Chapter 48

Compare, too, Macaulay on Warren Hastings: "In that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey ... the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be."--_Critical and Historical Essays_, 1843, iii. 465.]

[257] {542}[The Cleopatra whose mummy is preserved in the British Museum was a member of the Theban Archon family. Her date was _circ._ A.D. 100.]

[258] [According to Strabo (_Rerum Geog._, xvii. ed. 1807, ii. 1127), Ptolemæus Soter brought Alexander's body back from Babylon, and buried it in Alexandria, in the spot afterwards known as the _Soma_. There it lay, in Strabo's time, not in its original body-mask of golden chase-work, which Ptolemæus Cocces had stolen, but in a casket of glass. Great men "turned to pilgrims" to visit Alexander's grave. Augustus crowned the still life-like body with a golden laurel-wreath, and scattered flowers over the tomb: Caligula stole the breastplate, and wore it during his pantomimic triumphs; Septimius Severus buried in the sarcophagus the writings of the priests, and a clue to the hieroglyphics. Finally, the sarcophagus and its sacred remains disappear, and Alexander himself passes into the land of fable and romance. In 1801 a sarcophagus came into the possession of the English Army, and was presented by George III. to the British Museum. Hieroglyphics were as yet undeciphered, and, in 1805, the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke published a quarto monograph (_The Tomb of Alexander, etc._), in which he proves, to his own satisfaction, that "this surprising sarcophagus in one entire block of green Egyptian _breccia_," had once contained the ashes of Alexander the Great. Byron knew Clarke, and, no doubt, respected his authority (see letter December 15, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 308); and, hence, the description of "Alexander's urn" as "a show." The sarcophagus which has, since 1844, been assigned to its rightful occupant, Nectanebus II. (Nekht-neb-f), is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It is a curious coincidence that in the Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander is said to have been the son of Nectanebus II., who threw a spell over Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon, and won her love by the exercise of nefarious magic. (See the _Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great_, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1896, i, ix.)]

[259] {543}[Arrian (_Alexand. Anabasis_, vii. i, 4, ed. 1849, p. 165) says that Alexander would never have rested content with what he had acquired; "that if he had annexed Europe to Asia, and the British Isles to Europe, he would have sought out some no-man's-land to conquer." So insatiable was his ambition, that when the courtly philosopher Anaxarchus explained to him the theory of the plurality of worlds he bemoaned himself because as yet he was not master of one. "_Heu me_, inquit, _miserum, quod ne uno quidem adhuc potitus sum_."--Valerius Maximus, _De Dictis, etc._, lib. viii. cap. xiv. ex. 2. See, too, _Juvenal_, x. 168, 169. Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, 1893, i. 64) denies that this was spoken like a prince, but, as wise Seneca censures him [on another occasion, however], 'twas _vox iniquissima et stultissima_, "'twas spoken like a bedlam fool."]

[260] [Compare _Werner_, act iii. sc. I, lines 288, 289, "When he [Sesostris] went into the temple or the city, his custom was to cause the horses to be unharnessed out of his chariot, and to yoke four kings and four princes to the chariot-pole."--Diodori Siculi _Bibl. Hist_., lib. i. p. 37, C, ed. 1604, p. 53.]

[261] {544}[In a speech delivered in the House of Commons, February 17, 1800, "On the continuance of the War with France," Pitt described Napoleon as the "child and champion of Jacobinism." Coleridge, who was reporting for the _Morning Post_, took down Pitt's words as "nursling and champion" (unpublished MS. note-book)--a finer and more original phrase, but substituted "child" for "nursling" in his "copy." (See _Letters of S. T. Coleridge_, 1895, i. 327, note i.) The phrase was much in vogue, _e.g._ "All that survives of Jacobinism in Europe looks up to him as its 'child and champion.'"-_Quarterly Review_, xvi. 48.]

[dx] Lines 55-58 not in MS.

[262] [O'Meara, under the dates August 19, September 5, September 7, 13, etc. (see _Napoleon in Exile_, 1888, i. 95, 96, 114, 121, etc.), reports complaints on the part of Napoleon with regard to the reduction of expenses suggested or enforced by Sir Hudson Lowe, and gives specimens of the nature and detail of these reductions. For a refutation of O'Meara's facts and figures (as given in _Napoleon in Exile_, 1822, ii. Appendix V.), see the _History of the Captivity of Napoleon_, by William Forsyth, Q.C., 1853, iii. 121, _sq_.; see, too, _Sir Hudson Lowe and Napoleon_, by R. C. Seaton, 1898. It is a fact that Sir Hudson Lowe, on his own responsibility, increased the allowance for the household expenses of Napoleon and his staff from £8000 to £12,000 a year, and it is also perfectly true that opportunities for complaint were welcomed by the ex-Emperor and his mimic court. It was _la politique de Longwood_ to make the worst of everything, on the off-chance that England would get to hear, and that Radical indignation and Radical sympathy would gild, perhaps unbar, the eagle's cage. It is true, too, that a large sum of money was spent on behalf of a prisoner of war whom the stalwarts of the Tory party would have executed in cold blood. But it is also true that Napoleon had no need to manufacture complaints, that he was exposed to unnecessary discomforts, that useless and irritating precautions were taken to prevent his escape, that the bottles of champagne and madeira, the fowls and the bundles of wood were counted with an irritating preciseness, inconsistent with the general scale of expenditure, which saved a little waste, and covered both principals and agents with ridicule. It is said that O'Meara, in his published volumes, manipulated his evidence, and that his own letters give him the lie; but there is a mass of correspondence, published and unpublished, between him and Sir Thomas Reade, Sir Hudson Lowe, and Major Gorrequer (see Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus. 20,145), which remains as it was written, and which testifies to facts which might have been and were not refuted on the spot and at the moment. With regard to "disputed rations," the Governor should have been armed with a crushing answer to any and every complaint. As it was, he was able to show that champagne was allowed to "Napoleon Buonaparte," and that he did not exceed his allowance.]

