Chapter 47

[cw] {481} _Give me the strength of the buffalo's foot_ (_which marks me_).--[MS.]

[cx] _The sailless dromedary_----.--[MS.]

[cy] {482} _Now I can gibe the mightiest_.--[MS.]

[208] {483}[So, too, in _The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ (Marlowe's _Works_, 1858, p. 112), Faustus stabs his arm, "and with his proper blood Assures his soul to be great Lucifer's."]

[cz]

_Walk lively and pliant_. _You shall rise up as pliant_.--[MS, erased.]

[209] This is a well-known German superstition--a gigantic shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken. [See Brewster's _Letters on Natural Magic_, 1831, p. 128.]

[da] _And such my command_.--[MS.]

[210] {484}["Nigris vegetisque oculis."--Suetonius, _Vitæ C. Julius Cæsar_, cap. xiv., _Opera Omnia_, 1826, i. 105.]

[211] [_Vide post_, p. 501, note 1.]

[212] ["Sed ante alias [Julius Cæsar] dilexit M. Bruti matrem Serviliam ... dilexit et reginas ... sed maxime Cleopatram" (_ibid._, i. 113, 115). Cleopatra, born B.C. 69, was twenty-one years old when she met Cæsar, B.C. 48.]

[db]

_And can_ _It be? the man who shook the earth is gone_.--[MS.]

[213] {485}["Upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there be a name of Antiquity which comes down with such a general charm as that of _Alcibiades_. _Why?_ I cannot answer: who can?"--_Detached Thoughts_ (1821), No. 108, _Letters_, 1901, v. 461. For Sir Walter Scott's note on this passage, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 77, 78, note 2.]

[214] [The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, but his soul was all virtue, and from within him came such divine and pathetic things, as pierced the heart, and drew tears from the hearers.--Plato, _Symp_., p. 216, D.]

[215] {486}["Anthony had a noble dignity of countenance, a graceful length of beard, a large forehead, an aquiline nose: and, upon the whole, the same manly aspect that we see in the pictures and statues of Hercules."--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 634.]

[216] [As in the "Farnese" Hercules.]

[217] [The beauty and mien [of Demetrius Poliorcetes] were so inimitable that no statuary or painter could hit off a likeness. His countenance had a mixture of grace and dignity; and was at once amiable and awful; and the unsubdued and eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of the hero and the king.--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 616.

Demetrius the Besieger rescued Greece from the sway of Ptolemy and Cassander, B.C. 307. He passed the following winter at Athens, where divine honours were paid to him under the title of "the Preserver" ([Greek: o(Sôtê/r]). He was "the shame of Greece in peace," by reason of his profligacy--"the citadel was so polluted with his debaucheries, that it appeared to be kept sacred in some degree when he indulged himself only with such _Hetæræ_ as Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and Anticyra." He was the unspiritual ancestor of Charles the Second. Once when his father, Antigonus, had been told that he was indisposed, "he went to see him; and when he came to the door, he met one of his favourites going out. He went in, however, and, sitting down by him, took hold of his hand. 'My fever,' said Demetrius, 'has left me.' 'I knew it,' said Antigonus, 'for I met it this moment at the door.'"--Plutarch's _Lives_, _ibid._, pp. 621-623.]

[218] {488}[Spercheus was a river-god, the husband of Polydora, the daughter of Peleus. Peleus casts into the river the hair of his son Achilles, in the pious hope that his son-in-law would accept the votive offering, and grant the youth a safe return from the Trojan war. See _Iliad_, xxiii. 140, _sqq._]

[219] {489}["Whosoever," says Bacon, "hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons are extreme bold; first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process of time by a general habit; also it stirreth in them industry, and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weakness of others, that they may have somewhat to repay." (Essay xliv.). Byron's "chief incentive, when a boy, to distinction was that mark of deformity on his person, by an acute sense of which he was first stung into the ambition of being great."--_Life_, p. 306.]

[220] [Timúr Bey, or Timúr Lang, _i.e._ "the lame Timúr" (A.D. 1336-1405), was the founder of the Mogul dynasty. He was the Tamerlane of history and of legend. Byron had certainly read the selections from Marlowe's _Tamburlaine the Great_, in Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_.]

[221] {491}["I am black, but comely."--_Song of Solomon_ i. 5.]

[222] Adam means "_red earth_," from which the first man was formed. [The word _ad[=a]m_ is said to be analogous to the Assyrian _admu_, "child"--_i.e._ "one made" by God.--_Encycl. Bibl._, art. "Adam."]

[dc] {492} _This shape into Life_.--[_MS_.]

[223] {493}[The reference is to the _homunculi_ of the alchymists. See Retzsch's illustrations to Goethe's _Faust_, 1834, plates 3, 4, 5. Compare, too, _The Second Part of Faust_, act ii.--

"The glass rings low, the charming power that lives Within it makes the music that it gives. It dims! it brightens! it will shape itself. And see! a graceful dazzling little elf. He lives! he moves! spruce mannikin of fire, What more can we? what more can earth desire?"

Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 91.]

[dd] _Your Interloper_----.--[MS.]

[224] {494}[Compare _Prisoner of Chillon_, stanza ii. line 35, _Poetical Works_, 1091, iv. 15, note i. Compare, too, the dialogue between Mephistopheles and the Will-o'-the Wisp, in the scene on the Hartz Mountains, in _Faust_, Part I. (see Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 271).]

[225] {495}[The immediate reference is to the composite forces, German, French, and Spanish, of the Imperial Army under the command of Charles de Bourbon: but there is in lines 498-507 a manifest allusion to the revolutionary movements in South America, Italy, and Spain, which were at their height in 1822. (See the _Age of Bronze_, section vi. lines 260, _sq._, _post_, pp. 555-557.)]

[226] {496}[See Euripides, _Hippolytus_, line 733.]

[de] _Kochlani_----.--[MS.]

[227] [Kochlani horses were bred in a central province of Arabia.]

[228] [Byron's knowledge of Huon of Bordeaux was, most probably, derived from Sotheby's _Oberon; or, Huon de Bourdeux: A Mask_, published in 1802. For _The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux_, done into English by Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, see the reprint issued by the Early English Text Society (E.S., No. xliii. 1884); and for _Analyse de Huon de Bordeaux, etc._, see _Les Epopées Françaises_, by Léon Gautier, 1880, ii. 719-773.]

