7b ^^mwiBw, y,//;v//y/ V x^dk^^z^. s&?Z4S'. THE 77 ^/£^-*-r- is • *-7 i WORKS OF D B EMBRACING HIS SUPPRESSED POEMS, AND A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE ILLUSTRATED. NEW EDITION, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON. AND COMPANY 1857. N\ ADVERTISEMENT. In the preparation of the present edition of the works of Lord Byron, the publishers have spared no expense or delay in making it entirely complete. In its progress through the press, it has undergone the careful super": -don of a distinguished literary gentleman; and its proprietors feel that they can claim for this edition what no other publisher can in this country, — that it contains, unabridged line for line, and word for word, the complete works of Lord Byron, and, in this respect, the only one ever issued from the American press. la oxck. b. Lift CONTENTS. POEMS, ETC Page Child e Haeold's Pilgrimage. Preface 17 Tolanthe 18 Canto 1 19 Canto II. ..'... 28 Canto III. 37 Canto IV 47 Notes to Canto 1 64 Notes to Canto II 65 Appendix 75 Notes to Canto III 81 Notes to Canto IV 84 The Giaour 108 Dedication 10? Advertisement Vbi Notes 119 The Bride op Abyj>08 .... 122 Dedication 122 Canto 1 122 Canto II 126 Notes 132 The Corsair 135 Dedication . . . . . . .135 Canto I. ...... 136 Canto II 141 Canto III 145 Notes 151 Lara 154 Canto 1 154 Canto II 159 Note 165 The Siege op Ccrinth .... 166 Dedication . . ... . .166 Advertisement 166 Notes 175 Parisina . 176 Dedication 176 Advertisement ... . 176 Note« . . . . 181 The Prisoner op Chillon . Sonnet on Chillon . . Notes Beppo Notes , Mazeppa Advertisement .... The Island Advertisement .... Canto I. ..... Canto II Canto III Canto IV Appendix ...... Manfred Notes The Deformed Transformed . Advertisement Heaven and Earth . Cain Dedication Preface Marino Faliero, Doge op Venice Preface Notes ..... Appendix ...... The Two Foscari Appendix Sardanapalus .... Dedication Preface ...... Notes Werner Dedication Preface Hours of Idleness .... Dedication . . Preface . ... On leaving Nevfstead Abbey 183 183 186 188 195 196 196 203 203 203 205 210 212 216 220 233 233 233 248 259 259 259 278 278 311 312 320 341 348 348 848 377 378 378 378 412 412 412 413 CONTENTS Page On a Distant View of the "Village and School of Harrow on the Hill .... 414 ToD „ • .414 Epitaph on a Friend .... 415 A Fragment 415 To Eddleston 415 Reply to some Verses of J. M. B. Pigot, Esq., on the cruelty of his Mistress . 415 To the Sighing Strephon . . . .416 The Tear 416 To Miss Pigot ■ 417 Lines written in " Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman. By J. J. Rousseau. Founded on Facts " . . 417 Answer to the foregoing, addressed to Miss 417 The Cornelian 417 On the Death of a Young Lady, Cousin to the Author, and very dear to him . 418 To Emma ....... 418 An Occasional Prologue. Delivered previous to the performance of " The "Wheel of For- tune " at a private Theatre . . . 418 On the Death of Mr. Fox . . . .419 To M. S. G 419 To Caroline 419 To Caroline 420 To Caroline 420 Stanzas to a Lady, with the Poems of Camoens 420 The first Kiss of Love . . . .421 To Mary 421 To Woman 421 To M. S. G 422 To a Beautiful Quaker . . . .422 Song 422 To 423 To Mary, on receiving her Picture . . 423 To Lesbia 424 Lines addressed to a Young Lady . . 424 Love's Last Adieu 424 Damaetas 425 To Marion 425 Oscar of Alva 425 To the Duke of Dorset . . . .428 Adrian's Address to his Soul, when Dying 429 Translation from Catullus. Ad Lesbiam . 430 Translation of the Epitaph on Virgil and Tibullus. By Domitius Marsus . . 430 Imitation of Tibullus .... 430 Translation from Catullus .... 430 Imitated from Catullus. To Ellen . 430 Translation from Horace. Ode 3, Lib. 3 . 430 Translation from Anacreon. To his Lyre 431 Ode III . .431 Fragments of School Exercises. From the Prometheus Vinctus of iEschylus . . 431 The Episode of Nisus and Euryalus. A Par- aphrase from the iEneid, Lib. IX. . . 431 Translation from the Medea of Euripides 435 Thoughts suggested by a Colleee Examination 435 To the Earl of 436 Granta. A Medley 437 Answer to some elegant Verses sent by a Friend to the Author, complaining that one of his Descriptions was rather too warmly drawn 43X LachinYGair 439 To Romance 439 Elegy on Newstead Abbey . . . 440 On a change of Masters at a great Public School 442 Childish Recollections .... 442 Answer to a beautiful Poem, written by Mont- gomery, entitled " The Common Lot" . 446 To the Rev. J. T. Becher ... 447 The Death of Calmar and Orla. An Imita- tion of Macpherson's Ossian . . 447 To E. N. L., Esq. .... 448 To . . .... 449 Stanzas 450 Lines written beneath an Elm in the Church- yard of Harrow on the Hill, September 2, 1807 • . .450 Critique on " Hours of Idleness," extracted from the Edinburgh Review . . . 451 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 453 Preface 453 Postscript 467 Hints from Horace 468 The Curse of Minerva .... 480 The Waltz . . . . • . . .483 To the Publisher 483 The Age of Bronze 487 The Vision of Judgment . . . 494 Preface 494 Morgante Maggoire .... 503 Advertisement 603 Canto 1 504 The Prophecy of Dantb .... 610 Dedication . . . . . . 510 Preface . . 610 Canto I. . . . . . . . 611 Canto II. . ... . . . 612 Canto III. ...... 613 Canto IV 615 Nctes .616 Hebrew Melodies . ... 618 Advertisement . .* 618 She Walks in Beauty 618 The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept . 618 If that High World 618 The Wild Gazelle 618 Oh ! "Weep for Those 619 On Jordan's Banks 619 Jephtha's Daughter 619 Oh ! snatch'd away in Beauty's Bloom . 619 My Soul is Dark . . ... 619 I saw Thee Weep ..... 620 Thy Days are Done ... .620 CONTENTS. Page Song of Saul before his last Battle . 520 Saul 520 " All is Vanity, saith the Preacher " . 520 When Coldness wraps this suffering Clay . 521 Vision of Belshazzar .... 521 Sun of the Sleepless ! 521 "Were my 'Bosom as False as Thou deem'st it to be * . .521 Herod's Lament for Mariamne . . 521 On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus 522 By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept 522 The Destruction of Sennacherib . . 522 From Job 522 The Lament of Tasso .... 523 Advertisement 523 Monody on the Death op the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan 525 Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte . . 527 Notes 528 Ode on Venice 529 The Dream 530 The Blues 532 Miscellaneous Poems .... 537 Written in an Album 537 To * * * 537 Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian Gulf 537 Stanzas composed during the Night, in a Thunder-Storm 538 Written at Athens 538 Written after Swimming from Sestos to Aby- dos * 538 Song. Zcoij lirii aas ayaTiw .... 539 Translation of the famous Greek War Song, ACVTC TTUlicS TUIV '%WflVO}V .... 539 Translation of the Romaic Song, "TShcvoy peg 't(t ir£pi06yi 'SlpaiOTCLTT] Xaqiiij " . . , 540 Written beneath a Picture . . . 540 On Parting 540 ToThyrza 540 Stanzas 541 To Thyrza 541 Euthanasia 542 Stanzas. " Heu quanto minus est cum reli- quis versari quam tui meminisse " . . 542 Stanzas ....... 543 On a Cornelian Heart which was Broken . 543 To a Youthful Friend .... 543 To ****** 544 From the Portuguese .... 544 Impromptu, in reply to a Friend . . 544 Address, spoken at the opening of Drury- Lane Theatre 544 'I o Time 545 Translation of a Romaic Love Song . . 545 A Song 546 On being asked what was the " Origin of Love" 546 Remember Him, &c Lines inscribed upon a Cup formed from a Skull On the Death of Sir Peter Parker, Bart. To a Lady weeping ..... From the Turkish Sonnet. To Genevra Sonnet. To Genevra .... Inscription on the Monument of a Newfound- land Dog Farewell Bright be the Place of thy Soul When we Two Parted Stanzas for Music Stanzas for Music ..... Fare Thee Well A Sketch To Ode. [From the French] .... From the French On the Star of "the Legion of Honor." [From the French] .... Napoleon's Farewell. [From the French] Written on a blank Leaf of " The Pleasures of Memory " Sonnet Stanzas to — — Darkness Churchill's Grave Prometheus ' The Prayer of Nature Romance muy Doloroso del Sitio y Toma de Alhama A very mournful Ballad on the Siege and Conquest of Granada .... Sonetto di Vittorelli. Per Monaca Translation from Vittorelli. On a Nun To my dear Mary Anne . To Miss Chaworth Fragment . . . , . Fragment On Revisiting Harrow , L'Amitie est 1' Amour sans Ailes To my Son . . ... Epitaph on John Adams, of Southwell Fragment To Mrs. * * *, on being asked my reason for quitting England in the Spring . A Love Song Stanzas to******* To the Same Song Stanzas to * * *, on leaving England Lines to Mr. Hodgson .... Lines in the Travellers' Book at Orchomenus On Moore's Last Operatic Farce Epistle to Mr. Hodgson On Lord Thurlow's Poems To Lord Thurlow Pag. 546 547 547 547 547 548 548 548 548 548 549 549 549 550 550 551 551 552 553 553 554 554 554 554 555 555 556 557 557 559 559 559 559 560 560 560 560 561 561 561, 562 562 562 562 563 563 564 564 565 565 565 56# n CONTENTS. Page To Thomas Moore 566 Fragment of an Epistle to Thomas Moore 566 The Devil's Drive 566 "Windsor Poetics 667 Additional Stanzas to the Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte 567 To Lady Caroline Lamb .... 567 Stanzas for Music 568 Address intended to be recited at the Caledo- nian Meeting 568 On the Prince Regent's returning the Picture of Sarah, Countess of Jersey, to Mrs. Mee 568 To Belshazzar 569 Hebrew Melodies 569 Lines intended for the opening of " The Siege of Corinth " 569 Extract from an Unpublished Poem . . 570 To A'igusta 570 On the Bust of Helen, by Canova . . 571 Fragment of a Poem on hearing that Lady Byron was 111 571 To Thomas Moore 572 Stanzas to the River Po . . . . 572 Sonnet to George the Fourth . . . 572 Francesca of Rimini 572 The Irish Avatar 573 Stanzas to Her who can best understand Them 574 Stanzas written on the Road between Florence and Pisa 575 Impromptu, on Lady Blessington expressing her Intention of taking the Villa called " II Paradiso," near Genoa . . 575 To the Countess of Blessington . . . 575 On this Day I complete my Thirty-Sixth Year 576 To a Lady who presented the Author with • the Velvet Band which bound her Tresses 576 576 576 577 578 578 Remembrance The Adieu .... To a Vain Lady To Anne ... . . To the Same To the Author of a Sonnet beginning " ' Sad~ is my Verse,' you say, '" and yet no Tear' " 578 On Finding a Fan 578 Farewell to the Muse 579 To an Oak at Newstead .... 579 Lines, on hearing that Lady Byron was 111 579 Stanzas. " Could Love for ever " . . 580 Stanzas. To a Hindoo Air . . . 581 Oh, never talk again to me . . 581 The Third Act of Manfred, in its original Shape, as first sent to the Publisher . 581 Don Juan 585 Dedication 585 Canto 1 587 Canto II 603 Canto III 618 Canto IV 627 Canto V 635 Preface to Cantos VI. VII. and VIII. . 647 Canto VI 648 Canto VII 656 Canto VIII 663 Canto IX 673 Canto X 679 Canto XL Canto XII. Canto XIII. Canto XIV. Canto XV. Canto XVL Notea 685 692 698 706 713 721 730 CONTENTS. LETTERS, ETC. LETTERS I. to Miss Pigot II. to Mr. Pigot . III. to Miss Pigot IV. to Mr. Pigot . V. to Mr. Pigot VI. to Mr. Pigot . VII. to Mr. Pigot VIII. to Miss Pigot . ' IX. to the Earl of Clare X. to Mr. Pigot . XL to Mr. William Bankes XII. to Mr. William Bankes XIII. to Mr. Falkner . XIV. to Mr. Pigot . XV. to Miss Pigot XVI. to Miss Pigot . XVII. to Miss Pigot XVIII. to Miss Pigot . XIX. to Miss Pigot XX. to Miss Pigot . XXI. to Miss Pigot XXII. to Mr. Dallas . XXIII. to Mr. Dallas XXIV. to Mr. Henry Drury XXV. to Mr. Harness . XXVI. to Mr. Harness XXVII. to Mr. Becher XXVIII. to Mr. Becher . XXIX. to Mr. Jackson XXX. to Mr. Jackson XXXI, to Mr. Jackson . XXXII. to Mr. Becher . XXXIIL to the Honorable Mrs. Byro XXXIV. to Mrs. Byron . XXXV. to Mr. Hodgson , XXXVI. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. XXXVII. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. XXXVIII. to Mrs. Byron . 2* Page 739 739 739 740 740 740 740 741 741 741 742 742 742 742 743 743 743 744 744 745 745 746 746 747 747 747 748 748 748 749 749 749 749 749 750 750 750 751 rtjt LETTERS : XXXIX. to Mr. Harness 751 XL. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . . 751 XLI. to Mr. William Bankes . 751 XLII. to Mrs. Byron . 752 XLIII. to Mr. Henry Drury 752 XLIV. to Mr. Hodgson . . 752 XLV. to Mr. Hodgson 752 XLVI. to Mr. Hodgson . . 753 XLVII. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 753 XL VIII. to Mr. Rushton . . 754 t> XLIX. to the Honorable Mrs. Byron 755 L. to Mrs. Byron . 755 LI. to Mrs. Byron .... 757 LII. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 757 LIII. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 757 LIV. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 757 LV. to Mr. Henry Drury 757 LVI. to Mr. Hodgson . . 759 LVII. to the Honorable Mrs. Byron 759 LVIII. to Mr. Henry Drury . . 75C LIX. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 760 LX. to Mrs. Byron . 761 LXI. to Mrs. Byron .... 761 LXII. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 762 LXIII. to Mr. Hodgson 762 LXIV. to Mrs. Byron ... . 763 LXV. to Mrs. Byron .... 764 LXVI. to Mrs. Byron . 764 LXVII. to Mr. Hodgson . 704 LXVIII. to Mr. Dallas . 765 LXIX. to Mr. Henry Drury 765 LXX. to the Hon. Mrs. Byron . 765 LXXI. to Dr. Pigot .... 766 LXXII. to Mr. Scrope Davies . . 76 LXXIII. to Bolton, Esq. 766 LXXIV. to Mr. Bolton . 767 LXXV. to Mr. Bolton .... 767 LXXVI. to Mr. Dallas . 767 ' i CONTENTS. ! Page Pag* LETTERS LETTERS j LXXVII. to Mr. Hodgson . 767 CXXXV. to Lord Holland . . . 786 LXXVIII. to Mr. Dallas . 768 CXXXVI. to Lord Holland 786 LXXIX. to Mr. Murray . 768 CXXXVII. to Lord Holland . . 786 LXXX. to Mr. Dallas 769 CXXXVIII. to Lord Holland 787 LXXXI. to Mr. Dallas . . 769 CXXXIX. to Lord Holland . . 787 LXXXII. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. 769 CXL. to Lord Holland 787 LXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 770 CXLI. to Mr. Murray • . 787 LXXXIV. to Mr. Dallas 770 CXLH. to Mr. Murray . 781 LXXXV. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . 771 CXLII1. to Mr. William Bankes . . 788 LXXXVI. to Mr. Murray . 771 CXLIV. to Mr. Murray . 788 LXXXVII. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . 771 CXLV. to Mr. Murray . . ' 789 LXXXVIII. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. 771 CXLVI. to Lord Holland 789 LXXXIX. to Mr. Murray . 771 CXLVII. to Mr. Murray . 789 XC. to Mr. Dallas . 771 CXL VIII. to Mr. Murray . 789 XCI. to R. V C. Dallas, Esq. . 772 CXLIX. to Mr. Murray . 789 XCII. to Mr. Dallas . 772 CL. to Mr. Murray . 790 XCm. to Mr. Dallas . . 772 CLI. to Mr. William Bankes . 790 XCIV. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. 772 CLII. to Mr. Murray . 790 XCV. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . 773 CLIII. to Mr. Rogers . . . 790 XCVI. to Mr. Dallas . 773 CLIV. to Mr. Murray . 791 XCVII. to Mr. Hodgson . 774 CLV. to Mr. Murray . .791 XCV1II. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. 775 CLVI. to Mr. Murray . 791 XCIX. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . 775 CLVII. to Mr. Murray . . 791 C. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. 775 CLVIII. to W. Gifford, Esq. . 792 CI. to R. C. Dallas, Esq. . 775 CLIX. to Mr. Moore . . . 792 CII. to Miss Pigot 776 CLX. to Mr. Moore 792 CHI. Mr. Moore to Lord Byron . 776 CLXI. to Mr. Moore . . 792 CIV. to Mr. Moore 776 CLXII. to Mr. Moore 793 CV. to Mr. Moore . . ■ . . 776 CLXIII. toMr. Moore . . . 793 CVI. to Mr. Moore 777 CLXIV. to Mr. Moore 793 CVII. to Mr. Moore . . 777 CLXV. to Mr. Croker . . . 794 CVIII. to Mr. Harness . ♦77 CLXVI. to Mr. Murray . 794 CIX. to Mr. Harness . 777 CLXVII. to Mr. Murray . 794 CX. to Mr. Hodgson . 778 CLXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 795 CXI. to Mr. Hodgson . '778 CLXIX. to Mr. Moore . . 795 CXII. to Mr. Harness . 779 CLXX. to Mr. Moore 796 CXIII. to Mr. Moore . . 779 CLXXI. to Mr. Moore . . . 796 CXIV. to Mr. Moore 779 CLXXII. to Mr. Moore 797 CXV. to Robert Rnshton . . 780 CLXXIII. to Mr. Moore . . . 797 CXVI. to Robert Rushton . 780 CLXXIV. to Mr. Moore 797 CXVII. to Mr. Hodgson . 780 CLXXV. to Mr. Moore . . . 797 CXVIII. to Master John Cowell 780 CLXXVI. to Mr. Moore 798 CXIX. to Mr. Rogers . . 781 CLXXVII. to Mr. Moore . . . 798 CXX. to Lord Holland 781 CLXXVIII. to Leigh Hunt . 799 CXXI. to Mr. Hodgson . 781 CLXXIX. to Mr. Moore . . . 799 CXXII. to Lord Holland 781 CLXXX. to Mr. Murray 800 CXXIII. to Mr. William Bankes . . 782 CLXXXI. to Mr. Gifford . . 800 CXXIV. to Mr. William Bankes 782 CLXXXII. to Mr. Murray . 800 CXXV. to Lord Holland . . 783 CLXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 801 CXXVI. to Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 783 CLXXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 801 CXXVII. to Lord Holland . . 784 CLXXXV. to Mr. Murray . 802 CXXVIII. to Lord Holland % . 784 CLXXXVI. to Mr. Murray . 802 CXXIX. to Lord Holland . . 784 CLXXXVII. to Mr. Murray . 802 CXXX. to Lord Holland 784 CLXXXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 803 CXXXI. to Lord Holland . 784 CLXXXIX. to Mr. Ashe . . 803 CXXXII. to Lord Holland 785 CXC. to Mr. Ashe 804 CXXXIII. to Lord Holland . 785 CXCI. to Mr. Gait . . 804 CXXXIV. to Lord Holland 785 CXCII. to Mr. Leigh Hunt . 804 i CONTENTS. iii Page p««» LETTERS LETTERS i CXCIII. to Mr. Merivale . . 804 CCLI. to Mr. Murray . .. 823 CXCIV. to Mr. Murray . 804 CCLII. to Mr. Murray . 824 CXCV. to Mr. Moore . S05 CCLIII. to Mr. Nathan . . 824 CXCVI. to Mr. Moore . 805 CCLIV. to Mr. Moore . 824 CXCVII. to Mr. Murray . . 806 CCLV. to Mr. Moore . 824 CXCVIII. to Mr. Murray . 806 CCLVI. to Mr. Moore . 82* CXCIX. to Mr. Murray . . 806 CCLVII. to Mr. Murray . . 825 CC. to Mr. Murray . 807 CCLVIII. to Mr. Moore . 825 CCI. to Mr. Hodgson . . 807 CCLIX. to Mr. Moore . 825 CCII. to Mr. Moore . 808 CCLX. to Mr. Moore . 825 CCIII. to Mr. Hunt. . 808 CCLXI. to Mr. Moore . 826 CCIV. to Mr. Murray . 809 CCLXII. to Mr. Moore . 82* CCV. to Mr. Rogers . 809 CCLXIII. to Mr. Moore . 82', CCVI. to Mr. Rogers . 809 CCLXIV. to Mr. Coleridge . 82, CCVII. to Mr. Moore . 809 CCLXV. to Mr. Murray . . 823 CCVIII. to Mr. Dallas . 810 CCLXVI. to Mr. Moore . 828 CCIX. to * * * * . . 810 CCLXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 828 CCX. to Mr. Moore . 810 CCLXVIII. to Mr. Hunt . 828 CCXI. to W * * W * *, Esc [. . 811 CCLXIX. to Mr. Moore . 829 CCXII. to Mr. Moore . 811 CCLXX. to Mr. Moore . 829 CCXIII. to Mr. Moore . 811 CCLXXI. to Mr. Sotheby . . 830 CCXIV. to Mr. Murray . 812 CCLXXII. to Mr. Sotheby 830 CCXV. to Mr. Murray . . 812 CCLXXIII. to Mr. Taylor . 830 CCXVI. to Mr. Moore . 812 CCLXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 830 CCXVII. to Mr. Moore . 813 CCLXXV. to Mr. Murray . . 831 CCXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 814 CCLXXVI. to Mr. Hunt . 831 CCXIX. to Mr. Murray . . 814 CCLXXVII. to Mr. Hunt . 831 CCXX. to Mr. Murray . 814 CCLXXVIII. to Mr. Hunt . 831 CCXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 814 CCLXXIX. to Mr. Moore . 832 CCXXII. to Mr. Murray . 814 CCLXXX. to Mr. Hunt . 832 CCXXIII. to Mr. Murray . . 815 CCLXXXI. to Mr. Moore . 833 CCXXIV. to Mr. Moore . 816 CCLXXXII. to Mr. Moore . 833 CCXXV. to Mr. Moore . 816 CCLXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . . S34 CCXXVI. to Mr. Moore . 816 CCLXXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 834 XXVII. to Mr. Rogers . 816 CCLXXXV. to Mr. Murray . . 834 CCXXVIII. to Mr. Rogers . 817 CCLXXXVI. to Mr. Moore . 834 CCXXIX. to Mr. Moore . 817 CCLXXXVII. to Mr. Hunt . . 835 CCXXX. to Mr. Moore . 817 CCLXXXVIII. to Mr. Rogers . 835 CCXXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 818 CCLXXXIX. to Mr. Moore . 835 CCXXXII. to Mr. Murray . 818 CCXC. to Mr. Hunt . 836 ! CCXXXIII. to Mr. Murray ■. . 818 CCXCI. to Mr. Moore . 836 CCXXXIV. to Mr. Moore . 818 CCXCII. to Mr. Murray . 837 CCXXXV. to Mr. Murray . . 819 CCXCIII. to Mr. Rogers . 837 CCXXXYI. to Mr. Murray . 819 CCXCIV. to Mr. Murray . 837 CCXXXVII. to Mr. Moore . 819 CCXCV. to Mr. Murray : . 837 CCXXXVIII. to Mr. Moore . 820 CCXCVI. to Mr. Murray . 837 CCXXXIX. to Mr. Murray . . 