[263] {545}[In his correspondence with Lord Bathurst, Sir Hudson Lowe more than once quotes "statements" made by Dr. O'Meara (_vide post_, p. 546). But the surgeon may be William Warden (1777-1849), whose _Letters written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, and at St, Helena_, were published in 1816.]

[264] [Henry, Earl of Bathurst (1762-1834), Secretary for War and the Colonies, replied to Lord Holland's motion "for papers connected with the personal treatment of Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena," March 18, 1817. _Parl. Deb._, vol. 35, pp. 1137-1166.]

[265] [A bust of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, had been forwarded to St. Helena. O'Meara (_Napoleon in Exile, etc._, 1822, i. p. 100) says "that it had been in the island fourteen days, during several of which it was at Plantation House," before it was transferred to Longwood. Forsyth (_History of Napoleon in Captivity_, 1853, ii. 146) denies this statement. It was, no doubt, detained on board ship for inspection, but not at Plantation House.]

[266] [The book in question was _The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman in Paris_, 1816 (by J. C. Hobhouse). It was inscribed "To the Emperor Napoleon." Lowe's excuse was that Hobhouse had submitted the work to his inspection, and suggested that if the Governor did not think fit to give it to Napoleon, he might place it in his own library. (See _Napoleon in Exile_, 1822, i. 85-87; and Forsyth, 1853, i. 193.)]

[dy] _Weep to survey the Tamer of the Great_.--[MS.]

[267] [Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C.B. (1769-1844), was the son of an army surgeon, John Hudson Lowe. His mother was Irish. He was appointed Governor of St. Helena, August 23, 1815, and landed in the island April 14, 1816. Byron met him at Lord Holland's, before he sailed for St. Helena, and was not impressed by his remarks on Napoleon and Waterloo (_Letters_, 1901, v. 429). He was well-intentioned, honourable, and, in essentials, humane, but he was arrogant and tactless. The following sentence, from a letter written by Lowe to O'Meara, October 3, 1816 (Forsyth, i. 318, 319), is characteristic: "With respect to the instructions I have received, and my manner of making them known, never having regarded General Bonaparte's opinions in any point whatever as to _matter_ or _manner_, as an oracle or criterion by which to regulate my own judgment, I am not disposed to think the less favourably of the instructions, or my mode of executing them." It must, however, be borne in mind that this was written some time after Lowe's fifth and last interview with his captive (Aug. 18, 1816); that Napoleon had abused him to his face and behind his back, and was not above resorting to paltry subterfuges in order to defy and exasperate his "paltry gaoler."]

[268] {546}[There is reason to think that "the staring stranger" was the traveller Captain Basil Hall (1788-1844), who called upon Byron at Venice (see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 252), but did not see him. His account of his interview with Napoleon is attached to his narrative of a _Voyage to Java_, 1840. It is not included in the earlier editions of Hall's _Voyage to the Corea and the Loochoo Islands_, but is quoted by Scott, in his _Life of Napoleon_, 1827.]

[269] [Barry Edward O'Meara (1786-1836) began life as assistant-surgeon to the 62nd Regiment, then stationed in Sicily and Calabria. In 1815 he was surgeon on board the _Bellerophon_, under Captain F. L. Maitland. Napoleon took a fancy to him because he could speak Italian, and, as his own surgeon Mengeaud would not follow him into exile, requested that O'Meara might accompany him, in the _Northumberland_, to St. Helena. His position was an ambiguous one. He was to act as Napoleon's medical and, _quoad hoc_, confidential attendant, but he was not to be subservient to him or dependent on him. At St. Helena Lowe expected him to be something between an intermediary and a spy, and, for a time, O'Meara discharged both functions to the Governor's satisfaction (statements by Dr. O'Meara are quoted by Lowe in his letter to Lord Bathurst [_Life of Napoleon, etc._, by Sir W. Scott, 1828, p. 763]). As time went on, the surgeon yielded to the glamour of Napoleon's influence, and more and more disliked and resented the necessity of communicating private conversations to Lowe. He "withheld his confidence," with the result that the Governor became suspicious, and treated O'Meara with reprobation and contempt. At length, on July 18, 1818, on a renewed accusation of "irregularities," Lord Bathurst dismissed him from his post, and ordered him to quit St. Helena. He returned to England, and, October 28, 1818, addressed a letter (see Forsyth's _Napoleon, etc._, iii. 432, 433) to J. W. Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, in which he argued against the justice of his dismissal. One sentence which asserted that Lowe had dwelt upon the "benefit which would result to Europe from the death of Napoleon," was seized upon by Croker as calumnious, and in answer to his remonstrance, O'Meara's name was struck off the list of naval surgeons. He published, in 1819, a work entitled _Exposition of some of the Transactions that have taken place at St. Helena since the appointment of Sir Hudson Lowe as Governor_, which was afterwards expanded into _Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena_ (2 vols., 1822). The latter work made a great sensation, and passed through five editions. It was republished in 1888. O'Meara was able, and generously disposed, but he was not "stiff" (_vide infra_, 489). "He was," says Lord Rosebery (_Napoleon, The Last Phase_, 1900, p. 31), "the confidential servant of Napoleon: unknown to Napoleon, he was the confidential agent of Lowe; and behind both their backs he was the confidential informant of the British Government.... Testimony from such a source is ... tainted." Neither men nor angels will disentangle the wheat from the tares.]

[270] {547}[Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.]