[229] {497}[The so-called statue of Memnon, the beautiful son of Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), is now known to be that of Amenhotep III., who reigned in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1430 B.C. Strabo, ed. 1807. p. 1155, was the first to record the musical note which sounded from the statue when it was touched by the rays of the rising sun. It used to be argued (see Gifford's note to _Don Juan_, Canto XIII. stanza lxiv. line 3, ed. 1837, p. 731) that the sounds were produced by a trick, but of late years it has been maintained that the Memnon's wail was due to natural causes, the pressure of suddenly-warmed currents of air through the pores and crevices of the stone. After the statue was restored, the phenomenon ceased. (See _La statue vocale de Memnon_, par J. A. Letronne, Paris, 1833, pp. 55, 56.)]

[df] _We'll add a "Count" to it_.--[MS.]

[dg] {498} ----_my eyes are full_.--[MS.]

[230] [Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier et de la Marche, Dauphin d'Auvergne, was born February 17, 1490. He served in Italy with Bayard, and helped to decide the victory of Agnadello (A.D. 1510). He was appointed Constable of France by Francis I., January, 1515, and fought at the battle of Marignano, September 13, 1515. Not long afterwards he lost the king's favour, who was set against him by his mother, Louise de Savoie; was recalled from his command in Italy, and superseded by Odet de Foix, brother of the king's mistress. It was not, however, till he became a widower (Susanne, Duchesse de Bourbon, died April 28, 1521) that he finally broke with Francis and attached himself to the Emperor Charles V. _Madame_, the king's mother, not only coveted the vast estates of the house of Bourbon, but was enamoured of the Constable's person, and, so to speak, gave him his choice between marriage and a suit for his fiefs. Charles would have nothing to say to the lady's proposals or to her son's entreaties, and seeing that rejection meant ruin, he "entered into a correspondence with the Emperor and the King [Henry VIII.] of England ... and, finding this discovered, went into the Emperor's service."

After various and varying successes, both in the South of France and in Lombardy, he found himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the commander-in-chief as the popular _capo_ of a mixed body of German, Spanish, and Italian _condottieri_, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had mutinied more than once, who could only be kept together by the prospect of unlimited booty, and a timely concession to their demands. "To Rome! to Rome!" cried the hungry and tumultuous _landsknechts_, and on May 5, 1527, the "late Constable of France," at the head of an army of 30,000 troops, appeared before the walls of the sacred city. On the morning of the 6th of May, he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. His epitaph recounts his honours: "Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ, Pontifice obsesso, Româ captâ, Borbonius, Hic Jacet;" but in Paris they painted the sill of his gate-way yellow, because he was a renegade and a traitor. He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, "Ne me plaignez pas-je meurs sans avoir servi contre _ma patrie, mon roy_, et mon serment." (See _Modern Universal History_, 1760, xxiv. 150-152, Note C; _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_, art. "Bourbon.")]

[231] {499}[The contrast is between imperial Rome, the Lord of the world, and papal Rome, "the great harlot which hath corrupted the earth with her fornications" (_Rev._ ii. 19). Compare Part II. sc. iii. line 26, _vide post_, p. 521.]

[232] {500}[Compare _Manfred_, act iii. sc. 4, line 10; and _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxviii. line 1; _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 131, 1899, ii. 423, note 2.]

[233] {501}["Calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret, sæpe obtrectatorum jocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice assuerat, et ex omnibus decretis sibi a Senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius, quam jus laureæ coronæ perpetuo gestandæ."--Suetonius, _Opera Omnia_, 1826, pp. 105, 106.]

[234] {503}[Francis the First was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, February 24, 1525.]

[dh] _With a soldier's firm foot_.--[MS.]

[235] [Compare _The Siege of Corinth_, line 752, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 483. There is a note of tragic irony in the soldiers' vain-glorious prophecy.]

[di] _With the Bourbon will count o'er_.--[MS.]

[236] {504}[Brantôme (_Memoires, etc._, 1722, i. 215) quotes a "chanson" of "Les soldats Espagnols" as they marched Romewards. "Calla calla Julio Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion! Viva la fama de Bourbon."]

[dj] _The General with his men of confidence_.--[MS.]

[dk] {505} _And present phantom of that deathless world_.--[MS.]

[237] {506}[When the Uticans decided not to stand a siege, but to send deputies to Cæsar, Cato determined to put an end to his life rather than fall into the hands of the conqueror. Accordingly, after he had retired to rest he stabbed himself under the breast, and when the physician sewed up the wound, he thrust him away, and plucked out his own bowels.--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, P. 553.]

[dl] {507} _Of a mere starving_----.--[MS.]

[dm] ----_Work away with words_.--[MS.]

[dn] {508} _First City rests upon to-morrow's action_.--[MS.]

[238] {510}["Dès l'aube du lundi 6 mai 1527, le connétable, à cheval, la cuirasse couverte d'un manteau blanc, marcha vers le Borgo, dont les murailles, à la hauteur de San-Spirito, étaient d'accès facile.... Bourbon mit pied à terre, et, prenant lui-même une échelle l'appliqua tout près de la porte Torrione."--_De l'Italie_, par Émile Gebhart, 1876, p. 255. Cæsar Grolierius (_Historia expugnatæ ... Urbis_, 1637), who claims to speak as an eye-witness (p. 2), describes "Borbonius" as "insignemque veste et armis" (p. 62).]

[do] _'Tis the morning--Hark! Hark! Hark!_--[MS.]

[239] {512} Scipio, the second Africanus, is said to have repeated a verse of Homer [_Iliad_, vi. 448], and wept over the burning of Carthage [B.C. 146]. He had better have granted it a capitulation.

[dp] _Than such victors should pollute_.--[MS.]

[240] {514}[Byron retains or adopts the old-fashioned pronunciation of the word "Rome" _metri gratiâ_. Compare _The Island_, Canto II. line 199.]

[241] ["Le bouillant Bourbon, à la tête des plus intrepides assaillans tenoit, de la main gauche une échelle appuyée centre le mur, et de la droite faisoit signe à ses soldats de monter pour suivre leurs camarades; en ce moment il reçut dans le flanc une balle d'arquebuse qui le traversa de part en part; il tomba à terre, mortellement blessé. On rapporte qu'avant d'expirer il prononca ces mots: 'Officiers et soldats, cacher ma mort à l'ennemi et marchez toujours en avant; la victoire est à vous, mon trépas ne peut vous la ravir.'"--_Sac de Rome en 1527_, par Jacques Buonaparte, 1836, p. 201.]