820 CCXCVII. to Mr. Murray . . 837 CCXL. to Mr. Murray . 820 CCXCV1II. to Mr. Rogers . 838 CCXLI. to Mr. Moore -. 821 CCXCIX. to Mr. Murray . 838 CCXLII. to Mr. Moore . 821 CCC. to Mr. Murray . 838 CCXLIII. to Mr. Moore . 821 CCCI. to Mr. Rogers . 839 i CCX LI V. to the Countess of * * * 822 CCCII. to Mr. Murray . 839 ; CCXLV. to Mr. Moore . 822 CCCIII. to Mr. Murray . . 840 CCXLVI. to Mr. Hunt . 822 CCCIV. to Mr. Murray . 840 CCXLVII. to Mr. Moore . 822 CCCY. to Mr. Murray . 84C I i CCXLVIII. to Mr. Henry Dniry 823 CCCVI. to Mr. Murra> . 841 CCXLI X. to Mr. Cowell . 823 CCCVII. to Mr. Murray . 841 CCL. to Mr. Moore . 823 CCCVIII. to Mr. Moore . 84! ! CONTENTS. • 1 Page «•««• LETTERS LETTERS CCCIX to Mr. Moore 843 CCCLXVII. to Mr. Rogers . 872 CCCX. to Mr. Moore . 843 CCCLXVIII to Mr. Moore . 872 CCCXI. to Mr. Murray . 845 CCCLXIX to Mr. Murray . 873 CCCXII. to Mr. Murray 845 CCCLXX. to Mr. Murray 873 CCCXIII. to Mr. Murray . 846 CCCLXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 873 CCCXIV. to Mr. Murray 846 CCCLXXII. to Mr. Murray 874 cccxv. to Mr. Murray . . 847 CCCLXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 874' CCCXVI. to Mr. Moore . 848 CCCLXXIV. to Mr. Moore . 874 CCCXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 849 CCCLXXV. t *- * * * * . 875 CCCXVIII. to Mr. Murray 849 CCCLXXVI. to Mr. Murray 877 CCCXIX. to Mr. Murray . 850 CCCLXXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 877 cccxx. to Mr. Moore . 850 CCCLXXVIII. to Mr. Murray 877 CCCXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 851 CCCLXXIX. to Mr. Murray . 878 CCCXXII. to Mr. Murray 851 CCCLXXX. to Capt. Basil Hall 878 CCCXXIII. to Mr. Moore . 852 CCCLXXXI. to Mr. Moore . 878 CCCXXIV. to Mr. Moore . 852 CCCLXXXII. to Mr. Murray 879 cccxxv. to Mr. Murray . . 853 CCCLXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . . 879 CCCXXVI. to Mr. Moore . 854 CCCLXXXIV. to Mr. Murray 879 CCCXXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 855 CCCLXXXV. to Mr. Murray . . 88C CCCXXVIII. to Mr. Rogers 855 CCCLXXXVI. to Mr. Murray 880 CCCXXIX. to Mr. Murray . 856 CCCLXXXVII. to the Editor of Galignani's cccxxx. to Mr. Moore . 856 Messenger 881 CCCXXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 857 CCCLXXXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 881 CCCXXXII. to Mr. Murray . . 858 CCCLXXXIX. to Mr. Murray 881 CCCXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . . 858 CCCXC. to Mr. Murray . . 882 CCCXXXIV. to Mr. Murray 858 CCCXCI. to Mr. Hoppner 882 cccxxxv. to Mr. Murray . . 859 CCCXCII. to Mr. Hoppner . . 882 CCCXXXVI. to Mr. Moore . 859 CCCXCIII. to Mr. Murray 883 CCCXXXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 859 CCCXCIV. to Mr. Hoppner . . 884 2CCXXXVIII. to Mr. Murray 860 CCCXCV. to Mr. Murray 884 CCCXXXIX. to Mr. Murray . . 861 CCCXCVI. to Mr. Hoppner . . 885 CCCXL. to Mr. Murray 861 CCCXCVII. to Mr. Murray 885 CCCXLI. to Mr. Murray . 861 CCCXCVIII. to Mr. Murray . 885 CCCXLII. to Mr. Murray 862 CCCXCIX. to Mr. Murray 8S6 CCCXLIII. to Mr. Murray . . 862 CCCC. to Mr. Murray . . 887 CCCXLIV. to Mr. Murray 862 CCCCI. to the Countess Guiccioli 887 CCCXLV. to Mr. Murray . 863 CCCCII. to Mr. Murray . . 887 COCXLVI. to Mr. Moore . 863 CCCCIII. to Mr. Murray 8S7 CCCXLVII. to Mr. Murray . . 863 CCCCIV. to Mr. Hoppner . . 888 CCCXLVIII. to Mr. Murray 864 CCCCV. to Mr. Hoppner 889 CCCXLIX. to Mr. Murray . 864 CCCCVI. to Mr. Hoppner . . 889 CCCL. to Mr. Murray 865 CCCCVII. to Mr. Murray 889 CCCLI. to Mr. Murray . . 865 CCCCVIII. to Mr. Hoppner . . 890 CCCLII. to Mr. Murray 866 CCCCIX. to Mr. Murray 890 CCCLIII. to Mr. Hoppner . . 866 CCCCX. to Mr. Bankes . 891 CCCLIV. to Mr. Murray 866 CCCCXI. to Mr. Murray 891 CCCLV. to Mr. Murray . 867 CCCCXII. to the Countess Guiccioli 892 CCCLVI. to Mr. Murray 867 CCCCXIII. to the Countess Guiccioli 892 CCCLVII. to Mr. Murray . . 868 CCCCXIV. to Mr. Hoppner . . 892 CCCL VIII. to Mr. Murray 868 CCCCXV. to Mr. Murray 892 CCCLIX. to Mr. Murray . 869 CCCCXVI. to Mr. Hoppner . . 893 CCCLX. to Mr. Hoppner 869 CCCCXVII. to Mr. Moore . 893 CCCLXI. to Mr. Murray . 869 CCCCXVIII. to Mr. Hoppner . . 893 CCCLXII. to Mr. Murray 870 CCCCXIX. to Mr. Hoppner 894 CCCLXIII. to Mr. Murray . . 870 CCCCXX. to Mr. Murray . . 894 CCCLXIV. to Mr. Moore . 870 CCCCXXI. to Mr. Bankes 894 CCCLXV. to Mr. Murray . . 870 CCCCXXII. to Mr. Murray . . 895 CCCLXVI. to Mr. Hoppner 871 CCCCXXIII. to Mr. Bankes 898 CONTENTS. T Ptge «■»«• LETTERS LETTERS CCCCXX IV. to Mr. Murray . . 896 CCCCLXXXI. to Mr. Murray . . . 921 CCCCXXV. to Mr. Murray . 897 CCCCLXXXII. to Mr. Perry 921 CCCCXXVI. to Mr. Murray . . 897 CCCCLXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 922 CCCCXXVII. to Mr. Murray . 897 CCCCLXXXIV. to Mr. Hoppner . 922 CCCCXXVIII. to Mr. Murray . . 897 CCCCLXXXV. to Mr. Murray . 923 CCCCXXIX. to Mr. Murray . 897 CCCCLXXXVI. to Mr. Shelley . 923 CCCCXXX. to Mr. Murray . . 898 CCCCLXXXVII. to Mr. Murray . 923 CCCCXXXI. to Mr. Hoppner . 898 CCCCLXXXVIII. to Mr. Moore 924 OCCCXXXII. to Mr. Murray . . 898 CCCCLXXXIX. to Mr. Moore . 924 CCCCXXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 899 ccccxc. to Mr. Murray . 924 CCCCXXXIV. to Mr. Hoppner . . 899 CCCCXCI. to Mr. Hoppner 925 CCCCXXXV. to Mr. Murray . 899 CCCCXCII. to Mr. Murray . 925 CCCCXXXVI. to Mr. Murray . . 900 CCCCXCIII. to Mr. Moore . 925 CCCCXXXVII. to Mr. Murray . 901 CCCCXCIV. to Mr. Murray . 926 CCCCXXXVIII. to Mr. Murray. . 901 ccccxcv. to the Countess Guiccioli 926 CCCCXXXIX. to Mr. Moore . 901 CCCCXCVI. to Mr. Moore 926 CCCCXL. to Mr. Hoppner . 902 CCCCXCVII. to Mr. Hoppner 927 CCCCXLI. to Mr. Moore 902 CCCCXCVIII. to Mr. Murray . 927 CCCCXLII. to Mr. Murray. . 903 CCCCXCIX. to Mr. Murray . 927 CCCCXLIII. to Mr. Moore . 903 D. to Mr. Murray . 927 . CCCCXLIV. to Mr. Moore . . 903 DI. to Mr. Hoppner 928 . CCCCXLV. to Mr. Murray . 904 DIE to Mr. Moore 928 CCCCXLVI. to Mr. Murray. . 905 Dili. to Mr. Moore . 928 CCCCXLVII. to Mr. Moore . 905 DIV. to Mr. Moore 929 CCCCXLVI& to Mr. Murray . . 905 DV. to Mr. Murray . 929 CCCCXLIX. to Mr. Murray . 906 DVI. to Mr. Murray . 929 CCCCL. to Mr. Murray. . 906 DVII. to Mr. Murray . 930 CCCCLI. to Mr. Murray . . 906 DVIII. to Mr. Hoppner . 930 CCCCLII. to Mr. Murray. . 906 DIX. to Mr. Murray . 930 CCCCLIII. to Mr. Murray . 906 DX. to Mr. Moore 931 CCCCLIV. to Mr. Murray . . 907 DXI. to Mr. Murray . 932 CCCCLV. to Mr. Murray . 908 DXII. to Mr. Murray . 932 CCCCLVI. to Mr. Murray'. . 908 DXIII. to Mr. Murray . 932 CCCCLVII. to Mr. Murray . 909 DXIV. to Mr. Moore 933 <5CCCLVIII. to Mr. Murray . . 909 DXV. to Mr. Murray 933 CCCCLIX. to Mr. Moore . 910 DXVI. to Mr. Murray . 933 CCCCLX. to Mr. Murray. . 910 DXVII. to Mr. Moore . 934 CCCCLXI. to Mr. Murray . 911 DXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 934 CCCCLXII. to Mr. Moore . . 911 DXIX. to Mr. Murray . 935 CCCCLXIII. to Mr. Murray . 912 DXX. to Mr. Moore 935 CCCCLXIV. to Mr. Murray. . 912 DXXI. to Mr. Moore . 935 CCCCLXV. to Mr. Murray . 913 DXXII. to Mr. Moore 936 CCCCLXVI. to Mr. Murray. . 914 DXXIII. to Mr. Murray . 936 CCCCLXVII. to Mr. Moore . 914 DXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 937 CCCCLXVIII. to Mr. Moore . . 915 DXXV. to Mr. Moore 938 CCCCLXIX. to Mr. Moore . 915 DXXVI. to Mr. Murray . 938 itddress to the Neapolitan Government . 916 DXXVII. to Mr. Moore 938 CCCCLXX. to Mr. Moore . 916 DXXVIII. to Mr.. Moore . 939 CCCCLXXI. to Mr. Murray . . 917 DXXIX. to Mr. Moore 939 CCCCLXXII. to Mr. Murray . 917 DXXX. to Mr. Murray . 940 CCCCLXXIII. to Mr. Murray. . 918 DXXXI. to Mr. Murray . 940 CCCCLXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 918 DXXXII. to Mr. Rogers . 940 CCCCLXXV. to Mr. Moore . . 918 DXXXIII. to Mr. Moore 941 CCCCLXXVI. to Mr. Murray . 918 DXXXIV. to Mr. Murray . 941 OCCCLXXVII. to Mr. Murray . . 919 DXXXV. to Mr. Murray . 941 CCCCLXXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 919 DXXXVI. to Mr. Moore . 942 CCCCLXXIX. to Mr. Murray . . 920 DXXXVII. to Mr. Sheppard . 943 CCCCLXXX. to Mr. Moore . 921 DXXXVIII. to Mr. Murray . 943 Tl CONTENTS. LETTERS DXXXIX. DXL. DXLI. DXLII. DXLIII. DXLIV. DXLV. DXLVI. DXLVII. DXLVIII. DXLIX. DL. DLL DLII. DLIII. DLIV. DLV. DLVL DLVII. DLVIII. DLIX. DLX. DLXI. DLXII. DLXIII. DLXIV. DLXV. DLXVI. DLXVII. DLXVIII. DLXIX. DLXX. DLXXI. DLXXII. DLXXIII. DLXXIV. DLXXV. DLXXVI. DLXXVII. DLXXVIII. DLXXIX. DLXXX. DLXXXL DLXXXII. DLXXXIII. DLXXXIV. DLXXXV. DLXXXVI. DLXXXVII. DLXXXVIII. DLXXXIX. DXC. DXCI. DXGII. DXCIII. DXCIV. DXCV. Page to Mr. Murray . . . 943 to Mr. Moore ... 944 to Mr. Shelley ... 944 to Mr. Moore . . . 944 to Sir Walter Scott, Bart. . 945 to Douglas Kinnaird . 945 to Mr. Murray . . . 946 to Mr. Moore ... 946 to Mr. Moore . . .947 to Mr. Moore ... 947 to Mr. Moore . . 947 to Mr. Moore ... 948 to Mr. Moore . . .948 to Mr. Murray ... 948 to Mr. Moore ... 949 to Mr. Murray . . .949 to Mr. Murray ... 949 to Mr. Murray . . .950 to Mr. Murray ... 950 to Mr. Shelley . . .950 to Sir Walter Scott . . 950 to Mr. Murray . . .951 to Mr. Moore ... 951 to Mr. Murray . . .951 to Mr. Murray . . . 952 to Mr. Murray . . .952 to Mr. Moore . . 952 to Mr. Ellice . 953 to Mr. Murray . . 953 to Mr. Murray . 953 to Mr. Moore . . 953 to Mr. Moore . . 954 to Mr. Moore . . 954 to Mr. Murray . . . 955 to Mr. Murray . . . 955 to Mr. Murray . . .956 to Lady ... 957 to Mr. Proctor . . .957 to Mr. Moore . . . 957 to Mrs. .... 957 to Lady « * * . . . 958 to Mr. Moore . . .958 to the Earl of Blessington 959 to the Earl of Blessington . 959 to the Earl of Blessington 960 to the Count * * . . 960 to the Countess of Blessington 960 to the Countess of * * * .961 to Lady Byron . . . 961 to Mr. Blaquiere . . .961 to Mr. Bowring . . 962 to Mr. Bowring . . .963 to Mr. Church, American Consul at Genoa . . 963 to M. H. Beyle . . 963 to Lady * * * * . . .964 to the Countess of Blessington 964 to Mr. Bowring . . .964 Paf9 LETTERS DXCVI. to Goethe ... 965 DXCVII. to Mr. Bowring . . .965 DXCVIII. to the General Government of Greece . . . .966 DXCIX. to Prince Mavrocordato . 966 DC. to Mr. Bowring . . .966 DCI. to Mr Bowring . . 967 DCII. to Mr. Bowring ... 967 DCIII. to the Honorable Mr. Douglas Kinnaird . . . 967 DCIV. to Mr. Bowring . . 963 DCV. to Mr. Moore . . .963 DCVI. to the Hon. Colonel Stanhope 969 DCVII. to Mr. Muir . . . .969 DCVIII. to Mr. C. Hancock . . 969 DCIX. to Mr. Charles Hancock . 970 DCX. to Mr. Charles Hancock . 971 DCXI. to Mr. Charles Hancock . 971 DCXII. to * * * * . . . 971 DCXIII. to Mr. Charles Hancock . 972 DCXIV. to Andrew Londo . . 973 DCXV. to His Highness Yussuff Pacha ... 973 DCXVI. to* Mr. Barff . . . .973 DCXVII. to Mr. Mayer : . . 973 DCXVIII. to the Honorable Dcuglas Kinnaird . . . 974 DCXIX. to Mr. Barff . . . .974 DCXX. to Mr. Murray ... 974 DCXXI. to Mr. Moore . . .975 DCXXII. to Dr. Kennedy . 975 DCXXIII. to Mr. Barff . . . .976 DCXXIV. to Mr. Barff ... 976 DCXXV. to Sr. Parruca . . 976 DCXXVI. to Mr. Charles Hancock . 976 DCXXVII. to Dr. Kennedy . . .976 DCXXVIII. to Colonel Stanhope . 977 DCXXIX. to Mr. Barff . . . .977 DCXXX. to Mr. Barff ... 977 DCXXXI. to Mr. Barff . . . .978 DCXXXII. DCXXXIII. DCXXXIV. DCXXXV. to *****, a Prussian Officer 978 to Mr. Barff . . . .978 to Mr. Barff ... 978 to Mr. Barff . . . .979 Extracts from a Journal, begun November 14, 1813 979 Extracts from a Journal in Switzerland . 995 Extracts from a Journal in Italy . . . 998 Detached Thoughts, extracted from various Journals, Memorandums, &c, &c. . . 1010 Review of Wordsworth's Poems . . 1022 Review of Gell's Geography of Ithaca, and Itinerary of Greece 1023 The First Chapter of a Novel, contemplated by Lord Byron in the Spring of 1812 ; (after- wards Published in one of Mr. Dallas's Novels 1028 Parliamentary Speeches 192$ CONTENTS. TU Page A fragment. ... ... 1035 Letter to John Murray on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope 1037 Notes 1046 Observations upon " Observations." A Sec- ond Letter to John Murray, Esq., on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope 1046 Page Note 1054 Some Observations upon an Article in Black- wood's Magazine 1055 Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review 1064 Lord Bacon's Apothegms .... 1066 Translation of Two Epistles from the Arme- nian Version .... . 1068 The Will of Lord Byron . , . 1079 THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. George Gordon Byron was born in Holies street, London, on the 22d day of January, 1788. Soon after his birth, his father deserted him, and the whole responsibility of his early training devolved on his mother, who, with him, soon after repaired to Aberdeen, where they resided for some time in almost complete seclusion. The infancy of Byron was marked with the work- ings of that wild and active spirit which he so fully displayed in all subsequent years of his life. As a child, his temper was violent, or rather, sullenly passionate. Being angrily reprimanded by his nurse, one day, for having soiled or torn a new frock in which he had just been dressed, he got into one of his " silent rages," (as he termed them,) seized the frock with both hands, rent it from top to bottom, and stood in sullen stillness, setting his ceusurer and her wrath at defiance. Notwithstanding these unruly outbreaks, in which he was too much encouraged by the example of his mother, who frequently proceeded to the same ex- tremities with her own caps, gowns, &c, there was in his disposition a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, which attached many to him, and which rendered him then, as in riper years, easily manageable by those who loved and under- stood him sufficiently to be at once gentle and firm enough for the task. The undivided affection of the mother was natu- rally centered in her son, who was her darling ; and when he only went out for an ordinary walk, she would entreat him, with tears in her eyes, to take care of himself, as " she had nothing on earth but him to live for ; " a conduct not at all pleasing to his adventurous spirit ; the more especially as some of his companions, who beheld the affectionate scene, would laugh and ridicule about it. This ex- cessive maternal affection and indulgence, and the entire absence of that salutary discipline so neces- sary to childhood, doubtless contributed to the formation of these unpleasant traits of character that distinguished Byron from all others in subse- quent years. An accident, at the time of birth, caused a mal- formation of one of his feet. Many expedients were used to restore the limb to its proper shape, under the direction of Dr. Hunter. His nurse, to whom fell the task of putting on the bandages, would often sing him to sleep, or relate to him sto- ries and legends, in which, like most other children, he manifested great delight. She also taught him to repeat a great number of Psalms ; and the first and twenty-third were among the earliest that he committed to memory. Out of these lessons arose, long afterwards, the " Hebrew Melodies ; " which, but for them, never would have been written, though Byron studied Lowth on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews all his life. It is a remarkable fact, that, through the care and daily instruction of this nurse, he attained a far earlier and more intimate acquaint- ance with the Sacred "Writings, than falls to the lot of most young people. The defect in the formation of his foot, and a great weakness of constitution, induced his mother to keep him from an attendance on school, that he might expand his lungs and brace his limbs, upon the mountains of the neighborhood. This was evidently the most judicious method for imparting strength to his bodily frame ; and the se- quel showed that it likewise imparted tone and vigor to his mind. The savage grandeur of nature around him ; the feeling that he was upon the hills where " Foreign tyrant never trod, But freedom, with ber falchion bright, Swept the stranger from her sight ; " his intercourse witn a people whose chief amuse- ments consisted in the recital of heroic tales of other times, feats of strength, and a display of independ- ence, blended with the wild, supernatural stories pe- culiar to remote and thinly-peopled districts ; — all these were calculated to foster that peculiar poetical feelinar innate in his character. As an instance of his quickness and energy at this period, might be mentioned a little incident that oc- curred one night during the performance of " Tam- ing a Shrew," which his nurse had taken hi n to see. He had attended some time, with silent interest ; but, in the scene between Katherine and Pctruchio where the following dialogue takes place, — H Ka1h.—\ know it is die moou. Pet. — Nay, then, you lie, — it ia the blessed sun," George started up, and cried out boldly, " But 1 say it is the moon, sir." Byron was not quite five years of age when he was sent to a day school at Aberdeen, taught by Mr. Bowers. At that school he remained about one year. During his schoolboy days he was lively, warm- hearted, generous, and high-spirited. He was, how- ever, passionate and resentful, and to a remarkable degree venturesome and fearless. If he received an injury, .he was sure to revenge it : though the casti- gation he inflicted might be long on its way, yet it came at length, and severely. mi BYRON'S WORKS He was a brave youth, and was much more anx- ious to excel his fellows by prowess in sport and gymnastic exercises, than by advancement in learn- ing. When any study pleased him, he devoted all his attention to it, and was quick in the performance of his task. He cared but little where he stood in his class ; and at the foot was as agreeable to him as at the head. He remained at school until the year 179G, when an attack of scarlet fever weakened his, by no means strong, constitution, and he was removed by his mother to the Highlands. From the period of his residence in the High- lands, Byron dated his love of mountainous coun- tries and his equally ardent love of solitude. While at Aberdeen, he would escape unnoticed, and find his way to the sea-side. At one time, it was sup- posed he was lost, and after a long and anxious search he was found struggling for his life in a sort of morass or marsh, in which he would undoubtedly have perished, had not some one came to the rescue. Many like instances occurred during his residence among the Highlands. His love of adventure often led him into difficulty and danger. While scram- bling over a declivity that overhung a small water- fall, called the Linn of Bee, some heather caught his lame foot, and he fell. He was rolling down- ward, when the attendant luckily caught him, and was but just in time to save him from being killed. On the 17th of May, 1798, William, the fifth Lord Byron, died without issue, at Newstead, and young Byron, then in his tenth year, succeeded to his titles and his estates ; and his cousin, the Earl of Carlisle, the son of the late Lord's sister, was ap- pointed his guardian. Upon this change of fortune, Lord Byron was removed from under the immediate care of his mother. In the latter part of 1798 he went with his mother "to Newstead Abbey. On their arrival, he was placed at Nottingham, under the care of a person who professed to be able to cure his lameness ; at the same time, he made some advancement in Latin studies, under the tuition of a schoolmaster of that town, a Mr. Rogers, who read parts of Virgil and Cicero with him. The name of the man whose pretensions in curing excelled his skill, and under E otten m violent pain; anu one uay wig im»» o^u. 10 him, "It makes me uncomfortable, my lord, to see you sitting there in such pain as I know you must be suffering." "Never mind, Mr. Rogers," answered the boy ; "you shall not see any signs of it in me." This gentleman often spoke of the gaiety of his upil, and the delight he experienced in exposing lavender's pompous ignorance. One day he wrote down on a sheet of paper all the letters of the alphabet, put together at random, and placing them before this concentrated body of pretension, asked him very seriously what language it was. Not wishing to expose his ignorance, and not dreaming of the