[271] [At the end of vol. ii. of O'Meara's _Voice, etc._ (ed. 5), there is a statement, signed by Count Montholon, to the effect that he wished the following inscription to be placed on Napoleon's coffin--

"Napoléon.

Né à Ajaccio le 15 Août, 1769, Mort à Ste. Hélène le 5 Mai, 1821;"

but that the Governor said, "that his instructions would not allow him to sanction any other name being placed on the coffin than that of 'General Bonaparte.'" Lowe would have sanctioned "Napoléon Bonaparte," but, on his own admission, _did_ refuse the inscription of the one word "Napoléon."--Forsyth, iii. 295, 296, note 3.]

[272] {548}[Hall, in his interview with Napoleon at St. Helena, _Narrative of a Voyage to Java_, 1840, p. 77, testifies that, weeks before the vessel anchored at St. Helena, August 11, 1817, "the probability of seeing him [Napoleon] had engrossed the thoughts of every one on board.... Even those of our number who, from their situation, could have no chance of seeing him, caught the fever of the moment, and the most cold and indifferent person on board was roused on the occasion into unexpected excitement."]

[273] [The Colonne Vendôme, erected to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz, was inaugurated in 1810.]

[274] [Pompey's, i.e. Diocletian's Pillar stands on a mound near the Arabian cemetery, about three quarters of a mile from Alexandria, between the city and Lake Mareotis.]

[275] [Napoleon was buried, May 9, 1821, in a garden in the middle of a deep ravine, under the shade of two willow trees.]

[276] [Byron took for granted that Napoleon's remains would one day rest under the dome of the Pantheon, where Mirabeau is buried, and where cenotaphs have been erected to Voltaire and Rousseau. As it is (since December 15, 1840) he sleeps under the Dôme des Invalides. Above the entrance are these words, which are taken from his will: "Je désire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine, au milieu de ce peuple Français que j'ai tant aimé."]

[277] {549} Guesclin died during the siege of a city; it surrendered, and the keys were brought and laid upon his bier, so that the place might appear rendered to his ashes. [Bertrand du Guesclin, born 1320, first distinguished himself in the service of King John II. of France, in defending Rennes against Henry Duke of Lancaster, 1356-57. He was made Constable of France in 1370, and died before the walls of Châteauneuf-de-Randon (Lozère). July 13, 1380. He was buried by the order of Charles V. in Saint-Denis, hard by the tomb which the king had built for himself. In _La Vie vaillant Bertran du Guesclin_ [_Chronique, etc._ (par E. Charrière), 1839, tom. ii. p. 321, lines 22716, _sq._], the English do not place the keys of the castle on Du Guesclin's bier, but present them to him as he lies tossing on his death-bed ("à son lit agité"). So, too, _Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin_, par Claude Menard, 1618, 540: "Et Engloiz se accorderent à ce faire. Lors issirent dudit Chastel, et vindrent à Bertran, et lui presenterent les clefs. Et ne demora guères, qu'il getta le souppir de la mort."]

[278] [John of Trocnow, surnamed Zi[)z]ka, or the "One-eyed," was born circ. 1360, and died while he was besieging a town on the Moravian border, October 11, 1424. He was the hero of the Hussite or Taborite crusade (1419-1422), the _malleus Catholicorum_. The story is that on his death-bed he was asked where he wished to be buried, and replied, "that it mattered not, that his flesh might be thrown to the vulture and eagles; but his skin was to be carefully preserved and made into a drum, to be carried in the front of the battle, that the very sound might disperse their enemies." Voltaire, in his _Essai sur Les M[oe]urs et L'Esprit des Nations_ (cap. lxxiii. s.f. _[OE]uvres Complètes, etc._, 1836, iii. 256), mentions the legend as a fact, "Il ordonna qu' après sa mort on fit un tambour de sa peau." Compare _Werner_, act i. sc. I, lines 693, 694.]

[279] {550}["Au moment de la bataille Napoléon avait dit à ses troupes, en leur montrant les Pyramides: 'Soldats, quarante siècles vous regardent.'"--_Campagnes d'Égypte et de Syrie_, 1798-9, par le Général Bertrand, 1847, i. 160.]

[280] [Madrid was taken by the French, first in March, 1808, and again December 2, 1808.]

[281] [Vienna was taken by the French under Murat, November 14, 1805, evacuated January 12, 1806, captured by Napoleon, May, 1809, and restored at the conclusion of peace, October 14, 1809. Her treachery consisted in her hospitality to the sovereigns at the Congress of Vienna, November, 1814, and her share in the Treaty of Vienna, March 25, 1815, which ratified the Treaties of Chaumont, March 1, and of Paris, April 11, 1814.]

[282] [At Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe, and at Auerstadt General Davoust defeated the King of Prussia, October 14, 1806. Napoleon then advanced to Berlin, October 27, from which he issued his famous decree against British commerce, November 20, 1806.]

[283] [The partition of Poland. "Henry [of Prussia] arrived at St. Petersburg, December 9, 1770; and it seems now to be certain that the first open proposal of a dismemberment of Poland arose in his conversations with the Empress.... Catherine said to the Prince, 'I will frighten Turkey and flatter England. It is your business to gain Austria, that she may lull France to sleep;' and she became at length so eager, that ... she dipt her finger into ink, and drew with it the lines of partition on a map of Poland which lay before them."--_Edinburgh Review_, November, 1822 (art. x. on _Histoire des Trois Démembremens de la Pologne_, par M. Ferrand, 1820, etc., vol. 37, pp. 479, 480.)]