[242] {515}["Quand il sentit le coup, se print à cryer: 'Jésus!' et puis il dist 'Hélas! mon Dieu, je suis mort!' Si prit son espée par la poignée en signe de croix en disant tout hault, 'Miserere mei, Deus, secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam.'"--_Chronique de Bayart_, 1836, cap. lxiv., p. 119. For his rebuke of Charles de Bourbon, "Ne me plaignez pas," etc., _vide ante_, p. 499.]

[243] ["'M. de Bourbon,' dit un contemporain, 'termina de vie par mort, mais avant fist le devoir de bon, Chrestien; car il se confessa et reçut son Créateur."'--_De l'Italie_, par Émile Gebhart, 1876, p. 256.]

[244] {516}["While I was at work upon that diabolical task of mine, there came, from time to time, to watch me, some of the Cardinals who were invested in the castle; and most frequently the Cardinal of Ravenna and the Cardinal de' Gaddi. I often told them not to show themselves, since their nasty red caps gave a fair mark for the enemy."--_Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, translated by J. A. Symonds, 1888, i. 112. See, too, for the flight of the Cardinals, _Sac de Rome_, par Jacques Buonaparte, Paris, 1836, p. 203.]

[dq] {517} _Covered with gore and glory--those good times_.--[MS.]

[245] ["Directing my arquebuse where I saw the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed exactly at one whom I remarked to be higher than the rest; the fog prevented me from being certain whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then I turned to Alessandro and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their arquebuses, showing them how to avoid being hit by the besiegers. When we had fired two rounds apiece, I crept cautiously up to the walls, and observing a most extraordinary confusion, I discovered afterwards that one of our shots had killed the Constable of Bourbon; and from what I subsequently learned he was the man whom I had first noticed above the heads of the rest." It is a fact "that Bourbon was shot dead near the spot Cellini mentions. But the honour of flying the arquebuse ... cannot be assigned to any one in particular."--_Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, 1888, i. 114, and note.]

[246] {519}[Compare _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, stanza vi. line 2, _Poetical Works_, 1900, in. 307, note 3.]

[dr]

_'Tis the moment_ _When such I fain would show me_.--[MS.]

[247] {520}[Among the Imperial troops which Charles de Bourbon led against Rome were at least six thousand Landsknechts, ardent converts to the Reformed religion, and eager to prove their zeal by the slaughter of Catholics and the destruction of altars and crucifixes. Their leader, George Frundsberg, had set out for Rome with the pious intention of hanging the Pope (see _The Popes of Rome_, by Leopold Ranke, translated by Sarah Austen, 1866, i. 72). Brantôme (_Memoirs de Messire Pierre de Bourdeille_.... Leyde, 1722, i. 230) gives a vivid picture of their fanatical savagery: "Leur cruauté ne s'estendit pas seulement sur les personnes, mais sur les marbres et les anciennes statuës. Les Lansquenets, qui nouvellement estoient imbus de la nouvelle Religion, et les Espagnols encore aussi bien que les autres, s'habilloient en Cardinaux et evesques en leur habits Pontificaux et se pourmenoient ainsi parray la Ville."

In the Schmalkald articles, 1530, the pious belief that the Pope was Antichrist became an article of the Lutheran creed. Compare the following extracts, quoted by Hans Schultz in _Der Sacco di Roma_, 1894, p. 63, from the _Historia von der Romischen Bischoff, etc._, 1527:

"Der Papst ist für den Verfasser der Antichrist, der durch Lug und Trug seine Herrschaft in der Welt behauptet."

"Quant à l'armée impériale, on n'en vit jamais de plus étonnante.... Allemands et Espagnols, luthériens iconoclastes qui brûlaient les églises, ou furieux mystiques qui brûlaient Juils et Maures, barbares plus raffinés que _leur vieux ancêtres les Visigoths, les Vandales et les Huns_, ils frappaient l'Italie d'une terreur sans exemple."--_De I'italie_, by E. Gebliart, chap. vii., "Le Sac de Rome en 1527," p. 245.]

[ds]

_Hush! don't let him hear you_ _Or he might take you off before your time_.--[MS.]

[248] {521}["We got with the greatest difficulty to the gate of the castle.... I ascended to the keep, and, at the same instant, Pope Clement came in through the corridors into the castle; he had refused to leave the palace of St. Peter earlier, being unable to believe that his enemies would effect their entrance into Rome."--_Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, translated by J. A. Symonds, 1888, i. 114, 115.

So, too, Jacques Buonaparte (_Le Sac de Rome_, 1836, p. 202): "Le Pape Clement, avoit entendu les cris des soldats; il se sauvoit précipitamment par un long corridor pratiqué dans un mur double et se laissoit emporter de son palais an château Saint-Ange."]

[249] {526}[Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, was slain by Achilles, who wept over her as she lay a-dying, bewailing her beauty and her daring. For the picture, see Pausanias, _Descriptio Græciæ_, lib, v. cap. 11, 2.]

[250] {527}[See _Gen_. vi. 2, the motto of _Heaven and Earth, ante_, p, 277.]

[251] ["It came to pass the same day, that in Echatane a city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel was also reproached by her father's maids; because that she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed before they had lain with her.... And as he went, he remembered the words of Raphael, and took the ashes of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made smoke therewith. The which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt."--_Tobit_ iii. 7, 8; viii. 2, 3.]

[dt] {528} _The first born who burst the winter sun_.--[MS.]

[du] ----_through the brine_.--[MS.]

[252] {533}[Lucifer or Mephistopheles, renamed Cæsar, wears the shape of the Deformed Arnold. It may be that Byron intended to make Olimpia bestow her affections, not on the glorious Achilles, but the witty and interesting Hunchback.]

THE AGE OF BRONZE;

OR,

CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.[dv]

"Impar _Congressus_ Achilli."[253]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE AGE OF BRONZE_.

_The Age of Bronze_ was begun in December, 1822, and finished on January 10, 1823. "I have sent," he writes (letter to Leigh Hunt, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 160), "to Mrs. S[helley], for the benefit of being copied, a poem of about seven hundred and fifty lines length--The Age of Bronze,--or _Carmen Seculare et Annus haud Mirabilis_, with this Epigraph--'Impar _Congressus_ Achilli.' It is calculated for the reading part of the million, being all on politics, etc., etc., etc., and a review of the day in general,--in my early _English Bards_ style, but a little more stilted, and somewhat too full of 'epithets of war' and classical and historical allusions. If notes are necessary, they can be added."