snare to trip him, he replied as seriously as the inquiry was put, that it was Italian, to the infinite delight of the young satirist, who burst into a loud laugh. At about this period, Lord B3 T ron's first symptom of a tendency to rhyme manifested itself. The occasion which gave rise to it is thus related : — An elderly lady, who was in the habit of visiting his mother, had made use of some expressions that very much affronted him ; and these slights, his vurse said, he generally resented violently and im- placably. The old lady had some curious notioni respecting the soul, which, she imagined, took its flight to the moon after death, as a preliminary essay, before it proceeded further. One day, after a repetition, it is supposed, of her original insult to the boy, he appeared before his nurse in a violent rage. " Well, my little hero," she asked, "what's the matter with you, now?" Upon which the child answered, that " this old woman had put him in a terrible passion, — that he could not bear the sight of her," &c, &c, — and then broke out into the following doggerel, which he repeated over and over, as if delighted with the vent he had found for his rage ; — " In Nottingham county, there lives at Swan Green, As curst an old lady as ever was seen ; And when she does die, which 1 hope will be soon, She firmly believes she will go to tlie moon." This was the occasion and the result of his first effort at rhyming. His "first dash at poetry," as he calls it, was made one year later, during a vaca- tion visit at the house of a cousin, Miss Parker. Of that poem, he says, "It was the ebulliticn of a passion for my first cousin, one of the most beauti- ful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the verses, but it would be difficult for me to forget her — her dark eyes — her long eye-lashes — her com- pletely Greek cast of face and figure ! I was then about twelve — she rather older, perhaps a year." Love for this young lady obtained strong hold of his heart. Of her personal appearance, he says. " I do not recollect any thing equal to the transpa- rent beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy. She looked as if she had been made out of a rain- bow — all beauty and peace." After a short visit at Cheltenham, in the summer of 1801, at the earnest solicitation of his mother, he was placed at Harrow, under the tuition of Doctor Drury, to whom he testified his gratitude in a note to the fourth canto of Childe Harold. In one of his manuscript journals, he says, " Dr. Drury was the best, the kindest friend I ever had — and I look upon him still as a father." " Though he was lame," says one of his school- fellows, "he was a great lover of sports, and pre- ferred hockey to Horace, relinquished even Helicon for ' duck puddle,' and gave up the best poet that ever wrote hard Latin for a game of cricket on the common. He was not remarkable (nor was he ever) for his learning, but he was always a clever, plain- spoken, and undaunted boy. I have seen him fight by the hour like a Trojan, and stand up against the disadvantage of his lameness with all the spirit of an ancient combatant." It was during a vacation, and his residence at Newstead, that he formed an acquaintance with Miss Chaworth, an event which, according to his own deliberate persuasion, exercised a lasting and paramount influence over the whole of his sub- sequent character and eventful career. Twice had he loved, and now a third time he bowed before beauty, wit, and worth. The father of this young lady had been killed in a duel by the eccentric grand-uncle of Byron, and the union of the young peer with her, the heiress ol Annesley Hall, "would," as he said, "have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers ; it would have joined lands rich and broad ; it would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not ill-matched in years." But all this was destined to exist but in imagination. They had a parting interview in the following year ; and, in 1805, Miss Chaworth was married to Mr. Musters, with whom she lived unhappily. She died in 1831. Many of his smaller poems are addressed to this lady. The scene of their last interview is most exquisitely described in " The Dream." During one of the Harrow vacations he studied French, but with little success, under the direction THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. ii ot the Abbe de Rouffigny. The vacation of 1804 he spent with his mother at Southwell, and in October, 1805, he left Harrow, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He left with feelings of sad- ness. He says, " I fclways hated Harrow till the last year and a half, but then I liked it." He now began to feel that he was no longer a boy, and in solitude he mourned over the truth ; this sorrow he could not at all times repress in public. Soon after entering college, he formed an attach- mont with a youth named Eddleston, which exceeded in warmth and romance all his schoolboy attach- ments. In the summer of 1806, another visit to South- well resulted in an acquaintance with the family of Pigots, to a lady of which the earliest of his pub- lished ietters were addressed. The temper of his mother exceeded all bounds. This temper, B)Ton in a great degree inherited. In his childhood, this passion often broke out in the most violent manner. Mother and son were often quarrelling, and provocations finally led to a sepa- ration, in August, 1806. Byron fled to London, where his mother followed him, made overtures of peace, and a reconciliation was brought %bout. Early in November, his first volume of poems were put in press. It was entitled "Poems on Various Occasions," and-was printed anonymously by Mr. Ridge, a bookseller at Newark. Becoming dissatisfied with this, he caused a second edition to be printed in January, in which he omitted many pieces which had appeared in the first. This was not intended for public scrutiny, but merely circu- lated among his friends, and such persons as he thought well disposed towards the first effort of a young and inexperienced author. Encouraged by its favorable reception, he again re-wrote the poems, made many additions and alterations, and, under the name of " Hours of Idleness," sent his volume forth to the public. This book, containing many indications of genius, also contained many errors of taste and judgment, which were fiercely assailed by a critique* in the Edinburgh Review, and brought forth from Byron the stinging satire, " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The minor reviews gave the "Hours of Idleness" a better reception, yet we may, with no degree of un- reasonableness, suppose that to the scorching words of the Edinburgh he owed much of future success and fame. He was roused like a lion in its lair. He felt, though it might be true, he did not deserve such an article, and he resolutely determined to show the critic that he had talent and genius, though the reviewer, in his eager search for its absence, could not discovei its presence. Lord Byron supposed Jeffrey to be the author of the obnoxious article, and he poured out on him his vials of wrath and merciless satire. During the progress of his poem through the press, he added to it more than a hundred lines. New impressions and influences gave birth to new thoughts, and he made his Bards and Reviewers carry them forth to vex and annoy his victims. The person who superintended its progress through the press, daily received new matter for its pages ; and, in a note to that gentleman, Byron says, "Print soon, or I shall overflow with rhyme." It was so in subsequent years. If he could reach his printer, he would continue to send his " thick- coming fancies," which were suggested by perusals of what he had already written. On the 13th of March, he took his seat in the House of Lords, and on the middle of the same month published his satire. From the hour of its uppearance, fame and fortune followed him. Its success was such as to demand his attention in the preparation of a second edition. To this much, was added, and to it was prefixed his name. Lord Brougham. His residence was now at Newstead, where, during the preparation of the new edition of his poems, he dispensed with a liberal hand the hospitalities of the old Abbey to a party of college friends. C. S. Mattheios, one of this party, in a letter to an acquaintance, gives the following description of the Abbey at that time, and amusing account of the proceedings and habits of its occupants : — " Newstead Abbey is situated one hundred and thirty-six miles from London — four on this side Mansfield. Though sadly fallen to decay, it is still completely an abbey, and most part of it is still standing in the same state as when it was first built. There are two tiers of cloisters, witn a variety of cells and rooms about them, which, though not inhabited, nor in an inhabitable state, might easily be made so ; and many of the original rooms, amongst which is a fine stone hall, are still in use. Of the abbey-church only one end remains ; and the_ old kitchen, with a long range of apart- ments, is reduced to a heap of rubbish. Leading from the abbey to the modern part of the habita- tion is a noble room, seventy feet in length and twenty-three in breadth ; but every part of the house displays neglect and decay, save those which the present lord has lately fitted up. " The house and gardens are entirely surrounded by a wall with battlements. In front is a large lake, bordered here and there with castellated buildings, the chief of which stands on an eminence at the further extremity of it. Fancy all this surrounded with bleak and barren hills, with scarce a tree to be seen for miles, except a solitary clump or two, and you will have some idea of Newstead. " So much for the place, concerning which I have thrown together these few particulars. But if the place itself appears rather strange to you, the ways of its inhabitants will not appear much less so. Ascend, then, with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my lord and his visitants. But have a care how you proceed ; be mindful to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. For, should you make any blunders, — should you go to the right of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear ; and should you go to the left, your case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf.* Nor, when you have attained the door, is yoiir danger over ; for the hall being decayed, and therefore standing in need of repair, a" bevy of inmates are very probably banging at one end of it with their pistols; so that if you enter without giving loud notice of your approach, you have only escaped the wolf and the bear, to expire by the pistol-shots of the merry monks of Newstead. " Our party consisted of Lord Byron and four others, and was, now and then, increased by the presence of a neighboring parson. As for our way of living, the order of the day was generally this : — for breakfast we had no set hour, but each suited his own convenience, — every thing remaining on the table till the whole party had done ; though had one wished to breakfast at the early hour of ten, one would have been rather lucky to find any of the servants up. Our average hour of rising was one. I, who generally got up between eleven and twelve, was always — even when an invalid — the first of the party, and was esteemed a prodigy of early rising. It was frequently past two before the breakfast party broke up. Then, for the amuse- ment of the morning, there was reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttlecock, in the great room ; practising with pistols in the hall ; walking, riding, cricket, sailing on the lake, playing with the bear, teasing the wolf. Between seven and eight we dined ; and our evening lasted from that time till one, two, or three in the morning. The evening diversions may be easily conceived. " I must not omit the custom of handing round, after dinner, on the removal of the cloth, a human • Lord Brron'* pet aimimaU at Newstead. BYRON'S WORKS. skull filled with Burgundy. After revelling on choice viands, and the finest wines of France, we adjourned to tea, where we amused ourselves with reading or improving conversation, — each according to his fancy, — and, after sandwiches, &c, retired to rost. A set of monkish dresses, which had been provided, with all the proper apparatus of crosses, beads, tonsures, &c, often gave a variety to our appearance, and to our pursuits." Byron was at London when he put the finishing touches upon the new edition, which, having done, he took leave of that city, and soon after sailed for Lisbon. After a passage of four days, he arrived at his destination, in company with his friend, Mr. John Cam Hobhouse. They remained but a short time in Lisbon, from whence they travelled on horseback to Seville and Cadiz. He was as free and easy in each of these places as he had been at home. In Lisbon, as he said, he ate oranges, talked bad Italian to the monks, went into society with pocket pistols, swam the Tagus, and became the victim of musquitoes. In Seville, a lady of character became fondly attached to him, and at parting gave him a lock of her hair " three feet in length," which he sent home to his mother. In Cadiz, " Miss Cordova and her little brother " became his favorites, and the former his preceptress in Spanish. He alludes to this in one of his poems. " 'Tie pleasing to be school M in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes — that is, I mean. When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where 1 have been." Leaving Cadiz, in the Hyperion frigate, he sailed for Gibralter, where he remained till the 19th of August, when he left for Malta. At this latter place, he formed an acquaintance vith Mrs. Spencer Smith, a lady whose life had . een fertile with remarkable incidents, and whom he addresses, in his poetry, under the name of " Florence." After remaining at anchor for three or four days off Patras, Byron and his friend proceeded to their ultimate destination. On their passage, they had a most charming sunset view of Missolonghi. They landed at Prevesa on the 29th of September. From Prevesa they journeyed to the capital of Albania, and, soon after, to Yanina ; at which place he learned that Ali Pacha was with his troops in Illyrium, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in Bcrat. From Yanina, Lord Byron passed to Tepaleen. Being among the first English travellers in that part of the world, they met with much attention, and the greatest show of hospitality. With the intention of going to Patras, Lord Byron embarked on board a Turkish ship of war, provided for him by Ali Pacha. A moderate gale of wind arose, and, owing to the ignorance of the Turkish officers, the vessel came near being wrecked. Luckily for all on board, the wind abated, and drove them on the coast of Suli, where they landed, and, by aid of the natives, returned again to Prevesa. AVhile at the Suliote village, a poor but honest Albanian supplied his wants. Byron pressed him to take money in return for his kindness, but he refused, with the reply, "I wish you to love me, not to pay me." Attended by a guard of forty or more Albanians, they passed through Acarnania and Etolia to Mis- solonghi, crossed the Gulf of Corinth to Patras, and proceeded from thence, by land, to Vostizza, where they caught the first glimpse of Mount Par- nassus. In a small boat they were conveyed to the opposite shore of the gulf; rode on horseback from Salona to Delphi, and after travelling through Liva- dia, and making a brief stop at Thebes, and other places, arrived at Athens on the 25th of Decem- ber. He remained at Athens between two and three months, employing his time in visiting the vast and •plendid monuments of ancient genius, and calling around him from the depths of solitude the spirit* of other times to people its ruins. He made frequent excursions tJ Attica, on one of which he came near being seized by a band of pirates dwelling in a cave under the cliffs of Mi- nerva Sunias. His beautiful song, " Maid of Athens, ere we part," was addressed to the eldest daughter of the Greek lady, at whose house he lodged. Ten weeks had flown rapidly and pleasantly away, when the unexpected offer of a passage in a Brit- ish sloop of war to Smyrna, induced the travellers to leave Athens, which they did, on the 5th ol March, with much reluctance. At Smyrna, Lord Byron resided in the house of the Consul-General. In the course of his residence here, he made a three-day visit to the ruins of Ephe- sus. While at S.. he finished the two first cantos of " Childe Harold," which he had commenced five months before at Joannina. The Salsette frigate being about to sail for Con- stantinople, Lord Byron and Hobhouse took pas- sage in her. It was while this frigate lay at anchor in the Dardanelles, that Byron accomplished his famous fea-t of swimming the Hellespont. The distance across was about two miles ; but the tide ran so strong that a direct course could not be pur- sued, and he swam three miles. He arrived at Constantinople on the 13th of May. While there, he wore a scarlet coat, richly embroi- dered with gold, with two heavy epaulettes and a feathered cocked hat. He remained about two months, during which time he was presented to the Sultan, and made a journey to the Black Sea and other places of note in that vicinity. On the 14th of July, they left in the Salsette frigate, — Mr. Hob- house intending to accompany Mr. Adair, the Eng- lish ambassador, to England, and Byron determined to visit Greece. The latter landed at Zea, with two Albanians, a Tartar, and his English servant. Leaving Zea, h* reached Athens on the 18th. From thence, he mad* another tour over the same places he had previously visited, and returned to Athens in December, with the purpose of remaining there during his sojourn in Greece. The persons with whom he associated at Athens, were Lord Sligo, Lady Hester Stanhope, and Mr. Bruce. Most of his time was employed in collecting materials for those notes on the state of modern Greece, appended to the second canto of Childe Harold. Here also he wrote, " Hints from Horace," a satire full of London life, yet, singular as it may appear, dated,' "Athens, Capuchin Con- vent, March 12, 1811." He intended to have gone to Egypt, but failing to receive expected remittances, he was obliged to forego the pleasure of that trip, and he left Athens and landed at Malta. There he suffered severely from an attack of fever, recovering from which, he sailed in the Volage frigate for England. He left Greece with more feelings of regret than he had left his native land, and the memories of his sojourn in the East, immortalized in Childe Harold, were among the pleasantest that accompanied him through life. He arrived at London after an absence of just two years. Mr. Dallas, the gentleman who had super- intended the publication of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," called on him the day after his arrival ; Lord Byron mentioned having written a new satire, and handed the MSS. to him for exami- nation. Mr. Dallas was grieved, supposing that the inspiring lands of the East had brought from his mind no richer poetical works. Meeting him the next morning, Mr. Dallas ex- pressed surprise that he had, during his absence, written nothing more. Upon this, Lord Byron told him that he had occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser's measure, relative to the countries he had visited. " They are not worth troubling you with," said Byron, " but THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. XI you shall have them all with you, if you like." He then took Childe Harold's Pilgrimage from a small trunk, and handed it to Mr. Dallas, at the same time expressing a desire to have the " Hints from Horace " put to press immediately. He undervalued Childe Harold, and overvalued the " Hints." He thought the former inferior to the latter. As time passed on, he altered his mind in reference to this matter. " Had Lord Byron," says Moore, "persisted in his original purpose of giving this poem to the press, instead of Childe Harold, it is more than probable, that he would have been lost, as a great poet to the world." He finally consented to the publication of Childe Harold, yet, to the last, he expressed doubts as to its merit, and the reception it would meet with at the hands of the public. Doubts and difficulties arose as to a publisher. Messrs. Longman had re- fused to publish " English Bards and Scotch Re- viewers ; " and it was expressly stipulated with Mr. Dallas, to whom Lord Byron had presented the copyright, that Childe Harold should not be offered to that house. An application was made to Mr. Miller, but owing to the severity in which a per- sonal friend of that gentleman was mentioned, in the poem, he declined publishing it. At length it passed into the hands of Mr. Murray, then residing in Fleet street, who was proud of the undertaking, and by whom it was immediately put to press ; — and thus was laid the foundation of that friendly and profitable connection, between that publisher and the author, which continued, with but little interruption, during the poet's life.