[284] {551} [Napoleon promised much, but did little for the Poles. "In speaking of the business of Poland he ... said it was a whim (_c'était un caprice_)."--_Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw_, by M. Dufour de Pradt, 1816, p. 51. "The Polish question," says Lord Wolseley (_Decline and Fall of Napoleon_, 1893, p. 19), "thrust itself most inconveniently before him. In early life all his sympathies ... were with the Poles, and he had regarded the partition of their country as a crime.... As a very young man liberty was his only religion; but he had now learned to hate and to fear that term.... He had no desire ... to be the Don Quixote of Poland by reconstituting it as a kingdom. To fight Russia by the re-establishment of Polish independence was not, therefore, to be thought of."]

[285] [The final partition of Poland took place after the Battle of Maciejowice, October 12, 1794, when "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." Tyrants, _e.g._ Napoleon in 1806, and Alexander in 1814 and again in 1815, approached Kosciusko with respect, and loaded him with flattery and promises, and then "passed by on the other side."]

[286] [The reference is to Charles's chagrin when the Grand Vizier allowed the Russians to retire in safety from the banks of the Pruth, and assented to the Treaty of Jassy, July 21, 1711. Charles, "impatient for the fight, and to behold the enemy in his power," had ridden above fifty leagues from Bender to Jassy, swam the Pruth at the risk of his life, and found that the Czar had marched off in triumph. He contrived to rip up the Vizier's robe with his spur, "remonta à cheval, et retourna a Bender le desespoir dans le c[oe]ur" (_Histoire de Charles XII._, Livre v. _s.f._).]

[287] {552}["Naples, October 29, 1822. Le Vésuve continue à lancer des pierres et des cendres."--From _Le Moniteur Universel_, November 21, 1822.]

[dz] _For staring tourists_----.--[MS.]

[288] [The material for this description of Napoleon on his return from Moscow is drawn from De Pradt's _Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw and Wilna_, published in 1816, pp. 133-141. "I hurried out, and arrived at the Hôtel d'Angleterre.... [Warsaw, December 10, 1812]. I saw a small carriage body placed on a sledge made of four pieces of fir: it had stood some crashes, and was much damaged.... The ministers joined me in addressing to him ... wishes for the preservation of his health and the prosperity of his journey. He replied, 'I never was better; if I carried the devil with me, I should be all the better for that (_Quand j'aurai le diable je ne m'en porterai que mieux_).' These were his last words. He then mounted the humble sledge, which bore Cæsar and his fortune, and disappeared." The passage is quoted in the _Quarterly Review_, October, 1815, vol. xiv. pp. 64-68.]

[289] {553}

["Soldats Français! Serrez vos rangs! Intendez Roland qui vous crie! Armez vous contre vos tyrans! Brisez les fers de la patrie."

"L'Ombre de Roland," _Morning Chronicle_, October 10, 1822.]

[290] [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632. Napoleon defeated the allied Russian and Prussian armies at Lutzen, May 2, 1813.]

[291] [On June 26, 1813, Napoleon re-entered Dresden, and on the 27th repulsed the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Russia and Prussia, with tremendous loss. Thousands of prisoners and a great quantity of cannon were taken.]

[ea]

_Dresden beholds three nations fly once more_ _Before the lash they oft had felt before_.--[MS. erased.]

[292] [At the battle of Leipzig, October 18, 1813, on the appearance of Bernadotte, the Saxon soldiers under Regnier deserted and went over to the Allies. Napoleon, whose army was already weakened, lost 30,000 men at Leipzig.]

[293] [Joseph Buonaparte, who had been stationed on the heights of Montmartre, March 30, 1814, to witness if not direct the defence of Paris against the Allies under Blücher, authorized Marmont to capitulate. His action was, unjustly, regarded as a betrayal of his brother's capital.]

[294] {554} I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Æschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the chorus of Sea-nymphs.--_Prometheus Vinctus_, line 88, _sq._

[295] [Franklin published his _Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning_, in 1751, and in June, 1752, "the immortal kite was flown." It was in 1781, when he was minister plenipotentiary at the Court of France, that the Latin hexameter, "Eripuit c[oe]lo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis," first applied to him by Turgot, was affixed to his portrait by Fragonard. The line, said to be an adaptation of a line in the _Astronomicon_ of Manilius (lib. i. 104), descriptive of the Reason, "Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi," was turned into French by Nogaret, d'Alembert, and other wits and scholars. It appears on the reverse of a medal by F. Dupré, dated 1786. (See _Works_ of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, 1840, viii. 537-539; _Life and Times, etc._, by James Parton, 1864, i. 285-291.)]

[296] {555}["To be the first man--_not_ the Dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington, or the Aristides, the leader in talent and truth--is next to the Divinity."--Journal, November 24, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 340.]

[297] [Simon Bolivar (_El Libertador_), 1783-1830, was at the height of his power and fame at the beginning of 1823. In 1821 he had united New Grenada to Venezuela under the name of the Republic of Columbia, and on the 1st of September he made a solemn entry into Lima. He was greeted with acclaim, but in accepting the honours which his fellow-citizens showered upon him, he warned them against the dangers of tyranny. "Beware," he said, "of a Napoleon or an Iturbide." Byron, at one time, had a mind to settle in "Bolivar's country" (letter to Ellice, June 12, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 89); and he christened his yacht _The Bolivar_.]

[298] [A proclamation of Bolivar's, dated June 8, 1822, runs thus: "Columbians, now all your delightful country is free.... From the banks of the Orinoco to the Andes of Peru, the ... army marching in triumph has covered with its protecting arms the entire extent of Columbia."--"Jamaica Papers," _Morning Chronicle_, September 28, 1822.]

[299] {556}[The capitulation of Athens was signed June 21, 1822. "Three days after the Greeks had sworn to observe the capitulation, they commenced murdering their helpless prisoners.... The streets of Athens were stained with the blood of four hundred men, women, and children."--_History of Greece_, by George Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The sword was hid in the myrtle bough. Hence the allusion. (Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xx. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 228, and 291, note 2.)]

