- But there are wanderers o'er Eternity[je][318] Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.

LXXI.

Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy[319] Rhone,[17.B.] Or the pure bosom of its nursing Lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;--[jf] Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?

LXXII.

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum[320] Of human cities torture: I can see[jg] Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be[jh] A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky--the peak--the heaving plain[ji] Of Ocean, or the stars, mingle--and not in vain.

LXXIII.

And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:-- I look upon the peopled desert past, As on a place of agony and strife, Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast, To act and suffer, but remount at last[jj] With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring, Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the Blast Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.[jk][321]

LXXIV.

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form,[jl] Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly and worm,-- When Elements to Elements conform, And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see less dazzling but more warm? The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?[jm] Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?[322]

LXXV.

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part[jn] Of me and of my Soul, as I of them? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these? and stem A tide of suffering, rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Of those whose eyes are only turned below, Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?[jo][323]

LXXVI.

But this is not my theme; and I return[jp] To that which is immediate, and require Those who find contemplation in the urn, To look on One, whose dust was once all fire,-- A native of the land where I respire The clear air for a while--a passing guest, Where he became a being,--whose desire Was to be glorious; 'twas a foolish quest, The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

LXXVII.

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,[jq] The apostle of Affliction, he who threw Enchantment over Passion, and from Woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew How to make Madness beautiful, and cast O'er erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue[jr] Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

LXXVIII.

His love was Passion's essence--as a tree On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same.[js] But his was not the love of living dame, Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, But of ideal Beauty, which became In him existence, and o'erflowing teems Along his burning page, distempered though it seems.

LXXIX.

_This_ breathed itself to life in Julie, _this_ Invested her with all that's wild and sweet; This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss[18.B.] Which every morn his fevered lip would greet, From hers, who but with friendship his would meet; But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast Flashed the thrilled Spirit's love-devouring heat;[jt] In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.

LXXX.

His life was one long war with self-sought foes, Or friends by him self-banished;[324] for his mind Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose, For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,[ju] 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. But he was phrensied, wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which Skill could never find;[jv] But he was phrensied by disease or woe, To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.

LXXXI.

For then he was inspired,[325] and from him came, As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore, Those oracles which set the world in flame,[326] Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more: Did he not this for France? which lay before Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years?[327] Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, Till by the voice of him and his compeers, Roused up to too much wrath which follows o'ergrown fears?

LXXXII.

They made themselves a fearful monument! The wreck of old opinions--things which grew,[jw] Breathed from the birth of Time: the veil they rent, And what behind it lay, all earth shall view.[jx] But good with ill they also overthrew, Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild Upon the same foundation, and renew Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled, As heretofore, because Ambition was self-willed.

LXXXIII.

But this will not endure, nor be endured! Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. They might have used it better, but, allured By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt On one another; Pity ceased to melt With her once natural charities. But they, Who in Oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, They were not eagles, nourished with the day; What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?

LXXXIV.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear That which disfigures it; and they who war With their own hopes, and have been vanquished, bear Silence, but not submission: in his lair Fixed Passion holds his breath, until the hour Which shall atone for years; none need despair: It came--it cometh--and will come,--the power To punish or forgive--in _one_ we shall be slower.[jy][328]

LXXXV.

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved Torn Ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

LXXXVI.

It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darkened Jura,[329] whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more.

LXXXVII.

He is an evening reveller, who makes[jz] His life an infancy, and sings his fill;[ka][330] At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy--for the Starlight dews All silently their tears of Love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.[kb]

LXXXVIII.

Ye Stars! which are the poetry of Heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires,--'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A Beauty and a Mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That Fortune,--Fame,--Power,--Life, have named themselves a Star.[331]

LXXXIX.

All Heaven and Earth are still--though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;[332] And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-- All Heaven and Earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of Being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.[333]

XC.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt[kc] In solitude, where we are _least_ alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of Music, which makes known[kd] Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,[334] Binding all things with beauty;--'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

XCI.

Not vainly did the early Persian make[335] His altar the high places, and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,[19.B.] --and thus take A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak Upreared of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings--Goth or Greek-- With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air-- Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!

XCII.

The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh Night,[20.B.] And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in Woman![336] Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

XCIII.

And this is in the Night:--Most glorious Night![ke] Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,-- A portion of the tempest and of thee![kf] How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,[kg] And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black,--and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young Earthquake's birth.[kh]

XCIV.

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted[ki][337] In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted: Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed:-- Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters,--war within themselves to wage:[kj]

XCV.

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here, not one, but many, make their play, And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around: of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked His lightnings,--as if he did understand, That in such gaps as Desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.

XCVI.

Sky--Mountains--River--Winds--Lake--Lightnings! ye! With night, and clouds, and thunder--and a Soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices, is the knoll[338] Of what in me is sleepless,--if I rest. But where of ye, O Tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

XCVII.

Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,--could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul--heart--mind--passions--feelings--strong or weak-- All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel--and yet breathe--into _one_ word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

XCVIII.

The Morn is up again, the dewy Morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom-- Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb,-- And glowing into day: we may resume The march of our existence: and thus I, Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.

XCIX.

Clarens! sweet Clarens[339] birthplace of deep Love! Thine air is the young breath of passionate Thought; Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above,[kk] The very Glaciers have his colours caught, And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought[21.B.] By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,[kl] The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, Which stir and sting the Soul with Hope that woos, then mocks.

C.

Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,--[km] Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne To which the steps are mountains; where the God Is a pervading Life and Light,--so shown[kn] Not on those summits solely, nor alone In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown, His soft and summer breath, whose tender power[ko] Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.

CI.

All things are here of _Him_; from the black pines,[340] Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines Which slope his green path downward to the shore, Where the bowed Waters meet him, and adore, Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the Wood, The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,[kp] Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

CII.

A populous solitude of bees and birds, And fairy-formed and many-coloured things, Who worship him with notes more sweet than words,[kq] And innocently open their glad wings, Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs, And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings The swiftest thought of Beauty, here extend Mingling--and made by Love--unto one mighty end.

CIII.

He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,[341] And make his heart a spirit; he who knows That tender mystery, will love the more; For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, And the world's waste, have driven him far from those,[kr] For 'tis his nature to advance or die; He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie With the immortal lights, in its eternity!

CIV.

'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, Peopling it with affections; but he found It was the scene which Passion must allot To the Mind's purified beings; 'twas the ground Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound,[342] And hallowed it with loveliness: 'tis lone, And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have reared a throne.

CV.

Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes Of Names which unto you bequeathed a name;[22.B.] Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, A path to perpetuity of Fame: They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame Of Heaven again assailed--if Heaven, the while, On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

CVI.

The one was fire and fickleness,[343] a child Most mutable in wishes, but in mind A wit as various,--gay, grave, sage, or wild,-- Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;[ks] He multiplied himself among mankind, The Proteus of their talents: But his own Breathed most in ridicule,--which, as the wind, Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,-- Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.[344]

CVII.

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,[kt] And hiving wisdom with each studious year, In meditation dwelt--with learning wrought, And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer; The lord of irony,--that master-spell, Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear[ku][345] And doomed him to the zealot's ready Hell, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

CVIII.

Yet, peace be with their ashes,--for by them, If merited, the penalty is paid; It is not ours to judge,--far less condemn; The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all,--or hope and dread allayed By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust,[kv] Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed; And when it shall revive, as is our trust,[346] 'Twill be to be forgiven--or suffer what is just.

CIX.

But let me quit Man's works, again to read His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend This page, which from my reveries I feed, Until it seems prolonging without end. The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er[347] May be permitted, as my steps I bend To their most great and growing region, where The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

CX.

Italia too! Italia! looking on thee, Full flashes on the Soul the light of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the Chiefs and Sages Who glorify thy consecrated pages; Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,[348] The fount at which the panting Mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

CXI.

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Renewed with no kind auspices:--to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem We are not what we should be,--and to steel The heart against itself; and to conceal, With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,-- Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-- Which is the tyrant Spirit of our thought, Is a stern task of soul:--No matter,--it is taught.[349]

CXII.

And for these words, thus woven into song, It may be that they are a harmless wile,--[kw] The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,[kx] Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile My breast, or that of others, for a while. Fame is the thirst of youth,--but I am not[ky] So young as to regard men's frown or smile, As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;-- I stood and stand alone,--remembered or forgot.

CXIII.

I have not loved the World, nor the World me; I have not flattered its rank breath,[350] nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coined my cheek to smiles,--nor cried aloud In worship of an echo: in the crowd They could not deem me one of such--I stood Among them, but not of them[351]--in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.[23.B.]

CXIV.

I have not loved the World, nor the World me,-- But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things,--hopes which will not deceive, And Virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing; I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve--[kz][24.B.] That two, or one, are almost what they seem,-- That Goodness is no name--and Happiness no dream.

CXV.[352]

My daughter! with thy name this song begun! My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end!-- I see thee not--I hear thee not--but none Can be so wrapt in thee; Thou art the Friend To whom the shadows of far years extend: Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart,--when mine is cold,-- A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

CXVI.

To aid thy mind's developement,--to watch Thy dawn of little joys,--to sit and see Almost thy very growth,--to view thee catch Knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee! To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,-- This, it should seem, was not reserved for me-- Yet this was in my nature:--as it is, I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII.

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,[353] I know that thou wilt love me: though my name Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught With desolation, and a broken claim: Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same, I know that thou wilt love me--though to drain[354] _My_ blood from out thy being were an aim, And an attainment,--all would be in vain,-- Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII.

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[go] {221}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[hf] {229}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[hs] {238}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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