On March 5th he forwarded the "Proof in Slips" ("and certainly the _Slips_ are the most conspicuous part of it") to his new publisher, John Hunt; and, on April 1, 1823, _The Age of Bronze_ was published, but not with the author's name.

Ten years had gone by since he had published, only to disclaim, the latest of his boyish satires, _The Waltz_, and more than six years since he had written, "at the request of Douglas Kinnaird," the stilted and laboured _Monody on the Death of ... Sheridan_. In the interval (1816-1822) he had essayed any and every measure but the heroic, and, at length, as a tardy recognition of his allegiance to "the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence" (_Observations upon "Observations,"_ _Letters_, 1901, v. 590), he reverts, as he believes, to his "early _English Bards_ style," the style of Pope.

The brazen age, the "Annus Haud Mirabilis," which the satirist would hold up to scorn, was 1822, the year after Napoleon's death, which witnessed a revolution in Spain, and the Congress of Allied Sovereigns at Verona. Earlier in the year, the publication of Las Cases' _Memorial de S^te^ Hélène_, and of O'Meara's _Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena_, had created a sensation on both sides of the Channel. Public opinion had differed as to the system on which Napoleon should be treated--and, since his death, there had been a conflict of evidence as to the manner in which he had been treated, at St. Helena. Tories believed that an almost excessive lenience and indulgence had been wasted on a graceless and thankless intriguer, while the "Opposition," Liberals or Radicals, were moved to indignation at the hardships and restrictions which were ruthlessly and needlessly imposed on a fallen and powerless foe. It was, and is, a very pretty quarrel; and Byron, whose lifelong admiration for his "Héros de Roman" was tempered by reason, approached the Longwood controversy somewhat in the spirit of a partisan.

In _The Age of Bronze_ (sects, iii.-v.) he touches on certain incidents of the "Last Phase" of Napoleon's career, and proceeds to recapitulate, in a sort of _Memoria Technica_, the chief events of his history, from the dawn at Marengo to the sunset at "bloody and most bootless Waterloo," and draws the unimpeachable moral that "Honesty is the best policy," even when the "game is Empire" and "the stakes are thrones"!

From the rise and fall, the tyranny and captivity of Napoleon, he passes on to the Congress of Allied Powers, which met at Verona in November, 1822.

The "Congress" is the object of his satire. It had assembled with a parade of power and magnificence, and had dispersed with little or nothing accomplished. It was "impar Achilli" (_vide ante_, p. 535, note 1), an empty menace, ill-matched with the revolutionary spirit, and in pitiful contrast to the _Sic volo, sic jubeo_ of the dead Napoleon.

The immediate and efficient cause of the Congress of Verona was the success of the revolution in Spain. The point at issue between Spanish Liberals and Royalists, or _serviles_, was the adherence to, or the evasion of, the democratic Constitution of 1812. At the moment the Liberals were in the ascendant, and, as Chateaubriand puts it, had driven King Ferdinand into captivity, at Urgel, in Catalonia, to the tune of the Spanish Marseillaise, "_Tragala, Tragala_" "swallow it, swallow it," that is, "accept the Constitution." On July 7, 1822, a government was established under the name of the "Supreme Regency of Spain during the Captivity of the King," and, hence, the consternation of the partners of the Holy Alliance, especially France, who conceived, or feigned to conceive, that revolution next door was a source of danger to constitutional government at home. To meet the emergency, a Congress was summoned in the first instance at Vienna, and afterwards at Verona. Thither came the sovereigns of Europe, great and small, accompanied by their chancellors and ministers. The Czar Alexander was attended by Count Nesselrode and Count Pozzo di Borgo; the Emperor Francis of Austria, by Metternich and Prince Esterhazy; the King of Prussia (Frederic William III.), by Count Bernstorff and Baron Humboldt. George IV. of Great Britain, and Louis XVIII. of France, being elderly and gouty, sent as their plenipotentiaries the Duke of Wellington and the Vicomte de Montmorenci, accompanied, and, finally, superseded by, the French ambassador, M. de Chateaubriand. Thither, too, came the smaller fry, Kings of the Two Sicilies and of Sardinia; and last, but not least, Marie Louise of Austria, Archduchess of Parma, _ci-devant_ widow of Napoleon, and wife _sub rosâ_ of her one-eyed chamberlain, Count de Neipperg. They met, they debated, they went to the theatre in state, and finally decided to send monitory despatches to Spain, and to leave to France a free hand to look after her own interests, and to go to war or not, as she was pleased to determine. There was one dissentient, the Duke of Wellington, who refused to sign the _procès verbaux_. His Britannic Majesty had been advised to let the Spaniards alone, and not to meddle with their internal affairs. The final outcome of the Congress, the French invasion of Spain, could not be foreseen; and, apparently, all that the Congress had accomplished was to refuse to prohibit the exportation of negroes from Africa to America, and to decline to receive the Greek deputies.

As the _Morning Chronicle_ (November 7, 1822) was pleased to put it, "the Royal vultures have been deprived of their anticipated meal."

From the Holy Alliance and its antagonist, "the revolutionary stork," Byron turns to the landed and agricultural "interest" of Great Britain. With the cessation of war and the resumption of cash payments in 1819, prices had fallen some 50 per cent., and rents were beginning to fall. Wheat, which in 1818 had fetched 80s. a quarter, in December, 1822, was quoted at 39s. 11d.; consols were at 80. Poor rates had risen from £2,000,000 in 1792 to £8,000,000 in 1822. How was the distress which these changes involved to be met? By retrenchment and reform, by the repeal of taxes, the reduction of salaries, by the landlords and farmers, who had profited by war prices, submitting to the inevitable reaction; or by sliding scales, by a return to an inflated currency, perhaps by a repudiation of a portion of the funded debt?

The point of Byron's diatribe is that Squire Dives had enjoyed good things during the war, and, now that the war was over, he had no intention to let Lazarus have his turn; that, whoever suffered, it should not be Dives; that patriotism had brought grist to his mill; and that he proposed to suck no small advantage out of peace.

"Year after year they voted cent. per cent., Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why? for rent? They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant To die for England--why then live?--for rent!"