[300] [The independence of Chili dated from April 5, 1818, when General José de San Martin routed the Spanish army on the plains of Maypo. On the 28th of July, 1821, the Independence of Peru was proclaimed. General San Martin assumed the title of Protector, and, August 3, 4, 1821, issued proclamations, in which he announced the independence of Peru, and bade the Spaniards tremble if they "abused his indulgence." _Extracts from a Journal written on the Coast of Chili, etc._, by Captain Basil Hall, 1824, i. 266-272.]

[301] [On the 8th of August, 1822, Niketas and Hypsilantes defeated the Turks under Dramali, near Lerna. The Moreotes attributed their good fortune to the generalship of Kolokotrones, a Messenian. Compare with the whole of section vi. the following quotations from an article on the "Numbers of the Greeks," which appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, September 13, 1822--

"'Trust not for freedom to the Franks, They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords and native ranks The only hope of courage dwells.'

Byron.

"As Russia has now removed her warlike projects, and the Greeks are engaged single-handed with the whole force of the Ottoman Empire, etc.... Byron's Grecian bard can no longer exclaim--

'My country! on thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now-- The heroic bosom beats no more.'

"Greece is no longer a 'nation's sepulchre,' the foul abode of slaves, but the living theatre of the patriot's toils and the hero's achievements. Her banners once more float on the mountains, and the battles she has already won show that in every glen and valley, as well as on

'Suli's rock and Parga's shore Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore.'"]

[302] {557}[An account of these Russian intrigues in Greece is contained in Thomas Gordon's _History of the Greek Revolution_, 1832, i. 194-204.]

[eb] {558} _Of Incas known but as a cloud_.--[MS. erased.]

[ec] _Not now the Roman or the Punic horde_.--[MS.]

[ed] ----_abhorrent of them both_.--[MS.]

[303] [Pelayo, said to be the son of Favila, Duke of Cantabria, was elected king by the Christians of the Asturias in 718, and defeated the Arab generals Suleyman and Manurza. He died A.D. 737.]

[304] [For the "fabulous sketches" of the Zegri and Abencerrages, rival Moorish tribes, whose quarrels, at the close of the fifteenth century, deluged Granada with blood, see the _Civil Wars of Granada_, a prose fiction, interspersed with ballads, by Ginés Perez de Hita, published in 1595. An opera, _Les Abencerages_, by Cherubini, was performed in Paris in 1813. Chateaubriand's _Les Aventures du dernier Abencerrage_ was not published till 1826.]

[ee] _And yet have left worse enemies than they_.--[MS. erased.]

[305] [Ferdinand VII. returned to Madrid in March, 1814. "No sooner was he established on his throne ... than he set himself to restore the old absolutism with its worst abuses. The nobles recovered their privileges ... the Inquisition resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to Spain.... A _camarilla_ of worthless courtiers and priests conducted the government, and urged the king to fresh acts of revolutionary violence. For six years Spain groaned under a royalist 'reign of terror.'"--_Encycl. Brit._, art. "Spain," vol. 22, p. 345.]

[ef] _As rose on his remorseless ear the cry_.--[MS. erased.]

[eg] {559} _The re-awakened virtue_----.--[MS. erased.]

[eh] ----_is on the shore_.--[MS. erased.]

[306] "'St. Jago and close Spain!' the old Spanish war-cry." ["Santiago y serra España."]

[ei] _The wild Guerilla on Morena_----.--[MS. erased]

[ej] _Of eagle-eyed_----.--[MS. erased.]

[307] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanzas liv.-lvi., _Poetical Works_, i. 57, 58, 91, 92 (note II). The "man" was Tio Jorge (Jorge Ibort), _vide ibid._, p. 94.]

[308] {560} The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French wars.

[309] [_Vide ante_, the Introduction to the _Age of Bronze_, pp, 537-540.]

[310] [Patrick Henry, born May 29, 1736, died June 6, 1799, was one of the leading spirits of the American Revolution. His father, John Henry, a Scotchman, a cousin of the historian, William Robertson, had acquired a small property in Virginia. Patrick was not exactly "forest born," but, as a child, loved to play truant "in the forest with his gun or over his angle-rod." He first came into notice as an orator in the "Parson's Cause," a suit brought by a minister of the Established Church to recover his salary, which had been fixed at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco. In his speech he is said to have struck the key-note of the Revolution by arguing that "a king, by disallowing acts of a salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." His famous speech against the "Stamps Act" was delivered in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, May 29, 1765. One passage, with which, no doubt, Byron was familiar, has passed into history. "Cæsar had his Brutus--Charles the First had his Cromwell--and George the Third--" Henry was interrupted with a shout of "Treason! treason!!" but finished the sentence with, and "George the Third _may profit by their example_. If _this_ be treason, make the most of it."

Henry was delegate to the first Continental Congress, five times Governor of Virginia, and was appointed U.S. Senator in 1794.

His contemporaries said that he was "the greatest orator that ever lived." He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and almost prophetic sublimity."--See _Life of Patrick Henry_, by William Wirt, 1845, _passim._]

[ek] {561} ----_to one Napoleon_.--[MS. erased.]

[el] ----_thy poor old wall forgets_.--[MS. erased.]

[311] ["I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful--beats even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact, giving a date (1303), and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love.... The Gothic monuments of the Scaliger princes pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I.'"--Letter to Moore, November 7, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 386, 387. The tombs of the Scaligers are close to the Church of Santa Maria l'Antica. Juliet's tomb, "of red Verona marble," is in the garden of the _Orfanotrofio_, between the Via Cappucini and the Adige. It is not "that ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capulets lie," which has long since been destroyed. Since 1814 Verona had been under Austria's sway, and had "treacherously" forgotten her republican traditions.]