* About this time, the fifth edition of his satire was issued, and, soon after, every copy that could be found was taken and destroyed. In America, how- ever, and on the continent, where the law of Eng- land had no power, it continued to meet with an unprohibited sale. While busily engaged in literary projects, he was suddenly called to Newstead, by information of the sickness of his mother. He immediately departed, and travelled with all possible speed, yet death pre- ceded him. When he arrived, he found her dead. In a letter, the day after, he says, " I now feel the truth of Mr. Gray's observation, ' we can only have one mother.' " Mrs. Byron had, undoubtedly, loved her son, and he her, with a depth of feeling hardly supposable by those who had seen them in their fits of ungovernable passion. An incident that occurred at Newstead, at this time, proves the sincerity of his affection. On the night after his arrival, the waiting woman of Mrs. Byron, in pass- ing the door of the room, where the deceased body lay, heard a sound as of some one sighing heavily from within ; and, on entering the chamber, found, to her surprise, Lord Byron, sitting in the dark, beside the bed. On her representing to him the weakness of thus giving way to grief, he burst into *The following memorandum exhibits the amounts paid by Mr. Murray, It Tarious times, for the copyrights of his poems : Childe Harold, I. 11 600i. " 111 1,575 "IV 2,100 CH»our, 525 Bride ol Abydos, 525 Corsair, 525 Lara 700 Siege of Corinth, 525 Pirisina, 523 Lament of Tnsso, 315 Manfreo, 315 teppo, 525 OonJuan, I. 11 1>5 25 " " III. IV. V l_Vi5 Doge of Venice 1,050 Sardanapalus, Cain, and ruscari, 1 100 Maieppa 525 Prisoner of Chillcn, 525 Sundries, ...... 450 V<*0. \5.tS5l. tears, and exclaimed, " O, Mrs. By, I had but om friend in the world, and she is gone ! " He was called at this time to mourn over the loss, not only of his mother, but of six relatives and intimate friends. He returned to London in October, and resumed the toils of literary labor, revising Childe Harold, and making many additions and alterations. He had, also, at this time, two other works in press, "Hints from Horace," and "The Curse of Miner- va." In January, the two cantos of Childe Harold were printed, but not ready for sale until the month of March, when " the effect it produced on the public," says Moore, "was as instantaneous as it has proved deep and lasting. It was electric ; — his fame had not to wait for any of the ordinary grada- tions, but seemed to spring up, like the palace of a fairy tale, in a night." Byron, himself, in a mem- oranda of the sudden and wholly unexpected effect, said, "I awoke one morning, and found myself famous." It was just previous to this period, that he became acquainted with Moore, the poet. The circumstance which led to their acquaintance was a correspondence caused by a note appended to "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The ac- quaintance thus formed, was continued, with the utmost familiarity, through life. Lord Byron was personally introduced to Moore at the house of Rogers, the poet, where, on the same day, these three, together with Campbell, dined Among the many tributes to his genius, which Lord Byron received, was that of the Prince Re- gent. ;At an evening party he was presented to that personage, at the request of the latter. The Regent expressed his admiration of Childe Harold and entered into a long and animated conversation, which continued all the evening. In the month of August, 1811, the new theatre in Drury Lane was finished, and, after being urgently requested, Byron wrote, an opening address for the occasion. He now resided at Cheltenham, where, in addition to the address, he wrote a poem on "Waltzing." In May, appeared "The Giaour," which rapidly passed through several editions. The first contained but about four hundred lines, the last edition, about fourteen hundred. Many of its choicest parts were not in the early copies, yet it was received witli the greatest favor, and the admir- ers of Childe Harold equally admired this new pro- duct of the mind of its author. In December, 1813, he published "The Bride of Abydos." To this, while being printed, he added nearly two hundred lines. It met with a better re- ception, if possible, than either of his former works Fourteen thousand copies were sold in one week ; and it was with the gieatest difficulty and labor that the demand for it could be supplied. In January following, appeared the "The Corsair." In April. the "Ode to Napoleon," and, during the ensuing month, he published " Hebrew Melodies." In May, he adopted the strange and singular reso lution of calling in all he had written, buying up all his copyrights, and not writing any more. For two years, he had been the literary idol of the peo- ple. They had bestowed upon him the highest words of praise, and shouted his genius and fame to the skies. His name had ever been on the lips, his writings in the head, and his sentiments in the heart of the great public. This strong popularity began to wane, as the excitement caused by the sudden appearance of any new thing, always will. The papers raised a hue and cry against a few of his minor poems. His moral and social character was brought into prominency ; all that had occurred during, his short, but eventful life, and much that had never an existence, except in the minds of his opponents, was related with minute particularity Not only this, but the slight opinion these journal ists expressed of his genius, — seconded, as it was by that inward dissatisfaction with his own power*. Xll BYRON'S WORKS. which they, whose standard of excellence is highest, are always surest to feel, mortified and disturbed him. In noticing these attacks, he remarks, " I am afraid what you call trash is plaguily to the pur- pose; and, to tell the truth, for some time past, I have been myself much of the same opinion." In this state of mind, he resolved upon bidding fare- well to the muses, and betaking himself to some other pursuit. Mentioning this determination to Mr. Murray, that gentleman doubted his serious- ness ; but on the arrival of a letter, enclosing a draft "for the amount of the copyrights, and a re- quest to withdraw all the advertisements, and de- stroy all copies of his poems, remaining in. store, except two of each for himself, all doubts vanished. Mr. Murray wrote an answer, that such an act would be deeply injurious to both parties, and final- ly induced him to continue publishing. In connection with " Jacqueline," a poem, by Mr. Rogers, "Lara" appeared in August. This was his last appearance as an author, until the spring of 1816. On the 2d of January, 1815, Lord Byron pro- posed and was accepted in marriage, by an heiress, Miss Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, a baronet, in the county of Durham. Her fortune was upwards of ten thousand pounds sterling, which was considerably increased by the death of her pa- rents, a few years subsequent to her union with the poet. This union cast a shade on his hitherto bright career. A twelve-months' extravagance, embarrassments, and misunderstandings, dissolved it, and the lady retired to the country-seat of her parents, from the unpleasant scenes of her own home. One child was the result of this marriage, Ada Augusta Byron. Previous to the separation, Byron's muse was stimulated to exertion by his fast-gathering misfortunes, and he produced the " Siege of Corinth " and " Parisina." At the time of their separation, Lord Byron and Lady Byron resided in London. He entered into a giddy whirlpool of frolicking and unrestrained gai- ety, which at length brought upon him great pecu- niary embarrassments, which so increased,, that in November, he was not only obliged to sell his libra- ry, but his furniture, and even his beds, were seized by the bailiffs. As soon as the separation took place, the full tide of public opinion set against him, and those who had sought his acquaintance, coveted his friendship, and envied him his position, were among his dead- liest foes and his most slanderous vilifiers. " In every form of paragraph, pamphlet and caricature, ooth his person and character were held up to odi- um ; hardly a voice was raised, or at least listened to, ir. his behalf; and though a few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter hopeless- ness of stemming the torrent, was felt as well by them, as by himself ; and after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they submitted in silence." Thus miserable, yet conscious of his newly- awakening strength, Byron determined to leave England. At leaving, the only person with whom he parted with regret, was his sister, and to her he penned the touching tribute, " Though the Day of my Destiny's over." To Mr. Moore he addressed, "My Boat is on the Shore;" and to Lady Byron, *' Fare thee well." He sailed for Osteud on the 25th of April. His journey lay by the Rhine. He made a short stay at Brussels. At Geneva he spent the remainder of the Bummer ; living in a beautiful villa on the borders ot the lake. While there, he made frequent excur- sions to Coppet, Chamouni, the Bernese Alps, and other places of interest. Mr. and Mrs. Shelley were also residing at Geneva at that time. It was in this rilla, on the banks of the lake, that he finished the third canto of " Childe Harold." He also wrote " The Prisoner of Chillon," stanzas "To Augusta," The Fragment," "Darkness," and "The Dream." Ip the month of August he was visited by Mr. M. G. Lewis, Mr. Hobhouse md Mr. S. Davk-s with whom he made the exclusions previously al luded to. It was while here, that he began his pros« romance of "The Vampire ; " also another, founded upon the story of the Marriage of Belphegor, both of which he left unfinished. From the commencement of the year 1817, to that of 1820, Lord Byron's principal residence was at Venice. Soon after reaching that city, he began the study of the Armenian language, in which he made considerable progress. While there, he pur- sued his literary labors with much diligence and success. He wrote " The Lament of Tasso." the fourth canto of "Childe Harold," the dramas of "Marino Faliero," and the " Two Foscari; " "Bep- po," " Mazeppa," and the first cantos of " Don Juan." He formed an acquaintance with Madame Guicci- oli, which soon grew to a passionate love, and wa3 duly reciprocated by her. She was a Romagnese lady. Her father was Count Gamba, a nobleman of high rank and ancient name, at Ravenna. She had been married, when at the age of sixteen, without reference to her choice or affection, to the Count Guiccioli, an old and wealthy widower. At the time Byron was introduced to her, she was about twenty ; with fair and delicate complexion, large, dark eyes, and a profusion of auburn hair. This lady almost entirely governed the movements of Byron, while in Italy; and it was a government which he appeared to love, and from which he man ifested no desire to escape. She proceeded with her husband to Ravenna, in April, 1819, and Lord Byron soon followed. He shortly returned to Venice, where he received a visit from Moore, in the course of which he presented to him a large manuscript volume, entitled, "My Life and Adventures." As he handed it to him, he re- marked, " It is not a thing that can be published during my lifetime ; but you may have it, if you like, — there, do whatever you please with it ; " and soon after added, " This will make a nice legacy for my little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it." This manuscript was a collection of various jour- nals, memorandas, etc. At Byron's request, Mr. Moore sold the copyright to Murray for two thou- sand pounds, with the stipulation that it was not to be published until after the author's decease. When that event occurred, Mr. Moore returned to Mr. Murray the money advanced, and placed the manu- script at the disposal of Lord Byron's sister, Mrs. Leigh; at whose request, and, with the accordant opinion of Lord Byron's best friends, it was de- stroyed. The motive for its destruction is said to have been an unwillingness to offend the feelings of many of the individuals mentioned in it. Towards the close of the year 1819, Lord Byroa removed to Ravenna, where he wrote "The Proph- ecy of Dante," " Sardanapalus," "Cain," "Heaven and Earth," the third, fourth and fifth cantos of " Don Juan," and " The Vision of Judgment." He remained at Ravenna during the greater part of the two succeeding years. In the autumn of 1821 he removed to Pisa, in Tuscany, where he remained until the middle of May. His habits of life, while at Pisa, are thus described by Moore : — " At two, he usually breakfasted, and at three, or, as the year advanced, four o'clock, those persons who were in the habit of accompanying him in his rides, called upon him. After, occasionally, a game of billiards, he proceeded, — and in order to avoid stares, in his carriage, — as far as the gates of the town, where his horses met him. At first, the route he chose for these rides was in the direction of the Caserne, and of the pine forest that reaches towards the sea ; but having found a spot more convenient for his pistol exercise, on the road leading from Portalla Spiaggia to the east of the city, he took daily this course during the remainder of 1 is stay When arrived at the Podere, or farm, in the gartfpu THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. »t which they were allowed to erect their target, his friends and he dismounted, and, after devoting about half an hour to a trial of skill at the pistol, returned, a little before sunset, into the city." Leaving Pisa, he removed to Genoa, where he remained till his final departure for Greece, in July, 1823. During this time, he produced "Werner," " The Deformed Transformed," " The Island," " The Age of Bronze," and the last cantos of " Don Juan." He became interested in the struggle of the Greeks for freedom, and offered his services in their behalf. He obtained the advance of a large sum of money, and chartered an English vessel, the Hercu- les, for the purpose of taking him to Greece. All things being ready, on the 13th of July, he, and those who were to accompany him, embarked. His suite consisted of Count Pietro Gamba, brother of the Countess Guiccioli; Mr. Trelawny, an Eng- lishman ; and Doctor Bruno, an Italian physician who had just left the university, and was somewhat acquainted with surgery. He had, also, at his ser- vice, eight, servants. There were on board five horses, arms and ammu- nition for the use of his own party, and medicine enough for the supply of one thousand men for one year. On the morning of the 14th of July, the Hercules sailed ; but, encountering a severe storm, was obliged to put back. On the evening of the loth, they again started, and after a passage of five days, reached Leghorn, where they shipped a supply of gunpowder, and other English goods. Receiving these, they immediately sailed for Cephalonia, and reached Argolosti, the principal port of that island, on the 21st of July. He was warmly received by the Greeks and English, among whom his presence rreated a lively sensation. Wishing information, in order to determine upon the best course for him to pursue, he despatched Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Hamilton Browne with a letter to the Greek government, in order to obtain an account of the state of public affairs. Here, as in many other places, he displayed his generosity, by relieving the distressed, who had fled from Scio. He was delayed at Argolosti about six weeks, by adverse winds. At length, the wind becoming fair, he embarked on board the Mistico, and Count Gamba, with the horses and heavy baggage, in a laTge vessel. The latter was brought to by a Turkish frigate, and carried, with its valuable cargo, into Patras, where the commander of the Turkish fleet was sta- tioned. Count Gamba had an interview with the Pacha, and was so fortunate as to obtain the release of his vessel and freight ; and sailing, reached Mis- solonghi on the 4th of January. He was surprised to learn that Lord Byron had not arrived. On his Lordship's departure from Dragomestri, a violent gale came on, and the vessel was twice driven into imminent danger on the rocks ; and it was owing to Lord Byron's firmness and nautical skill, that the vessel, several lives, and twenty-five thousand dollars, were saved. It was while at Dragomestri, that an imprudent 6ath brought on a cold, which was the foundation of that sickness which resulted in his death. He reached Missolonghi on the 5th of January, and was received with enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. No mark of welcome or honor that the Greeks could devise, was omitted. One of the first acts of Lord Byron, was an at- tempt to mitigate the ferocity of war. He rescued Turk from the hands of some sailors, kept him at nis house a few days, until an opportunity occurred to send him to Patras. He sent four Turkish pris- oners to the Turkish Chief of Patras, and requested that prisoners, on both sides, be henceforward treated with humanity. Forming a corps of Suliotes, he equipped them »t his own expense. They numbered about six hundred, brave and hardy mountaineers, but « holly undisciplined and unmanageable. Of these, having obtained a commission, he, on the first of Febru- ary, took the command. An expedition against Lepanto was proposed; but, owing to some difficulty with the rude and riot- ous soldiery, it was suspended. Disease now began to prey upon him, and he was attacked with a fit of epilepsy on the 15th of February, which deprived him, for a short time, of his senses. On the following morning, he appeared to be much better, but still quite ill. On the 9th of April, after returning from a ride with Count Gamba, during which they had met a violent shower, he was again prostrated with dis- ease. He was seized with shuddering, and com- plained of rheumatic pains. The following day he arose at his accustomed hour, transacted business, and rode into the olive woods, accompanied by his long train of Suliotes. On the 11th his fever increased ; and on the 12th he kept his bed all day, complaining that he could not sleep, and taking no nourishment whatever. The two following days, he suffered much from pains in the head, though his fever had subsided. On the 14th, Dr. Bruno, finding sudorifics unavail- ing, urged the necessity of his being bled. But of this Lord Byron would not hear. At length, how- ever, after repeated entreaties, he promised that, should his fever increase, he would allow it to be done. He was bled ; but the relief did not answer the expectations of any one. The restlessness and agitation increased, and he spoke several times in an incoherent manner. On the 17th, it was repeated. His disease continued to increase ; he had not, till now, thought himself dangerously ill ; but now, the fearful truth was apparent, not