It is easier to divine the "Sources" and the inspiration of _The Age of Bronze_ than to place the reader _au courant_ with the literary and political _causerie_ of the day. Byron wrote with O'Meara's book at his elbow, and with batches of _Galignani's Messenger_, the _Morning Chronicle_, and _Cobbett's Weekly Register_ within his reach. He was under the impression that his lines would appear as an anonymous contribution to _The Liberal_, and, in any case, he felt that he could speak out, unchecked and uncriticized by friend or publisher. He was, so to speak, unmuzzled.

With regard to the style and quality of his new satire, Byron was under an amiable delusion. His couplets, he imagined, were in his "early _English Bards_ style," but "more stilted." He did not realize that, whatever the intervening years had taken away, they had "left behind" experience and passion, and that he had learned to think and to feel. The fault of the poem is that too much matter is packed into too small a compass, and that, in parts, every line implies a minute acquaintance with contemporary events, and requires an explanatory note. But, even so, in _The Age of Bronze_ Byron has wedded "a striking passage of history" to striking and imperishable verse.

_The Age of Bronze_ was reviewed in the _Scots Magazine_, April, 1823, N.S., vol. xii. pp. 483-488; the _Monthly Review_, April, 1823, E.S., vol. 100, pp. 430-433; the _Monthly Magazine_, May, 1823, vol. 55, pp. 322-325; the _Examiner_, March 30, 1823; the _Literary Chronicle_, April 5, 1823; and the _Literary Gazette_, April 5, 1823.

THE AGE OF BRONZE.

I.

The "good old times"--all times when old are good-- Are gone; the present might be if they would; Great things have been, and are, and greater still Want little of mere mortals but their will:[dw] A wider space, a greener field, is given To those who play their "tricks before high heaven."[254] I know not if the angels weep, but men Have wept enough--for what?--to weep again!

II.

All is exploded--be it good or bad. Reader! remember when thou wert a lad, 10 Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much, His very rival almost deemed him such.[255] We--we have seen the intellectual race Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face-- Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea Of eloquence between, which flowed all free, As the deep billows of the Ægean roar Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore. But where are they--the rivals! a few feet Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.[256] 20 How peaceful and how powerful is the grave, Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave, Which oversweeps the World. The theme is old Of "Dust to Dust," but half its tale untold: Time tempers not its terrors--still the worm Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form, Varied above, but still alike below; The urn may shine--the ashes will not glow-- Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea[257] O'er which from empire she lured Anthony; 30 Though Alexander's urn[258] a show be grown On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown--[259] How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear! He wept for worlds to conquer--half the earth Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth, And desolation; while his native Greece Hath all of desolation, save its peace. He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he who ne'er Conceived the Globe, he panted not to spare! 40 With even the busy Northern Isle unknown, Which holds his urn--and never knew his throne.

III.

But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car; The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,[260] Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings, And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late, Chained to the chariot of the Chieftain's state? Yes! where is he, "the champion and the child"[261] Of all that's great or little--wise or wild; 50 Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones; Whose table Earth--whose dice were human bones? Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle, And, as thy nature urges--weep or smile. Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; Smile to survey the queller of the nations Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;[dx][262] Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines; 60 O'er petty quarrels upon petty things. Is this the Man who scourged or feasted kings? Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues! A bust delayed,[265]--a book[266] refused, can shake The sleep of Him who kept the world awake. Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy] Now slave of all could tease or irritate-- The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268] 70 Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, Between a prison and a palace, where How few could feel for what he had to bear! Vain his complaint,--My Lord presents his bill, His food and wine were doled out duly still; Vain was his sickness, never was a clime So free from homicide--to doubt's crime; And the stiff surgeon,[269] who maintained his cause, Hath lost his place, and gained the world's applause. 80 But smile--though all the pangs of brain and heart Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne'er embrace, None stand by his low bed--though even the mind Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind: Smile--for the fettered Eagle breaks his chain, And higher Worlds than this are his again.[270]

IV.

How, if that soaring Spirit still retain A conscious twilight of his blazing reign, 90 How must he smile, on looking down, to see The little that he was and sought to be! What though his Name a wider empire found Than his Ambition, though with scarce a bound; Though first in glory, deepest in reverse, He tasted Empire's blessings and its curse; Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape From chains, would gladly be _their_ Tyrant's ape; How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave, The proudest Sea-mark that o'ertops the wave! 100 What though his gaoler, duteous to the last, Scarce deemed the coffin's lead could keep him fast, Refusing one poor line[271] along the lid, To date the birth and death of all it hid; That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, A talisman to all save him who bore: The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast Shall hear their sea-boys[272] hail it from the mast; When Victory's Gallic column[273] shall but rise, Like Pompey's pillar[274], in a desert's skies, 110 The rocky Isle that holds or held his dust, Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero's bust, And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies Do more than niggard Envy still denies. But what are these to him? Can Glory's lust Touch the freed spirit or the fettered dust? Small care hath he of what his tomb consists; Nought if he sleeps--nor more if he exists: Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile On the rude cavern[275] of the rocky isle, 120 As if his ashes found their latest home In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome[276]. He wants not this; but France shall feel the want Of this last consolation, though so scant: Her Honour--Fame--and Faith demand his bones, To rear above a Pyramid of thrones; Or carried onward in the battle's van, To form, like Guesclin's dust, her Talisman[277]. But be it as it is--the time may come His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum[278]. 130

V.

Oh Heaven! of which he was in power a feature; Oh Earth! of which he was a noble creature; Thou Isle! to be remembered long and well, That saw'st the unfledged eaglet chip his shell! Ye Alps which viewed him in his dawning flights Hover, the Victor of a hundred fights! Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Cæsar's deeds outdone! Alas! why passed he too the Rubicon-- The Rubicon of Man's awakened rights, To herd with vulgar kings and parasites? 140 Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the dark shades of Forty Ages stood Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood[279]; Or from the Pyramid's tall pinnacle Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell, With clashing hosts, who strewed the barren sand, To re-manure the uncultivated land! 150 Spain! which, a moment mindless of the Cid, Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid[280]! Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital[281] Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall! Ye race of Frederic!--Frederics but in name And falsehood--heirs to all except his fame: Who, crushed at Jena, crouched at Berlin[282], fell First, and but rose to follow! Ye who dwell Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt[283]! 160 Poland! o'er which the avenging Angel past, But left thee as he found thee,[284] still a waste, Forgetting all thy still enduring claim, Thy lotted people and extinguished name, Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear, That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear-- Kosciusko![285] On--on--on--the thirst of War Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their Czar. The half barbaric Moscow's minarets Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets! 170 Moscow! thou limit of his long career, For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear[286] To see in vain--_he_ saw thee--how? with spire And palace fuel to one common fire. To this the soldier lent his kindling match, To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch, To this the merchant flung his hoarded store, The prince his hall--and Moscow was no more! Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna's flame Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's tame; 180 Vesuvius shows his blaze,[287] an usual sight For gaping tourists, from his hackneyed height:[dz] Thou stand'st alone unrivalled, till the Fire To come, in which all empires shall expire!