[312] {562}[Francesco Can Grande della Scala died in 1329. It was under his roof that Dante learned

"... how salt his food who fares Upon another's bread--how steep his path Who treadeth up and down another's stairs."

For anecdotes of Can Grande, see _Commedia, etc._, by E. H. Plumptre, D.D., 1886, I. cxx., cxxi.; and compare _Dante at Verona_, by D. G. Rossetti, _Works_, 1886, i. 1-17.]

[313] [Ippolito Pindemonte, the modern Tibullus (1753-1828). (See _Letters_, 1900, iv. 127, note 4.)]

[314] [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, "_qui suburbium numquam egressus est_."

"Indocilis rerum, vicinæ nescius urbis, Adspectu fruitur liberiore poli."

C. Claudiani _Opera_, lii., _Epigrammata_, ii. lines 9, 10 (ed. 1821, iii. 427).]

[315] ["In the amphitheatre ... crowds collected after the sittings of the Congress, to witness dramatic representations.... But for the costumes, a spectator might have imagined he was witnessing a resurrection of the ancient Romans."--_Congress, etc._, by M. de Chateaubriand, 1838, i. 76. This was on the 24th of November. Catalani sang. Rossini's cantata was performed with tremendous applause. On the next day the august visitors witnessed an illumination of the city. "Leur attention s'est principalement arrête sur le superbe portail de l'église Sainte-Agnés, qui brillait de mille feux, au milieu desquels se lisait l'inscription suivante en lettres de grandeur colossale:

'_A Cesare Augusta Verona esultante_.'"

--_Le Moniteur_, December 14, 1822.]

[316] {563}[Alexander I. (Paulowitsch), 1777-1825, succeeded his father in 1801. He began his reign well. Taxation was diminished, judicial penalties were remitted, universities were founded and reorganized, personal servitude was abolished or restricted throughout the empire. At the height of his power and influence, when he was regarded as the Liberator of Europe, he granted a Constitution to Poland, based on liberal if not democratic principles (June 21, 1815). But after a time he reverted to absolutism. Autocracy at home, a mystical and sentimental alliance with autocrats abroad, were incompatible with the indulgence of liberal proclivities. "After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and Troppau," writes M. Rambaud (_History of Russia_, 1888, ii. 384), "he was no longer the same man.... From that time he considered himself the dupe of his generous ideas ... at Carlsbad, at Laybach, and at Verona, Alexander was already the leader of the European reaction." But even to the last he believed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. "They may say of me," he exclaimed, "what they will; but I have lived and shall die republican" (ibid., p. 398).

Alexander was a man of ideas, a sentimentalist, and a _poseur_, but he had an eye to the main chance. Whatever cause or dynasty suffered, the Emperor Alexander was still triumphant. Byron's special grudge against him at this time was due to his vacillation with regard to the cause of Greek Independence. But he is too contemptuous. There were points in common between the "Coxcomb Czar" and his satirist; and it is far from certain that if the twain had changed places Byron might not have proved just "such an Alexander." In one respect their destiny was alike. The greatest sorrow of their lives was the death of a natural daughter.]

[317] [For Alexander's waltzing, see _Personal Reminiscences_, by Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes, 1875, p. 286. See, too, Moore's _Fables for the Holy Alliance_, Fable I., "A Dream."]

[em] _Now half inclining_----.--[MS.]

[318] {564} ["Pulk" is Polish for "regiment." The allusion must be to the military colonies planted by "the corporal of Gatchina," Araktchèef, in the governments of Novgorod, Kharkof, and elsewhere.]

[319] [Frédéric César La Harpe (1754-1838) was appointed by Catherine II. Governor to the Grand-Dukes Alexander and Constantine. It was from La Harpe's teaching that Alexander imbibed his liberal ideas. In 1816, when Byron passed the summer in Switzerland, La Harpe was domiciled at Lausanne, and it is possible that a meeting took place.]

[320] [Alexander's platonic attachment to the Baronne de Krüdener (Barbe Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, _illuminée_, was the source of amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year, was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the "Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It was only a passing whim. Alexander's mysticism was for ornament, not for use, and, before very long, Egeria and her Muscovite Numa parted company.]

[321] The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on the banks of the river Pruth. [Catherine, who had long been Peter's mistress, had at length been acknowledged as his wife. Her "dexterity" took the form of a bribe of money and jewels, conveyed to the Turkish grand-vizier Baltazhi-Mahomet, who was induced to accede to the Treaty of Pruth, July 20, 1711.]

[322] {565}

["Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd Beneath Count Julian's banner.... To revenge His quarrel, twice that number left their bones, Slain in unnatural battle, on the field Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths By righteous Heaven was reft."

Southey's _Roderick_, Canto XXV. lines 1, 2, 7-11.]

[323] [The Bashkirs are a Turco-Mongolian tribe inhabiting the slopes of the Ural Mountains. They supply a body of irregular cavalry to the Russian army.]

[324] [The Austrian and Russian armies stood between the Greeks and other peoples, and their independence, as Alexander the Great stood between Diogenes and the sunshine.]

[en]

_Still will I roll my tub at Sinope_ _Be slaves who may_----.--[MS.]

[325] [Lines 482, 483, are not in the MS.]

[326] {566} [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 1767-1830) was the "stormy petrel" of debate in the French Chamber. For instance, in a discussion on secret service money for the police (July 27, 1822), he exclaimed, "Vous les répresentez-vous payant d'une main le salaire du vol, et tenant peut-être un crucifix de l'autre?" No wonder that there were "violens murmures, cris d'indignation à droite." The duel, however, did not arise out of a speech in the Chamber, but from a letter of June 5, 1822, in _La Quotidienne_, in which the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts replied to some letters of Constant, which had appeared in the _Courrier_ and _Constitutionnel_. Constant was lame, and accordingly both combatants "out été places à dix petits pas sur des chaises." Both fired twice, but neither "was a penny the worse." (See _La Grande Encyclopédie_, art. "Constant;" and, for details, _La Quotidienne_, June 8, 1822. See, too, for "session de 1822," _Opinions el Discours_ de M. Casimir Perrier, 1838, ii. 5-47.)]

[327] [Louis XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier, 1755-1824) passed several years of exile in England, at Goswell, Wanstead, and latterly at Hartwell, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire. When he entered Paris as king, in May, 1814, he was in his fifty-ninth year, inordinately bulky and unwieldy--a king _pour rire_. "C'est ce gros goutteux," explained an _ouvrier_ to a bystander, who had asked, "Which is the king?" Fifteen mutton cutlets, "sautées au jus," for breakfast; fifteen mutton cutlets served with a "sauce à la champagne," for dinner; to say nothing of strawberries, and sweet apple-puffs between meals, made digestion and locomotion difficult. It was no wonder that he was a martyr to the gout. But he cared for nature and for books as well as for eating. His _Lettres d'Artwell_ (Paris, 1830), which profess to be selections from his correspondence with a friend, give a pleasant picture of the _roi en exil_. His wife, Louise de Savoie, died November, 1810, and in the following April he writes (_Lettres_, pp. 70, 71), "Mars a maintenu le bien d'un hiver fort doux; point encore de goutte; _à brebis tondue, Dieu measure le vent_. Hélas! je l'éprouve bien qu'elle est tondue cette pauvre brebis!... je me promène dans le jardin, je vois mes rosiers qui poussent bien; a qui offrirai-je les roses?... Eh bien! je ne voudrais pas que cette goutte d'absinthe cessât, car pour cela il faudrait l'oublier. L'oublier! Ah Dieu! Je suis comme les enfans d'Israël qui disaient: _Super flumina Babylonis ... Sion._ Mais ajoutons tout de suite: _Si oblitus fuero hit, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea_." In another letter, June 8, 1811, he criticizes some translations of Horace, and laments that the good Père Sanadon has confined himself to the _Opera Expurgata_. Not, he adds, that he would not have excluded one or two odes, "mais on a impitoyablement sabré des choses délicieuses" (_Lettres_, p. 98).

To his wit, Chateaubriand testifies (_The Congress, etc._, 1838, i. 262). At the council, when affairs of state were being discussed, the king "would say in his clear shrill voice, 'I am going to make you laugh, M. de Chateaubriand.' The other ministers fumed with impatience, but Chateaubriand laughed, not as a courtier, but as a human being."]

[328] {567}[Louvel, who assassinated the Due de Berri, and who was executed June 7, 1820, was supposed to have been an agent of the _carbonari_. La Fayette, Constant, Lafitte, and others were also suspected of being connected with secret societies.--_The Court of the Tuileries, 1815-1848_, by Lady Jackson, 1883, ii. 19.]

[eo] {568}

_Immortal Wellington with beak so curled_. _That foremost Corporal of all the World--_ _Immortal Wellington--and flags unfurled_.--[MS. erased.]

[329] "Naso suspendis adunco."--HORACE [_Sat._ i. 6, 5]. The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious to his acquaintance.

[330] [Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), who had been labouring under a "mental delirium" (Letter of Duke of Wellington, August 9, 1822), committed suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife (August 12, 1822). He was the uncompromising and successful opponent of popular causes in Ireland, Italy, and elsewhere, and, as such, Byron assailed him, alive and dead, with the bitterest invective. (See, for instance, the "Dedication" to _Don Juan_, stanzas xi.-xvi., sundry epigrams, and an "Epitaph.") In the Preface to Cantos VI., VII., VIII., of _Don Juan_, he justifies the inclusion of a stanza or two on Castlereagh, which had been written "before his decease," and, again, alludes to his suicide. (For an estimate of his career and character, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1; and for a full report of the inquest, _The Annual Biography_, 1823, pp. 56-62.)]

[ep]

_Whose penknife saved some nations t'other day_. _Who shaved his throat by chance the other day_.--[MS. erased.]

[331] ["The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was written by Canning, to be recited at a dinner given on Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802.]

[eq] {569} _With reason--whate'er it may with rhyme_.--[MS. erased.]

[332] [George Canning (1770-1827) succeeded Lord Londonderry as Foreign Secretary, September 8, 1822. He was not a _persona grata_ to George IV., who had been offended by Canning's neutral attitude, as a minister, on the question of the Queen's message (June 7, 1820), and by his avowal "of an unaltered regard and affection" for that "illustrious personage" herself. There was, too, the prospect of Catholic Emancipation. In 1821 he had spoken in favour of Plunket's bills, and, the next year (April 30, 1822), he had brought in a bill to remove the disabilities of Roman Catholic peers from sitting in the House of Lords. If Canning persisted in his advocacy of Catholic claims, the king's conscience might turn restive, and urge him to effectual resistance. Hence the warning in lines 563-567.]

[333] {570} [Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot drawn by serpents, and bade him scatter wheat throughout the world. (See Ovid, _Met._, lib. v. lines 642-661.)]

[er] _The mighty monosyllable high_ Rent!--[MS.]

[es] ----_upon the audit day_.--[MS. M.]