Thou other Element! as strong and stern, To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn!-- Whose icy wing flapped o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang, Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang! 190 In vain shall Seine look up along his banks For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks! In vain shall France recall beneath her vines Her Youth--their blood flows faster than her wines; Or stagnant in their human ice remains In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken Her offspring chilled; its beams are now forsaken. Of all the trophies gathered from the war, What shall return? the Conqueror's broken car![288] 200 The Conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again The horn of Roland[289] sounds, and not in vain. Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,[290] Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die: Dresden[291] surveys three despots fly once more Before their sovereign,--sovereign as before;[ea] But there exhausted Fortune quits the field, And Leipsic's[292] treason bids the unvanquished yield; The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide; 210 And backward to the den of his despair The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France! who found Thy long fair fields ploughed up as hostile ground, Disputed foot by foot, till Treason, still His only victor, from Montmartre's hill[293] Looked down o'er trampled Paris! and thou Isle, Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile, Thou momentary shelter of his pride, Till wooed by danger, his yet weeping bride! 220 Oh, France! retaken by a single march, Whose path was through one long triumphal arch! Oh bloody and most bootless Waterloo! Which proves how fools may have their fortune too, Won half by blunder, half by treachery: Oh dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh-- Hear! hear Prometheus[294] from his rock appeal To Earth,--Air,--Ocean,--all that felt or feel His power and glory, all who yet shall hear A name eternal as the rolling year; 230 He teaches them the lesson taught so long, So oft, so vainly--learn to do no wrong! A single step into the right had made This man the Washington of worlds betrayed: A single step into the wrong has given His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven; The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod, Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod; His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal, Without their decent dignity of fall. 240 Yet Vanity herself had better taught A surer path even to the fame he sought, By pointing out on History's fruitless page Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage. While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to Heaven, Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven, Or drawing from the no less kindled earth Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;[295] While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er Shall sink while there's an echo left to air:[296] 250 While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar![297] Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave-- The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave, Who burst the chains of millions to renew The very fetters which his arm broke through, And crushed the rights of Europe and his own, To flit between a dungeon and a throne?

VI.

But 'twill not be--the spark's awakened--lo! 260 The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow; The same high spirit which beat back the Moor Through eight long ages of alternate gore Revives--and where? in that avenging clime Where Spain was once synonymous with crime, Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew, The infant world redeems her name of "_New_." 'Tis the _old_ aspiration breathed afresh, To kindle souls within degraded flesh, Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore 270 Where Greece _was_--No! she still is Greece once more. One common cause makes myriads of one breast, Slaves of the East, or helots of the West: On Andes'[298] and on Athos' peaks unfurled, The self-same standard streams o'er either world: The Athenian[299] wears again Harmodius' sword; The Chili chief[300] abjures his foreign lord; The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,[301] Young Freedom plumes the crest of each cacique; Debating despots, hemmed on either shore, 280 Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar; Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance, Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France, Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain Unite Ausonia to the mighty main: But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye, Break o'er th' Ægean, mindful of the day Of Salamis!--there, there the waves arise, Not to be lulled by tyrant victories. Lone, lost, abandoned in their utmost need 290 By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed, The desolated lands, the ravaged isle, The fostered feud encouraged to beguile, The aid evaded, and the cold delay, Prolonged but in the hope to make a prey[302];-- These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show The false friend worse than the infuriate foe. But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece, Not the barbarian, with his masque of peace. How should the Autocrat of bondage be 300 The king of serfs, and set the nations free? Better still serve the haughty Mussulman, Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan; Better still toil for masters, than await, The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate,-- Numbered by hordes, a human capital, A live estate, existing but for thrall, Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward For the first courtier in the Czar's regard; While their immediate owner never tastes 310 His sleep, _sans_ dreaming of Siberia's wastes: Better succumb even to their own despair, And drive the Camel--than purvey the Bear.

VII.

But not alone within the hoariest clime Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time, And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud[eb], The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain Holds back the invader from her soil again. Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde[ec] 320 Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword; Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both[ed]; Nor old Pelayo[303] on his mountain rears The warlike fathers of a thousand years. That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the Moor Sighs to remember on his dusky shore. Long in the peasant's song or poet's page Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage; The Zegri[304], and the captive victors, flung 330 Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung. But these are gone--their faith, their swords, their sway, Yet left more anti-christian foes than they[ee]; The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest[305], The Inquisition, with her burning feast, The Faith's red "Auto," fed with human fuel, While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel, Enjoying, with inexorable eye,[ef] That fiery festival of Agony! The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both 340 By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth; The long degenerate noble; the debased Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced, But more degraded; the unpeopled realm; The once proud navy which forgot the helm; The once impervious phalanx disarrayed; The idle forge that formed Toledo's blade; The foreign wealth that flowed on every shore, Save hers who earned it with the native's gore; The very language which might vie with Rome's, 350 And once was known to nations like their homes, Neglected or forgotten:--such _was_ Spain; But such she is not, nor shall be again. These worst, these _home_ invaders, felt and feel The new Numantine soul of old Castile[eg], Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor! The bull of Phalaris renews his roar[eh]; Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain Revive the cry--"Iago! and close Spain!"[306] Yes, close her with your arméd bosoms round, 360 And form the barrier which Napoleon found,-- The exterminating war, the desert plain, The streets without a tenant, save the slain; The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop[ei] Of vulture-plumed Guerrillas, on the stoop[ej] For their incessant prey; the desperate wall Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall; The Man nerved to a spirit, and the Maid Waving her more than Amazonian blade[307]; The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel; 370 The famous lance of chivalrous Castile[308]; The unerring rifle of the Catalan; The Andalusian courser in the van; The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid; And in each heart the spirit of the Cid:-- Such have been, such shall be, such are. Advance, And win--not Spain! but thine own freedom, France!

VIII.