[334] ["Lord Londonderry proposed (April 29, 1822) that whenever wheat should be under 60 shillings a quarter, Government should be authorized to issue £1,000,000 in Exchequer bills to landed proprietors on the security of their crops; that importation of foreign corn should be permitted whenever the price of wheat should be at or above 70 shillings a quarter ... that a sliding-scale should be fixed, that for wheat being under 80s. a quarter at 12 shillings; above 80s. and below 85s., at 5 shillings; and above 85s., only one shilling."--Allison's _History of Europe_, 1815-1852, _and_ 1854, ii. 506. The first clause was thrown out, but the rest of the bill passed May 13, 1822.]

[et] {571} _For fear that riches_----.--[MS. M.]

[eu] _Will sell the harvest at a market price_.--[MS. M.]

[ev] _Are gone--their fields untilled_.--[MS. M.]

[335] {572}[Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments (Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 49) was passed June 14, 1819. The "landed interest" attributed the fall of prices and the consequent fall of rent to this measure, and hinted more or less plainly that the fund-holders should share the loss. They had lent their money when the currency was inflated, and should not now be paid off in gold.

"But _you_," exclaims Cobbett [Letter to Mr. Western (_Weekly Register_, November 23, 1822)], "what can induce you to stickle for the Pitt system [i.e. paper-money]? I will tell you what it is: you loved the _high prices_, and the domination that they gave you.... Besides this, you think that the _boroughs can be preserved_ by a return to paper-money, and along with them the hare-and-pheasant law and justice. You loved the glorious times of paper-money, and you want them back again. You think that they could go on for ever.... The bill of 1819 was really a great relaxation of the Pitt system, and when you are crying out _spoliation_ and _confiscation_, when you are bawling out so lustily about the robbery committed on you by the fund-holders and the placemen, and are praising the infernal Pitt system at the same time, ... you say they are receiving, the fund-vagabonds in particular, _more_ than they ought." It is evident that Byron's verse is a reverberation of Cobbett's prose.]

[336] [Petitions were presented by the inhabitants of St. Andrew, Holborn; St. Botolf, Bishopsgate; and St. Gregory by St. Paul, to the Court of Common Council, against a tithe-charge of 2s, 9d. in the pound on their annual rents.--_Morning Chronicle_, November 1, 1822.]

[337] Lines 614-657 are not in the MS.

[338] {573}[The Symplegades, or "justling rocks," Ovid's _instabiles Cyaneæ_, were supposed to crush the ships which sailed between them.]

[339] [Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure in the _Orlando Furioso_, is the counterpart of Homer's _Circe_. "She enjoyed her lovers for a time, and then changed them into trees, stones, fountains, or beasts, as her fancy dictated." (See Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, vi. 35, _seq_.)]

[340] [There were five brothers Rothschild: Anselm, of Frankfort, 1773-1855; Salomon, of Vienna, 1774-1855; Nathan Mayer, of London, 1777-1836; Charles, of Naples, 1788-1855; and James, of Paris, 1792-1868. In 1821 Austria raised 37-1/2 million guldens through the firm, and, as an acknowledgment of their services, the Emperor raised the brothers to the rank of baron, and appointed Baron Nathan Mayer Consul-General in London, and Baron James to the same post in Paris. In 1822 both Russia (see line 684) and England raised 3-1/2 millions sterling through the Rothschilds. The "two Jews" (line 686, etc.) are, probably, the two Consuls-General. In 1822 their honours were new, and some mocked. There is the story that Talleyrand once presented the Parisian brother to Montmorenci as _M. le premier Juif_ to _M. le premier Baron Chrétien_; while another tale, parent or offspring of the preceding, which appeared in _La Quotidienne_, December 21, 1822, testifies to the fact, not recorded, that a Rothschild was at Verona during the Congress: "M. de Rotschild, baron et banquier général des gouvernemens absolus, s'est, dit-on, rendu an congres, il a été présenté a l'empereur d'Autriche, et S.M., en lui remettant une decoration, a daigné lui dire: 'Vous pouvez être assuré, Monsieur, que _la maison d'Autriche_ sera toujours disposée à reconnaître vos services et à vous accorder ce qui pourra vous être agréable,'--'Votre Majesté,' a répondu le baron financier, 'pourra toujours également compter sur _la maison Rotschild_.'"--See _The Rothschilds_, by John Reeves, 1886.]

[341] {574}[In 1822 the Neapolitan Government raised 22,000,000 ducats through the Rothschilds.]

[342] {575} Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who--who--who has written _something?_" (écrit _quelque chose!_) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. [François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) published _Les Martyrs ou le Triomphe de la religion chrétienne_ in 1809.]

[343] [Count Capo d'Istria (b. 1776)--afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned (note to ed. 1832). Byron may have believed that Capo d'Istria was still in the service of the Czar, but, according to Allison, his advocacy of his compatriots the Greeks had led to his withdrawal from the Russian Foreign Office, and prevented his taking part in the Congress. It was, however, stated in the papers that he had been summoned, and was on his way to Verona.]

[344] [Jean Mathieu Félicité, Duc de Montmorenci (1766-1826), was, in his youth, a Jacobin. He proposed, August 4, 1789, to abrogate feudal rights, and June 15, 1790, to abolish the nobility. He was superseded as plenipotentiary by Chateaubriand, and on his return to Paris created a duke. Before the end of the year he was called upon to resign his portfolio as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The king disliked him, and there were personal disagreements between him and the Prime Minister, M. de Villêle.

The following "gazette" appeared in the _Moniteur_:--

"Ordonnance du Roi. Signé Louis. Art 1^er^ Le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, pair de France, est nomme ministre secrétaire d'état au département des affaires étrangères. Louis par la grace de Dieu Roi de France et de Navarre.

"Art. 1^er^ Le Duc Mathieu de Montmorenci, pair de France, est nommé ministre d'Etat, et membre de notre Conseil privé.

"Dimanche, 29 Décembre, 1822."

"On Tuesday, January 1, 1823," writes Chateaubriand, _Congress_, 1838,