But lo! a Congress[309]! What! that hallowed name Which freed the Atlantic! May we hope the same For outworn Europe? With the sound arise, 380 Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes, The prophets of young Freedom, summoned far From climes of Washington and Bolivar; Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes, Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas[310]; And stoic Franklin's energetic shade, Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed; And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake, To bid us blush for these old chains, or break. But _who_ compose this Senate of the few 390 That should redeem the many? _Who_ renew This consecrated name, till now assigned To councils held to benefit mankind? Who now assemble at the holy call? The blest Alliance, which says three are all! An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape. A pious Unity! in purpose one-- To melt three fools to a Napoleon[ek]. Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these; 400 Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees, And, quiet in their kennel or their shed, Cared little, so that they were duly fed; But these, more hungry, must have something more-- The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore. Ah, how much happier were good Æsop's frogs Than we! for ours are animated logs, With ponderous malice swaying to and fro, And crushing nations with a stupid blow; All dully anxious to leave little work 410 Unto the revolutionary stork.

IX.

Thrice blest Verona! since the holy three With their imperial presence shine on thee! Honoured by them, thy treacherous site forgets[el] The vaunted tomb of "all the Capulets!"[311] Thy Scaligers--for what was "Dog the Great," "Can Grande,"[312] (which I venture to translate,) To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too, Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new;[313] Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate; 420 And Dante's exile sheltered by thy gate; Thy good old man, whose world was all within Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in;[314] Would that the royal guests it girds about Were so far like, as never to get out! Aye, shout! inscribe![315] rear monuments of shame, To tell Oppression that the world is tame! Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage, The comedy is not upon the stage; The show is rich in ribandry and stars, 430 Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars; Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy, For thus much still thy fettered hands are free!

X.

Resplendent sight! Behold the coxcomb Czar,[316] The Autocrat of waltzes[317] and of war! As eager for a plaudit as a realm, And just as fit for flirting as the helm; A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit, And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit; Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw,[em] 440 But hardened back whene'er the morning's raw; With no objection to true Liberty, Except that it would make the nations free. How well the imperial dandy prates of peace! How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece! How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet, Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet! How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine, With all her pleasant Pulks,[318] to lecture Spain! How royally show off in proud Madrid 450 His goodly person, from the South long hid! A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows, By having Muscovites for friends or foes. Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son! La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on;[319] And that which Scythia was to him of yore Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore. Yet think upon, thou somewhat agéd youth, Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth; Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine, 460 Many an old woman,[320] but not Catherine.[321] Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles-- The Bear may rush into the Lion's toils. Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields;[322] Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields? Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir[323] hordes, Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout, Than follow headlong in the fatal route, To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure 470 With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure: Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe: Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago; And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey? Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey. I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun[324] Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun; But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander Rather a worm than _such_ an Alexander! Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free; 480 His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopè:[en] Still will he hold his lantern up to scan The face of monarchs for an "honest man."[325]

XI.

And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land Of _ne plus ultra_ ultras and their band Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers And tribune, which each orator first clambers Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found, Hears "the lie" echo for his answer round? Our British Commons sometimes deign to "hear!" 490 A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear; Even Constant,[326] their sole master of debate, Must fight next day his speech to vindicate. But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather Combat than listen, were it to their father. What is the simple standing of a shot, To listening long, and interrupting not? Though this was not the method of old Rome, When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome, Demosthenes has sanctioned the transaction, 500 In saying eloquence meant "Action, action!"

XII.

But where's the monarch?[327] hath he dined? or yet Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt? Have revolutionary patés risen, And turned the royal entrails to a prison? Have discontented movements stirred the troops? Or have _no_ movements followed traitorous soups? Have Carbonaro[328] cooks not carbonadoed Each course enough? or doctors dire dissuaded Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks 510 I read all France's treason in her cooks! Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou say, Desirable to be the "Desiré?" Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green abode, Apician table, and Horatian ode, To rule a people who will not be ruled, And love much rather to be scourged than schooled? Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste For thrones; the table sees thee better placed: A mild Epicurean, formed, at best, 520 To be a kind host and as good a guest, To talk of Letters, and to know by heart One _half_ the Poet's, _all_ the Gourmand's art; A scholar always, now and then a wit, And gentle when Digestion may permit;-- But not to govern lands enslaved or free; The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.

XIII.

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase From a bold Briton in her wonted praise? "Arts--arms--and George--and glory--and the Isles, 530 And happy Britain, wealth, and Freedom's smiles, White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof, Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof, Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curled,[eo] That nose, the hook where he suspends the world![329] And Waterloo, and trade, and----(hush! not yet A syllable of imposts or of debt)---- And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh,[330] Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other day--[ep] And, 'pilots who have weathered every storm'--[331] 540 (But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name Reform)." These are the themes thus sung so oft before, Methinks we need not sing them any more; Found in so many volumes far and near, There's no occasion you should find them here. Yet something may remain perchance to chime With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme.[eq] Even this thy genius, Canning![332] may permit, Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a wit, And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame 550 To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame; Our last, our best, our only orator, Even I can praise thee--Tories do no more: Nay, not so much;--they hate thee, man, because Thy Spirit less upholds them than it awes. The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo, And where he leads the duteous pack will follow; But not for love mistake their yelling cry; Their yelp for game is not an eulogy; Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, 560 A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back. Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure, Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure; The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last To stumble, kick--and now and then stick fast With his great Self and Rider in the mud; But what of that? the animal shows blood.

XIV.

Alas, the Country! how shall tongue or pen Bewail her now _un_country gentlemen? The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, 570 The first to make a malady of peace. For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt--and vote--and raise the price of corn? But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall, Kings--Conquerors--and markets most of all. And must ye fall with every ear of grain? Why would you trouble Buonaparté's reign? He was your great Triptolemus;[333] his vices Destroyed but realms, and still maintained your prices; He amplified to every lord's content 580 The grand agrarian alchymy, high _rent_.[er] Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars, And lower wheat to such desponding quarters? Why did you chain him on yon Isle so lone? The man was worth much more upon his throne. True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt, But what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt; But bread was high, the farmer paid his way, And acres told upon the appointed day.[es] But where is now the goodly audit ale? 590 The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail? The farm which never yet was left on hand? The marsh reclaimed to most improving land? The impatient hope of the expiring lease? The doubling rental? What an evil's peace! In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill, In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;[334] The _Landed Interest_--(you may understand The phrase much better leaving out the _land_)-- The land self-interest groans from shore to shore, 600 For fear that plenty should attain the poor.[et] Up, up again, ye rents, exalt your notes, Or else the Ministry will lose their votes, And patriotism, so delicately nice, Her loaves will lower to the market price;[eu] For ah! "the loaves and fishes," once so high, Are gone--their oven closed, their ocean dry,[ev] And nought remains of all the millions spent, Excepting to grow moderate and content. They who are not so, _had_ their turn--and turn 610 About still flows from Fortune's equal urn; Now let their virtue be its own reward, And share the blessings which themselves prepared. See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm, Farmers of war, dictators of the farm; _Their_ ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands, _Their_ fields manured by gore of other lands; Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent Their brethren out to battle--why? for rent! Year after year they voted cent. per cent. 620 Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why?--for rent! They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant To die for England--why then live?--for rent! The peace has made one general malcontent Of these high-market patriots; war was rent! Their love of country, millions all mis-spent, How reconcile? by reconciling rent! And will they not repay the treasures lent? No: down with everything, and up with rent! Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent, 630 Being, end, aim, religion--_rent_--_rent_--_rent_! Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess; Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less; Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy demands Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands. Such, landlords! was your appetite for war, And gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar! What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er cash? And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash?[335] So rent may rise, bid Bank and Nation fall, 640 And found on 'Change a _Fundling_ Hospital? Lo, Mother Church, while all religion writhes, Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring--Tithes;[336] The Prelates go to--where the Saints have gone, And proud pluralities subside to one; Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark, Tossed by the deluge in their common ark. Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends, Another Babel soars--but Britain ends. And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants, 650 And prop the hill of these agrarian ants. "Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;" Admire their patience through each sacrifice, Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride, The price of taxes and of homicide; Admire their justice, which would fain deny The debt of nations:--pray _who made it high?_[337]

XV.

Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks, The new Symplegades[338]--the crushing Stocks, Where Midas might again his wish behold 660 In real paper or imagined gold. That magic palace of Alcina[339] shows More wealth than Britain ever had to lose, Were all her atoms of unleavened ore, And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore. There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake And the World trembles to bid brokers break. How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines, Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines; No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey, 670 Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money: But let us not to own the truth refuse, Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews? Those parted with their teeth to good King John, And now, ye kings, they kindly draw your own; All states, all things, all sovereigns they control, And waft a loan "from Indus to the pole." The banker--broker--baron[340]--brethren, speed To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need. Nor these alone; Columbia feels no less 680 Fresh speculations follow each success; And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain. Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march; Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch. Two Jews, a chosen people, can command In every realm their Scripture-promised land:-- Two Jews, keep down the Romans,[341] and uphold The accurséd Hun, more brutal than of old: Two Jews,--but not Samaritans--direct 690 The world, with all the spirit of their sect. What is the happiness of earth to them? A congress forms their "New Jerusalem," Where baronies and orders both invite-- Oh, holy Abraham! dost thou see the sight? Thy followers mingling with these royal swine, Who spit not "on their Jewish gaberdine," But honour them as portion of the show-- (Where now, oh Pope! is thy forsaken toe? Could it not favour Judah with some kicks? 700 Or has it ceased to "kick against the pricks?") On Shylock's shore behold them stand afresh, To cut from Nation's hearts their "pound of flesh."

XVI.

Strange sight this Congress! destined to unite All that's incongruous, all that's opposite. I speak not of the Sovereigns--they're alike, A common coin as ever mint could strike; But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, Have more of motley than their heavy kings. Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine, 710 While Europe wonders at the vast design: There Metternich, power's foremost parasite, Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight; There Chateaubriand[342] forms new books of martyrs; And subtle Greeks[343] intrigue for stupid Tartars; There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,[344] Turns a diplomatist of great éclat, To furnish articles for the "Débats;" Of war so certain--yet not quite so sure As his dismissal in the "Moniteur." 720 Alas! how could his cabinet thus err! Can Peace be worth an ultra-minister? He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again, "Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.[345]"

XVII.

Enough of this--a sight more mournful woos The averted eye of the reluctant Muse. The Imperial daughter, the Imperial bride,[346] The imperial Victim--sacrifice to pride; The mother of the Hero's hope, the boy, The young Astyanax of Modern Troy;[347] 730 The still pale shadow of the loftiest Queen That Earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen; She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour, The theme of pity, and the wreck of power. Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare A daughter? What did France's widow there? Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave, Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave. But, no,--she still must hold a petty reign, Flanked by her formidable chamberlain; 740 The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes[348] Must watch her through these paltry pageantries. What though she share no more, and shared in vain, A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne, Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas! Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese, Where Parma views the traveller resort, To note the trappings of her mimic court. But she appears! Verona sees her shorn Of all her beams--while nations gaze and mourn-- 750 Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time To chill in their inhospitable clime; (If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;-- But no,--their embers soon will burst the mould;) She comes!--the Andromache (but not Racine's, Nor Homer's,)--Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm[349] she leans![ew] Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo, Which cut her lord's half-shattered sceptre through, Is offered and accepted? Could a slave Do more? or less?--and _he_ in his new grave! 760 Her eye--her cheek--betray no inward strife, And the _Ex_-Empress grows as _Ex_ a wife! So much for human ties in royal breasts! Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?

XVIII.

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home, And sketch the group--the picture's yet to come. My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt, She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt![350] While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman! 770 Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar, While all the Common Council cry "Claymore!"[351] To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt, She burst into a laughter so extreme, That I awoke--and lo! it was _no_ dream!

Here, reader, will we pause:--if there's no harm in This first--you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen."

B. J^n 10^th^ 1823.

FOOTNOTES:

[dv] {535} _Annus Mirabilis_.--MS.

[253] [It has been suggested by Dr. Garnett (late keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum) that the motto to _The Age of Bronze_ may, possibly, contain a reference to the statue of Achilles, "inscribed by the women of England to Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms," which was erected in Hyde Park, June 18, 1822.]

[dw] {541} _Want nothing of the little, but their_ will.--[MS.]

[254] [_Measure for Measure_, act ii. sc. 2, line 121.]

[255] [Fox used to say, "_I_ never want _a_ word, but Pitt never wants _the_ word."]

[256] [The grave of Fox, in Westminster Abbey is within eighteen inches of that of Pitt. Compare--

"Nor yet suppress the generous sigh. Because his rival slumbers nigh; Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb, Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.

Where,--taming thought to human pride!-- The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 'Twill trickle to his rival's bier," etc.

_Marmion_, by Sir Walter Scott, Introduction to