only in his own feelings, but in the countenances and actions of his friends and attendants. A consultation of physicians was had. Soon after, a fit of delirium ensued, and he began to talk wildly, calling out, half in English, halMn Italian, " Forwards ! — forwards ! — courage ! — follow my ex- ample ! " &c.j &c. On Fletcher's asking him whether he should . bring pen and paper to take down his words, he replied: — " Oh, no, there is no time — it is now nearly over. Go to my sister — tell her — go to Lady Byron — you will see her — and say — " Here his voice fal- tered, and became gradually indistinct. He con- tinued speaking in a low, whispering tone. "My Lord," replied Fletcher, "I have not understood a word your Lordship has been saying." " Not understood me ! " exclaimed Byron, with a look of distress, " what a pity ! — then it is too late ; — all is over." "I hope not," answered Fletcher; but the Lord's will be done!" "Yes, not mine," said Byron. He then attempted to say something ; but nothing was intelligible, except "my sister — my child." About six o'clock in the evening of the 19th, he said, "Now I shall go to sleep;" and. turning round, fell into that slumber from which he never awoke. The sad intelligence was received by the people of Missolonghi with feelings of sorrow, which we are unable to describe ; and all Europe was in mourning over the lamentable event, as its tidings spread through its cities, towns, and villages. It was but a short time previous, that the Greeks were inspired by his presence, and inspirited by the touch of his ever-powerful genius. Now, all was The future triumphs which they had pictured forth for their country's freedom, vanished. Their bright hopes departed, and lamentation filled hearts lately buoyant with rejoicing. In various parts of Greece, honors were paid to his memory. The funeral ceremony took place in the church of St. Nicholas. His remains were carried on the shoulders of the officers of his corps On his coffin tiv BYRON'S WORKS. were placed a helmet, a sword, and a crown of laurel. The church was crowded to its utmost extent, dur- ing the service. On the 2d of May the body was conveyed to Zante, under a salute from the guns of the fortress. From thence, it was sent in the English brig Florida, in charge of Col. Stanhope ; and, being landed under the direction of his Lordship's executors, Mr. Hob- house and Mr. Hanson, it was removed to the house of Sir Edward Knatchbull, where it lay in state dur- ing the 9th and 10th of July. On the 16th of July, the last duties were paid to the remains of the great poet, by depositing them close to those of his mother, in the family vault in the small village church of Hucknall, near Newstead. It is a somewhat singu- lar fact, that on the same day of the same month in the preceding year, he said to Count Gamba, " Where shall we be in another year ? " On a tablet of white marble, in the chancel of the church of Hucknall, is the following inscription :— IN THE VAULT BENEATH, WHERE MANY OF HIS ANCESTORS AND HIS MOTHER ARE BURIED, LIE THE REMAINS OF GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, LORD BYRON, OF ROCHDALE, IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER; THE AUTHOR OF " CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE." HE WAS BORN IN LONDON, ON THE 22D OF JANUARY, 1788. KB DIED AT MISSOLONGHI, IN WESTERN GREECE, ON THE 19TH OF APRIL, 1821, ENGAGED IN THE GLORIOUS ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THAT COUNTRY TO HER ANCIENT FREEDOM AND RENOWN. HIS SISTER, THE HONORABLE AUGUSTA MARIA LEIGH, PLACED THIS TABLET TO HIS MEMORY. Thus lived and died the poet Byron. With a mind, blest with an active genius, which but few are privileged to possess, he passed through this world, like a comet, on its bright but erratic course, leaving a luminous trace behind to mark his passage, and to keep his memory fresh in the hearts of many fu- ture generations. It is not our purpose, in this place, to speak of the general tone of his writings or of their influence. That he had faults, we are ready to admit ; and that he had an inward good- ness of heart, we are as ready to assert. _ But few men, with like temperament and associations with his, would have pursued a different course. In height he was five feet eight inches and a half. His hands were very white and small. Of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied and interesting ex- pression. His eyes were of a light gray, and cap* ble of all extremes of expression, from the most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the very sunshine of benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty of his countenance lay. Says a fair critic of his features, " Many pictures have been painted of him, with various success ; but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. _ In their ceaseless play they represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, or curled in disdain, smil- ing in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love. This extreme facility of expression was sometimes painful, for I have seen him look absolutely ugly— I have seen him look so hard and cold that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, brighter than the sun, with such p,layful softness in his look, such affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into something more sweet than a smile, that you forgot the man, the Lord Byron, in the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense curiosity — I had almost said — as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons and daughters of man." His head was small ; the forehead high, on which glossy, dark-brown curls clustered. His teeth were white and regular, and his countenance color- less. He believed in the immortality of the soul. In one of his letters, he said that he once doubted it, but that reflection had taught him better. The publication of " Cain, a Mystery," brought down upon him the severest denunciations of many of the clergy, whose zeal took rapid flight and bore away their reason and judgment. They called it blasphemous. This, Lord Byron denied in the most positive terms. The misunderstanding was owing to the fact that Byron caused each of the characters to speak as it was supposed they would speak, judging from their actions, and that these fault-finders, who raised such an outcry, understood the language to be the belief of the author, than which nothing could be more unreasonable. At the time of Byron's death many tributes to his memory were paid by the most celebrated authors. Among them was one from Rogers, from which we take the following as best fitted, in closing this sketch, to leave on the mind of our readers a just view of the strange and eventful life of the poet and at the same time to call forth that charity in judgment which it is our duty to bestow : — " Thou art gone j And he who would assail thee in thy grave, Oil, let him pause 1 for who among us all, Tried as thcu wert— even from thy earliest years, When wandering, yet unspoilt, a Highland boy- Tried as thou wert, and with thy love of fame ; Pleasure, whale yet the down was on thy cheek, Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, Her charmed cup — ah, who amongst ua all Could §ay he hai »• erred as much and man " CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE A ROMAUNT. L'univers est une espece de livre, dont on n'a lu que la premiere page quand on n'a vu que ion pays. J'en ai feuillete un assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouve egalement mauvaises. Cet examen ne m'a point e'te' infructueux Je haissais ma patrie. Tsutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j'ai vecu, m'out reconcile' arec elle. (Juarid je n'aurais tire' d'autre benefice de mes voyages que celui-la, je n'en regrelterais ni les frais ni les faUgues. LE COSMOPOUTE. PREFACE. The following poem was written, for the most part, amid the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania ; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in those countries. Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of the de- scriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. There for the present the poem stops : its reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia : these two cantos are merely experimental. A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece ; which, how- ever, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, " Childe Harold," I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage : this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim — Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion ; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever. It is almost superfluous to mention that the ap- pellation "Childe," as " Childe Waters," "Childe Childers," &c, is used as more consonant with the old structure of the versification which I have adopted. The " Good Night," in the beginning of the first canto, was suggested by " Lord Maxwell's Good Night," in the Border Minstrelsy, edited by Mr. Scott. "With the different poems which have been pub- lished on Spanish subjects, there may be found some slight coincidence in the first part, which treats of the Peninsula, but it can only be casual ; as, with 3 the exception of a few concluding stanzas, the whole of this poem was written in the Levant. The stanza of Spenser, according to 'one of our most successful pDets, admits of every variety. Dr. Beattie makes the following observation: "Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descrip- tive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humor strikes me ; for, if I mistake not, the measure which I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of composition." * — Strengthened in my opin- ion by such high authority, and by the example ol some in the highest order of Italian poets, I shall make no apology for attempts at similar variations in the following composition ; satisfied that, if they are unsuccessful, their failure must be in the execu- tion, rather than in the design sanctioned by the practice of Ariosto, Thomson, and Beattie. ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. I hate now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the generality of their criticisms I have nothing to object ; it would ill be- come me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, when, perhaps, if they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point alone shall I venture an observation. Among the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent character of the "vagrant Childe," (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the con 1 Beanie's Lettnn. II BYRON'S WORKS. trary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage,) it has been stated, that, besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly , as the times of the Knights were times of love, honor, and so forth. Now it so happens that the good old times, when "l'amour du bon vieux terns l'amour .antique " flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult St. Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol. ii., page 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows whatsoever ; and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The " Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour ou de courtesie et de gentilesse " had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Rolland on the same subject with St. Palaye. Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unamia- ble personage, Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes — "No waiter, but a knight templar." * By the by, I fear that Sir Tristrem and Sir Lancelot were no better than they should be, although very poetical personages and true knights "sans peur," though not "sans re- proche." If the story of the institution of the " Garter " be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Maria Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honors lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed. Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks, (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times,) few exceptions will be found to this statement, and I fear a little inves- tigation will teach us not to regret these monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. I now leave " Childe Harold," to live his day, such as he is ; it had been more agreeable, and cer- tainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable charac- ter. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I pro- ceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close ; for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco. * The Rovers. Antijacobin. TO IANTHE. Not in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd ; Not in those visions to the heart displaying Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd, Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd : Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd: To such as see thee not my words were weak ; To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak ? Ah ! may'st thou ever be what now thou art, Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring, As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart, Love's image upon earth without his wing, And guileless beyond Hope's imagining ! And surely she who now so fondly rears Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening, Beholds the rainbow of her future years, Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears. Young Peri of the West ! — 'tis well for me My years already doubly number thine ; My loveless eye umoved may gaze on thee, And safely view thy ripening beauties shine ; Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline ; Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed. Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign To those whose admiration shall succeed, But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed. Oh ! let that eye, which, wild as tue Gazelle's, Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells, Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh, Could I to thee be ever more than friend: This much, dear maid, accord : nor question why To one so young my strain I would commend, But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend. Such is thy name with this my verse entwined ; And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last : My days once number'd, should this homage past Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, Such is the most my memory may desire ; Though more than Hope can claim, could Friend* ship less require ' CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE CANTO I Oh, thou ! in Hellas deem'd of heavenly birth, Muse ! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will ! Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth, Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill : Yet there I've wander' d by thy vaunted rill ; Yes ! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine, 1 Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine fc grace so plain a tale — this lowly lay of mine. II. "Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, Who ne in virtue'.s ways did take delight ; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah, me ! in sooth he was a shameless wight, Sore given to revel and ungodly glee ; Few earthly things found favor in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. III. Childe Harold was he hight, — but whence his name And lineage long, it suits 'jne not to say ; Suffice it, that perchance 1 hey were of fame, And had been glorious in another day : But one sad looel soils a r^ame for aye, However mighty in the ohlen time : Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prcae, nor horued lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. IV. Childe Harold bask'd him in the noontide sun, Disporting there like any other fly ; Nor deem'd before his little day was done One blast might chill him into misery. But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by, Worse than adversity the Childe befell ; He felt the fulne£3 of satiety : Then loathed he i» his native land to dwell, Whicn. seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell. For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amhis, Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one. And that loved one, alas ! could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she ! to 'scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste ; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste VI. And now Childe Harold was sore Si>.k at heart And from his fellow bacchanals would flee ; 'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start, But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee : Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie, And from his native land resolv'd to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea ; With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for wo, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below. VII. The Childe departed from his father's hall : It was a vast and venerable pile ; So old, it seemed only not to fall, Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle. Monastic dome ! condemn'd to uses vile ! Where Superstition once had made her den, Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile j And monks might deem then- time was come agen, If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men. VIII. Yet ofttimes in his maddest mirthful mood Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold'a As if the memory of some deadly feud [brow, Or disappointed passion lurk'd below : But this none knew, nor haply cared to know; For his was not that open, artless soul That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, Nor sought he friend to counsel or condol" Whate'er his grief mote be, which he could not control. 20 BYRON'S WORKS. IX. And none did love him — though to hall and bower He gather'd revellers from far and near, He knew them flatt'rers of the festal hour ; The heartless parasites of present cheer. Yea ! none did love him — not his lemans dear — But pomp and power alone are woman's care, And where these are light Eros finds a fere ; Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair. X. Childe Harold had a mother — not forgot, Though parting from that mother he did shun ; A sister whom he loved, but saw her not Before his weary pilgrimage begun : If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel ; Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon A few dear objects, will in sadness feel Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. XI. His house, his home, his heritage, his lands, The laughing dames in whom he did delight, Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands Might shake the saintship of an anchorite, And long had fed his youthful appetite ; His goblets brimm'd with every costly wine, And all that mote to' luxury invite, Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, And traverse Paynim shores, and pass Earth's cen- tra] line. XII. The sails were fill'd, and fair the light winds blew, As glad to waft him from his native home ; And fast the white rocks faded from his view, And soon were lost in circumambient foam : And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he, but in his bosom slept The silent thought, nor from his lips did come One word of wail, whilst others sat and wept, And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept. XIII. But when the sun was sinking in the sea He seized his harp, which he at times could string, And strike, albeit with untaught melody, When deem'd he no strange ear was listening: And now his fingers o'er it he did fling, And tuned his farewell in the deep twilight. While flew the vessel on her snowy wing, And fbeting shores receded from his sight, thus to the elements he pour'd his last " Good Night." 1. " Adieu, adieu ! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue ; The Night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea-mew. Yon Sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight ; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native Land — Good Night ! " A few short hours, and He will rise To give the Morrow birth ; And I shall hail the main and skies, But not my mother Earth. Deserted is my own good hall, Its hearth is desolate ; Wild weeds are gathering on the wall ; My dog howls at the gate. " Come hither, hither, my little page! Why dost thou weep and wail ? Or dost thou dread the billows' rage, Or tremble at the gale ? But dash the tear-drop from thine eye , Our ship is swif*" snd strong : Our fleetest falcon scarce could fly More merrily along." ' Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, I fear not wave nor wind ; Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I Am sorrowful in mind ; For I have from my father gone, A mother whom I love, And have no friend, save these alone. But thee — and one above. ' My father bless'd me fervently, Yet did not much complain ; But sorely will my mother sigh Till I come back again.' — "Enough, enough, my little lad! Such tears become thine eye ; If I thy guileless bosom had, Mine own would not be dry. 6. " Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman Why dost thou look so pale ? Or dost thou dread a French foeman ? Or shiver at the gale ? " ' Deem'st thou I tremble for my life ? Sir Childe, I'm not so weak ; But thinking on an absent wife Will blanch a faithful cheek. ' My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, Along the bordering lake ; And when they on their father call, What answer shall she make ? ' — "Enough, enough, my yeoman good, Thy grief let none gainsay ; But I, who am of lighter mood, Will laugh to flee away. 8. " For who would trust the seeming sighs Of wife or paramour ? Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes We late saw streaming o'er. For pleasures past I do not grieve, Nor perils gathering near ; My greatest grief is that I leave No thing that claims a tear. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 21 " And now I'm in the world alone, Upon the wide, wide sea: But why should I for others groan, When none will sigh for me ? Perchance my dog will whine in vain Till fed by stranger hands ; But long ere I come back again, He'd tear me where he stands. 10. '' With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go Athwart the foaming brine ; Nor care what land thou bear'st me too, So not again to mine. Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves . And when you fail my sight, Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves ! My native Land — Good Night ! " XIV. On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay. Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon, New shores descried make every bosom gay ; And Cintra's mountain greets them on their way, And Tagus dashing onward to the deep, His fabled golden tribute bent to pay ; And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap, A.nd steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap. XV. Oh, Christ ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land ! What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree ! What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand ! But man woxild mar them with an impious hand : And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 'Gainst those who most transgress his high command, With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge. XVI. What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold ! Her image floating on that noble tide, Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, But now whereon a thousand keels did ride Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied, And to the Lusians did her aid afford : A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord. XVII. But whoso entereth within this town, That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down, 'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee ; For hut and palace show like filthily : The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt ; Ne personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, Chough shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd, unhurt. XVIII. Poor, paltry slaves ! yet born 'mid:, t noblest scenes, Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men ? Lo ! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes In variegated maze of mount and glen. Ah, me ! what hand can pencil guide, or pen To follow half on which the eye dilates, Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlock'd Elysium'* gates ? XIX. The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd, The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown'd, The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, The tender azure of the unruffled deep, The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, The vine on high, the willow branch below, Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. XX. Then slowly climb the many-winding way, And frequent turn to linger as you go, From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, And rest yet at our " Lady's house of wo ; " 2 Where frugal monks then- little relics show, And sundry legends to the stranger tell : Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo ! Deep in yon cave Honorious long did dwell, In hope to merit heaven by making earth a Hell. XXI. And here and there, as up the crags you spring, Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path : Yet deem not these devotion's offering — These are memorials frail of murderous wrath : For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife, Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath ; And grove and glen with thousand such are rife Throughout this purple land where law secures not life. 3 XXII. On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; But now the wild flowers round them only breathe ; Yet ruin'd splendor still is lingering there. And yonder towers the Prince's palace fan - ; There thou too,Vathek ! England's wealthiest son, Once form'd thy Paradise, as not aware [done. When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to sun. XXIII. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow: But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou ! Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow To halls deserted, portals gaping wide; Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied ; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide 22 BYRON'S WORKS. XXIV. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened ! * Oh ! dome displeasing unto British eye ! With diadem hight foolscap, lo ! a fiend, A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, And sundry signatures adorn the roll, Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul. XXV. Convention is the dwarfish demon styled That foil'd the knights in Marialva's dome : Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled, And turn'd a nation's shallow joy to gloom. Here Folly dash'd to earth the victor's plume, And Policy regained what arms had lost ; For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom ! Wo to the conqu'ring, not the conquer'd host, Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast. XXVI. And ever since that martial synod met, Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name ; And folks in office at the mention fret, And fain would blush, if blush they could, for . How will posterity the deed ploclaim ! [shame. Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame, By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here, Where Scorn her finger points through many a com- ing year ? XXVII. So dcem'd the Childc, as o'er the mountains he Did take his way in solitary guise : Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, More restless than the swallow in the skies : Though here a while he learned to moralize, For meditation fix'd at times on him ; And conscious Reason whisper'd to despise His early youth misspent in maddest whim ; But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim. XXVIII. To horse ! to horse ! he quits, for ever quits A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul ; Again he rouses from his moping fits, But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. Onward he flies, nor fix'd as yet the goal Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage ; And o'er him many changing scenes must roll Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage, ttx he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. XXIX. Set Mafra shall one moment claim delay, 5 Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' luckless queen ; And church and court did mingle their array, A.nd mass and revel were altera ite seen ; Lordlings and freres — ill-sorted fry I ween ! But here the Babylonian whore hath built A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, Th at men forget the blood which she hath spilt, kad bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish guilt. XXX. O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, (Oh, that such hills upheld a freeborn race !) Whereon to gaze the eye with joyance fills, [placej Childe Harold wends through many a pleasan Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share. XXXI. More bleak to view the hills at length recede, And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend: Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed ! Far as the eye discerns, withouten end, Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows — Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend ■ For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes, And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's woes. XXXII. Where Lusitania and her sister meet, Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide ? Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide ? Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride ? Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall ? — Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide, Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul. XXXIII. But these between a silver streamlet glides, And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides. Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook, And vacant on the rippling waves doth look, That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow; For proud each peasant as the noblest duke : Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low * XXXIV. But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd, Dark Guadiana rolls his power along In sullen billows, murmuring and vast, So noted ancient roundelays among. Whilome upon his banks did legions throng Of Moor and knight, in mailed splendor drest : Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the The Paynim turban and the Christian crest [strong ; Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts op- press'd. XXXY. Oh, lovely Spain ! renown'd romantic land ! Where is that standard which Pelagio bore, When Cava's traitor-sire first call'd the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore ? 7 Where are those bloody banners which of yore Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale, And drove at last the spoilers to their shore ? [pale, Red gleam'd the cross, and waned the crescenl While Afric's echoes tlirill'd with Moorish matrons' wail. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 23 XXXVI. Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale ? Ah ! such, alas ! the hero's amplest fate ! "When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. Pride ! bend thine eye from heaven to thine See how the mighty shrink into a song ! [estate, Can Volume, Pillar, Pile, preserve the great ? Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue, Whcr Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does Mice wrong ? XXXVII. Awake, ye sons of Spain ! awake ! advance ! Lo ! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries ; But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies : Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies, And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar: In every peal she calls — " Awake ! arise ! " Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore, When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore ? XXXVIII. Hark ! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note ? Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath ? Saw ye not whom the recking sabre smote ; Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath Tyrants and tyrants' slaves ? — the fires of death The bale-fires flash on high : — from rock to rock Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe, Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. XXXIX. Lo ! where the Giant on the mountain stands, His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon ; Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done ; For on this morn three potent nations meet, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. XL. By heaven, it is a splendid sight to see (For one who hath no friend, no brother there) Then- rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery, Their various arms that glitter in the air ! [lair What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey ! All join the chase, but few the triumph share ; The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc scarce for joy can number their arrar. XLI. Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice ; Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high ; Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies ; The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory ! The foe, the victim, and the fond ally That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, Are met — as if at home they could not die — To feed the crow on Talavcra's plain, A.nd fertilize the field that each pretends to gain XLII. There shall they rot — Ambition's honor'd fools ' Yes, honor decks the turf that wraps their clay ! Vain Sophistry ! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that tyrants cast away By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts — to what ? — a dream alone. Can despots compass ought that hails their sway . Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone ? XLIII. Oh, Albuera! glorious field of grief! As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim prick'd his steed, "Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief, [bleed . A scene where mingling foes should boast and Peace to the perish'd ! may the warrior's meed And tears of triumph theh reward prolong ! Till others fall where other chieftains lead, Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, And shine in worthless lays, the theme of transient song ! XLIV. Enough of Battle's minions ! let them play Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame : Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay, Though thousands fall to deck some single name. In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble aim [good, Who strike, blest hirelings! for their country's And die, that living might have proved her shame ; Perish'd, perchance, in some domestic feud, Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's path pursued. XLV. Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued : Yet is she free — the spoiler's wished-for prey ! Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude, Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude. Inevitable hour ! 'Gainst fate to strive Where Desolation plants her famish'd brood Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, might yet survive, And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive XLVI. But all unconscious of the coining doom, The feast, the song, the revel here abounds ; Strange modes of merriment the hours consume, Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds : Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck sounds; Here Folly still his votaries inthralls ; And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals, [rounds: Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls. XL VII. Not so the rustic — with his trembling mate He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar, Lest he should view his vineyard desolate Blasted below the dun hot breath of war No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star Fandango twirls his jocund Castanet : Ah, monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory woidd ye fret ; The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man b« happy yet ! 24 BYRON'S WORKS. XLVIII. How carols now the lusty muleteer f Of love, romance, devotion, is his Jay, As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer, His quick bells wildly jinging on the Way ? No ! as he speeds, he chants " Viva el Rey ! " 8 And checks his song to execrate Godoy, The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day [boy, When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy- XLIX. On yon long level plain, at distance crown'd With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest, Wide scattered hoof-marks dint the wounded ground ; [vest And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken 'd Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, Here the bold peasant storm' d the dragon's nest; Still does he mark it with triumphant boast, And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost. L. And whomsoe'er along the path you meet, Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet ; 9 Wo to the man that walks in public view Without of loyalty this token true : Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke ; And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloak, Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke. LI. At every turn Morena's dusky height Sustains aloft the battery's iron load ; And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, The mountain-howitzer, the broken road, The bristling pallisade, the fosse o'erflow'd, The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch, The magazine in rocky durance stow'd, The bolster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch, The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match, 10 LII. Portend the deeds to come : — but he whose nod Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway, A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod ; A little moment deigneth to delay : [way ; Soon will his legions sweep through these their The West must own the Scourger of the world. Ah ! Spain ! how sad will be thy reckoning-day, When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his wings unfurl'd, And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl'd. Lin. And must they fall ? the young, the proud, the brave, To swell one bloated Chief's unwholesome reign ? No step between submission and a grave ? The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain ? And doth the Power that man adores ordain Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal ? Is all that desperate Valor acts in vain ? And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, The Veteran's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart of steel f LIV. Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsex'd, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war ? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appall'd, an owlet's 'larum chill'd with dread, Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar, The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quaka to tread. LV. Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour, [Teil, Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower, Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Her fairy form, with more than female grace, Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face, Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase. LVI. Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear ; Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; Her fellows flee — she checks their base career ; The foe retires — she heads the sallying host ; Who can appease like her a lover's ghost ? Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, [lost ? Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall ? n LVII. Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, But form'd for all the witching arts of love : Though thus in arms they emulate her sons, And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove, Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate : In softness as in firmness far above Remoter females, famed for sickening prate ; Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great. LVIII. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd Denotes how soft that chin which bears his toucn : " Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such : Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how much Hath Phcebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch ! "Who round the North for paler dames would seek ? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak ! LIX. Match me, ye climes ! which poets love to laud ; Match me, ye harams of the land ! where now I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud Beauties that ev'n a cynic must avow; Match me those Houries, whom ye scarce allow To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind, With Spain's dark-glancing daughters — deign to There your wise Prophet's paradise we find, [know His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind. Kfi] A [I I CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 25 LX. Oh, thou Parnassus ! 13 whom I now survey, Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye, Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky In the wild pomp of mountain majesty ! What marvel if I thus essay to sing ? The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by "Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string, though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing. LXI. Oft have I dream'd of Thee ! whose glorious name Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore : And now I view thee, 'tis, alas ! with shame That I in feeblest accents must adore. When I recount thy worshippers of yore I tremble, and can only bend the knee ; Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee ! LXII. Happier in this than mightiest bards have been, Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot, Shall I unmoved behold the hallow'd scene, Which others rave of, though they know it not ? Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot, And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave, Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot, Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave. LXIII. Of thee hereafter. — Ev'n amidst my strain I turn'd aside to pay my homage here ; Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain ; Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear ; And hail'd thee, not perchance without a tear. Now to my theme — but from thy holy haunt Let me some remnant, some memorial bear ; Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant, Nor let thy votary's hope be deem'd an idle vaunt. LXIV. But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount ! when Greece was See round thy giant base a brighter choir, [young, Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung, The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire, Behold a train more fitting to inspire The song of love than Andalusia's maids, Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire : Ah ! that to these were given such peaceful shades As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades. LXV. Fair is proud Seville ; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast, [days ; l * Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. Ah, "Vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! While boyish blood is mantling who can 'scape The fascination of thy magic gaze ? A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape. LXV I. When Paphos fell by time — accursed Time ! The queen who conquers all must yield to thee— The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime And Venus, constant to her native sea, To naught else constant, hither deign'd to flee ; And fix'd her shrine within these walls of white ; Though not to one dome circumscribeth she Her worship, but, devoted to her rite, A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright. LXVII. From morn till night, from night till startled Morn Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew, The song is heard, the rosy garland worn, Devices quaint, and frolics ever new, Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu Of true devotion monkish incense burns, And love and prayer unite, or rale the hour by turns. LXVIII. The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest ; What hallows it upon this Christian shore ? Lo ! it is sacred to a solemn feast ; Hark ! heard you not the forest monarch's roar ? Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn, The throng'd arena shakes with shouts for more; Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn, Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n affects to mourn, LXIX. The seventh day this ; the jubilee of man. London ! right well thou know'st the day of prayer : Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artisan, And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air : Thy coach of Hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair, And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl, To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow make repair ; Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl, Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl. LXX. Some o'er thy Thames row the ribbon'd fair, Others along the safer turnpike fly ; Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware, And many to the steep of Highgate hie. Ask ye, Boetian shades ! the reason why ? 15 'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn, Grasp'd in the holy hand of Mystery, [sworn. In whose dread name both men and maids are And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn. LXXI. All have their fooleries'— not alike are thine, Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea ! Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine, Thy saint adorers count the rosary : Much is the Virgin teased to shrive them free (Well do I ween the only virgin there) From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be ; Then to the crowded circus forth they fare : Young, old, high, low, at ence the same diversion share. 26 BYRON'S WORKS. LXXII. The lists are oped, the spacious area clear'd, Thousands on thousands piled are seated round ; Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard, Ne vacant space for lated wight is found : Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound, SkM d in the ogle of a roguish eye, Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound ; N?ne through their cold disdain are doom'd to die, A.s moonstruck bards complain, by Love's sad archery. LXXIII. Hush'd is the din of tongues — on gallant steeds, With milk-white crest, gold-spur, and light-poised Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds, [lance, And lowly bending to the lists advance ; Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance : If in the dangerous game they shine to-day, The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance, Best prize of better acts, they bear away, And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay. LXXIV. Ln costly sheen and gaudy cloak array'd, But all afoot, the light-limb'd Matadore Stands in the centre, eager to invade The lord of lowing herds ; but not before The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er, Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed : His arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor more Can man achieve without the friendly steed — Alas ! too oft condemn'd for him to bear and bleed. LXXV. Thrice sounds the clarion ; lo ! the signal falls, The den expands, and Expectation mute Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls. Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute, And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot, The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe ; Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit His first attack, wide waving to and fro His angry tail ; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. LXXVI. Sudden he stops ; his eye is fix'd : away, Away, thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : Now is thy time, to perish, or display The skill that yet may check his mad career. With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer; On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes ; Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear : He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes ; Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud belle-wings speak his woes. LXXVII. Again he comes ; nor dart nor lance avail, Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse ; Though man, and man's avenging arms assail, Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse ; Another, hideous sight ! unseam'd appears, His gory chest unveils life's panting source.; Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears, Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unhaim'd he bears. LXXVIII. Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, Full in the centre stands the bull at bay, 'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances bras^ And foes disabled in the brutal fray ; And now the Matadores around him play, Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Once more through all he bursts his thund'ring way: Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge hand, Wraps his fierce eye — 'tis past — he sinks upon the sand ! LXXIX. Where his vast neck just mingles with the spin* Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies. He stops — he starts — disdaining to decline : Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, Without a groan, without a struggle, dies. The decorated car appears — on high The corse is piled — sweet sight for vulgar eyes- Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by. LXXX. Such the ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. What private feuds the troubled village stain ! Though now one phalanx'd host should meet tho Enough, alas ! in humble homes remain, [foe, To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. LXXXI. But Jealousy has fled : his bars, his bolts, His wither' d sentinel, Duenna sage ! And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deem'd he could encage, Have pass'd to darkness with the vanish'd age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen ? LXXXII. Oh ! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved, Or dream'd he loved, since Rapture is a dream; But now his wayward bosom was unmoved, For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream ; And lately had he learn'd with truth to deem Love has no gift so grateful as his wings ; How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. '6 LXXXIII. Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise ; Not that Philosophy on such a mind E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes : But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies ; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb. Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise : Pleasure's pall'd victim ! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 27 LXXXIV. Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng ; But view'd them not with misanthropic hate : Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song, But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate ? Nought that he saw his sadness could abate : Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway, And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate, Pour'd forth this unpremeditated lay l'o charms as fair as those that soothed his happier dxy. TO INEZ. 1. Nay, smile not at my sullen brow ; Alas ! I cannot smile again : Yet Heaven avert that ever thou Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain And dost Ihou ask, what secret wo I bear, corroding joy and youth ? And wilt thou vainly seek m know A pang, ev'n thou must fail to sooth ? 3. It is not love, it is not hate, Nor low Ambition's honors lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most: It is that weariness which springs From all I meet, or hear, or see : To me no pleasure Beauty brings ; Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. It is that settled, ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wan Jerer bore ; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before. 6. What Exile from himself can flee ? To Zones, though more and more remote Still, still pursues, where'er I be, The blight of life — the demon Thought. 7. Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, And taste of all that I forsake ; Oh ! may they still of transport dream, And ne'er, at least like me, awake ! Through many a clime 'tis mine to gc. With many a retrospection curst ; And all my solace is to know, Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 9. What is that worst ? Nay do not ask — In pity from the search forbear : . Smile on — nor venture to unmask Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. LXXXV. Adieu, fair Cadiz ! yea, a long adieu ! Who may forget how well thy walls have stood T When all were changing thou alone wert true, First to be free and last to be subdued : And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude, Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye ; A traitor only fell beneath the feud : 17 Here all were noble, save Nobility ; None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallej Chivalry ! LXXXVI. Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate ! They fight for freedom who were never free ; A Kingless people for a nerveless state, Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, True to the veriest slaves of Treachery : Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, • Pride points the path that leads to Liberty ; Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife, War, war is still the cry, "AVar even to th« knife !"'s LXXXVIL Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife : Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life : From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleed, So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed' LXXXVIII. Flows there a tear of pity for the dead ? Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain ; Look on the hands with female slaughter red , Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain, Then to the vulture let each corse remain ; Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw, [stain, Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe : Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw ! LXXXIX. Nor yet, alas ! the dreadful work is done ; Fresh legions pour adown the Pyreneen : It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. Fall'n nations gaze on Spain ; if freed, she frees More than her fell Pizarros once enchain'd : Strange retribution ! now Columbia's ease Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustain'd, While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder un- restrained. XC. Not all the blood at Talavera shed, Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, Not Albuera lavish of the dead, Have won for Spain her well-asserted right. When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight? When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil ? How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil, And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil 28 BYRON'S WORKS. XCI. And thou, my friend ! I9 — since unavailing wo Burst from my heart, and mingles with the strain — Had -the sword laid thee with the mighty low, Pride might forbid ev'n Friendship to complain ; But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain, By all forgotten, save the lonely breast, And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest ! What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest? XCII. Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most ! Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear ! Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, In dreams deny me not to see thee here ! And Morn in secret shall renew the tear Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose. XCIII. Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage : Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page, If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. I? this too much ? stern Critic ! say not so : Patience ! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doom'd to go : Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands we quell'd. CANTO II. I. Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven ! — but thou, alas . Didst never yet one mortal song inspire — Goddess of Wisdom ! here thy temple was, And is, despite of war and wasting fire, 1 And years, that bade thy worship to expire ; But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire Of men who never felt the sacred glow That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow. 2 II. Ancient of days ! august Athena ! where, Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ? Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that First in the race that led to Glory's goal [were : They won, and pass'd away — is this the whole ? A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour ! The warrior's weapon and the sophists stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower. Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of Power. III. Son of the morning, rise ! approach you here ; Come — but molest not yon defenceless urn : Look on this spot — a nation's sepulchre ! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield — religions take their turn 'Twas Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's — and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds ; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds. IV. Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven — Is't not enough, unhappy thing ! to know Thou art ? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou would'st be again, and go Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, sc On earth no more, but mingled with the skies ? Still wilt thou dream on future joy and wo ? Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies ; That little urn saith more than thoufand homilies. Or burst the vanisYd Hero's lofty motind ; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : 3 He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around ; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor war-like worshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Remove yon scull from out the scatter'd teaps : Is that a temple where a God may dtell P Why ev'n the worm at last disdains^ir shatter' d cell! VI. Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, Its chambers desolate, and portals foul ; Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul ; Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit And Passion's host, that never brook'd control ; Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ; VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son ! " All that we know is, nothing can be known." Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun ? Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best ; Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron : There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest. VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore ; How sweet it were in concert to adore With those who made our mortal labors light ! To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more ! Behold each mighty shade reveal' d to sight, The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the risrht. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 29 IX. There, thou ! — whose lovo and life together fled, Have left me here to love and live in vain — Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead When busy Memory flashes on my brain ? Well — I will dream that we may meet again, And woo the vision to my vacant breast ; If aught of young Remembrance then remain, Be as it may Futurity's behest, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest Here let me sit upon this massy stone, The marble column's yet unshaken base ; Here, son of Saturn ! was thy fav'rite throne. 4 Mightiest of many such ! hence let me trace The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place. It may not be ; nor ev'n can Fancy's eye Restore what Time hath labored to deface. Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh ; Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. XI. But wno, of all the plunderers of yon fane On high, where Pallas linger'd, loath to flee The latest relic of her ancient reign ; The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he ? Blush, Caledonia ! such thy son could be ! England ! I joy no child he was of thine : [free ; Thy 'free-born men should spare what once was Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. 5 XII. But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast, To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath Cold as the crags upon his native coast, [spared; 6 His mind as barren and his heart as hard, Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, Aught to displace Athena's poor remains. Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains, 7 And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. XIII. What ! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Albion was happy in Athena's tears ? Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung. Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears ; The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears The last poor plunder from a bleeding land ; Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid her name endears, Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand, Which envious Elb forbore, and tyrants left to stand. XIV. Where was thine iEgis, Pallas, that appall'd Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? 8 Where Peleus' son ? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd, His shades from Hades upon that dread day Bursting to light in terrible array ! What ! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, To scare a second robber from his prey ? Idly he wander' d on the Stygian shore, Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. XV. Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that looks on th»c, Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved ; Dull is the eye that will not weep to see [mored Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines re* By British hands, which it had best behooved To guard those relics -ne'er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northerr cTmee abhorr'd ! XVI. But where is Harold ? shall I then forget To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave ? Little reck'd he of all that men regret ; No loved one now in feign'd lament could rave ; No friend the parting hand extended gave, Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes : Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave , But Harold felt not as in other times, And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. XVII. He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea Has view'd at times, I ween, a full fair sight ; When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be, The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight ; Masts, spues, and strand retiring to the right, The glorious main expanding o'er the bow, The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight, The dullest sailer wearing bravely now, So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow. XVIII. And oh, the little warlike world within ! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy," The hoarse command, the busy humming din. When, at a word, the tops are mann'd on high ; Hark to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry ! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides; Or schoolboy Midshipman, that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides. XIX. White is the glassy deck, without a stain, "Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant walks : Look on that part which sacred doth remain. For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks, Silent and fear'd by all — not oft he talks With aught beneath him, if he would preserve That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks Conquest and Fame : but Britons rarely swerve From law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve. XX. Blow ! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale ! Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray; Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, That lagging barks may make their lazy way. Ah ! grievance sore, and listiess dull delay, To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze! What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day, Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas, The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs lika these ! 80 BX RON'S WORKS. XXI. The moon is up ; by Heaven, a lovely eve ! Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand ; Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe. Such be our fate when we return to land ! Meantime, some rude Arion's restless hand Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love ; A circle there of merry listeners stand, Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. XXII. Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore ; Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze ; How softly on the Spanish shore she plays, Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown, Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase ; But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown, Prom mountain cliff to coast descending sombre down. XXIII. 'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We once have loved, though love is at end. The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, Though friendless now, will drearn it had a friend. Who with the weight of years would wish to bend When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy ? Alas ! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death hath but little left him to destroy ! Ah ! happy years ! once more who would not be a boy ? XXIV. Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, To gaze on Dian's wave reflected sphere, The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride. And flies unconscious o'er each backward year. None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd A thought, and claims the homage of a tear ; A flashing pang ! of which the weary breast Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest. XXV. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her store unroll'd. XXVI. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless. Minions of splendor, shrinking from distress ! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued ; This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! XXVII. More blest the life of godly Eremite, Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, Watching at eve upon the giant height, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so sereu« That he who there at such an hour hath been Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot ; Then slowly tear him from the witching scene, Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot. XXVIII. Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind ; Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tacl^ And each well known caprice of wave and wind ; Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel ; The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, Till on some jocund morn — lo, land ! and all is well XXIX. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, 10 The sister tenants of the middle deep ; There for the weary still a haven smiles, Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep ; And o'er her cliffs a fuitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride : Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide ; While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doublj sigh'd. XXX. Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone : But trust not this ; too easy youth, beware ! A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne, And thou may'st find a new Calypso there. Sweet Florence ! could another ever share This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine : But check'd by every tie, I may not dare To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, Nor ask so dear abreast to feel one pang for mine. XXXI. Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye He look'd, and met its beam without a thought, Save Admiration glancing harmless by : Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, Who knew his votary often lost and caught, But knew him as his worshipper no more, And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought ; Since now he vainly urged him to adore, Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway wai o'er. XXXII. Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw, Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze. Which others hail'dwith real or mimic awe, [law; Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims ; And much she marvelled that a youth so raw Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames, Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarelj anger dames. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. Si XXXIII. Little knew she that seeming marble heart, Now rnask'd in silence or withheld by pride, Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art, And spread its snares licentious far and wide ; Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside, As long as aught was worthy to pursue : But Harold on such arts no more relied; And had he doted on those eyes so blue, iTet never would he join the lover's whining crew. XXXIV. Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, "Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs ; "What careth she for hearts when once possess'd ? Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes ; But not too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes : Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise ; Brisk confidence still best with woman copes ; Pique her and sooth in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes. XXXV. "lis an old lesson ; Time approves it true, And those who know it best, deplore it most ; "When all is won that all desire to woo, The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost ; Youth wasted, minds degraded, honor lost, These are thy fruits, successful Passion ! these ! If, kindly cruel, early Hope is crost, Still to the last it rankles, a disease, Not to be cured when Love itself forgets to please. XXXVI. Away ! nor let me loiter in my song, For we have many a mountain-path to tread, And many a varied shore to sail along, By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led — Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head Imagined in its little schemes of thought ; Or e'er in new Utopias were read, To teach man what he might be, or he ought ; If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught. XXXVII. Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, .Though alway changing, in her aspect mild ; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-wean'd, though not her favor'd child. Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild, "Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path ; To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have mark'd her when none other hath, And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath. XXXVIII. Land of Albania ! where Iskander rose, Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise, And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize : Land of Albania ! let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men ! The Cross descends, thy minarets arise, And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. XXXIX. Childe Harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot" "Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave ; And onward view'd the mount, not yet forgot, The lovers refuge, and the Lesbian's grave. Dark Sappho ! could not verse immortal save That breast imbued with such immortal fire ? Could she not live who life eternal gave ? If life eternal may await the lyre, That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire. XL. 'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar ; A spot he long'd to see, nor cared to leave : Oft did he mark the scenes of vanish'd Tvar, Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar ; 13 Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight (Bom beneath some remote inglorious star) In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight, But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at max tial wight. XLL But when he saw the evening star above Leucadia's far-projecting rock of wo, And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love, 1 * He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow ; And as the stately vessel glided slow Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow, And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front. XLII. Morn dawns ; and with it stern Albania's hills. Dark Suli's rocks, and Piudus' inland peak, Robed half in mist, bedewed with snowy rills, Arrayed in many a dun and purple streak, Arise ; and, as the clouds along them break, Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer : Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, And gathering storms around convulse the closing year. XLIII. Now Harold felt himself at length alone, And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu ; Now he adventured on a shore unknown, Which all admire, but many dread to view ; [few , His breast was arm'd 'gainst fate, his wants were Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet ; The scene was savage, but the scene was new ; This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet, Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed sum- mer's heat. XLIV. Here the red cross, for still the cross is here, Though sadly scoff d at by the circumcised, Forgets that pride to pamper'd priesthood dear ; Churchman and votary alike despised. Foul Superstition ! howsoe'er disguised, Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss ! Who from true worship's gold can separate thj dross ? 52 BYRON'S WORKS. XLV. LI. Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost A world for woman, lovely, harmless thing ! In yonder rippling bay, their naval host Did many a Roman chief and Asian king 15 To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring : Look where the second Caesar's trophies rose ! 16 Now, like the hands that rear'd them, withering : Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes ! God ! was thy globe ordain'd for such to win and lose? XLVI. From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, Ev'n to the centre of Illyria's vales, Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales Are rarely seen ; nor can fair Tempe boast A charm they know not ; loved Parnassus fails, Though classic ground, and consecrated most, To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast. XLVII. He pass'd bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake, 17 And left the primal city of the land, And onwards did his further journey take To greet Albania's chief, 13 whose dread command Is lawless law ; for with a bloody hand He sways a nation, turbulent and bold ; Yet here and there some daring mountain band Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. 19 XLVIII. Monastic Zitza ! 20 from thy shady brow, Though small, but favor'd spot of holy ground ! Where'er we gaze, around, above, below, What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found ! Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonize the whole : Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul. XLIX. Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh Rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still, Might well itself be deem'd of dignity, The convents's white walls glisten fair on high : Here dwells the caloyer, a nor rude is he, Nor niggard of his cheer ; the passer by Is welcome still ; nor heedless will he flee From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen to see. Here in the sultriest season let him rest, Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees ; Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast, From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze : The plain is far beneath — oh ! let him seize Pure pleasure while he can ; the scorching ray Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease ; Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay, &nd gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away. Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight, Nature's volcanic amphitheatre, 22 Chimaera's alps extend from left to right ; Beneath, a living valley seems to stir ; [fit Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain Nodding above : behold black Acheron ! w Once consecrated to the sepulchre. Pluto ! if this be hell I look upon, Close shamed Elysium's gates, my shade shall seek for none ! LII. Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view ; Unseen is Yanina, though not remote, Veil'd by the screen of hills ; here men are few, Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot; But peering down each precipice, the goat Browseth ; and, pensive o'er his scatter'd flock, The little shepherd in his white capote M Doth lean his boyish form along the rock, Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. LIII. Oh ! where, Dodona ! is thine aged grove> Prophetic fount, and oracle divine ? What valley echo'd the response or Jove ? What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine ? All, all forgotten — and shall man repine That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke ? Cease, fool ! the fate of Gods may well be thine . Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak ? When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink be- neath the stroke ! LIV. Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail ; Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale, As ever Spring yclad in grassy die ; Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties lie, Where some bold river breaks the long expanse, And woods along the banks are waving high, Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance, Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn trance. LV. The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit, 25 And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by ; 26 The shades of wonted night were gathering yet, When, down the steep banks winding warily, Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky, The glittering minarets of Tepalen, [nigh, Whose walls o'erlook the stream ; and drawing He heard the busy hum of warrior men Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthen- ing glen. LVI. He pass'd the sacred Haram's silent tower, And underneath the wide o'erarching gate Survey'd the dwelling of this chief of power, Where all around proclaim'd his high estate. Amidst no common pomp the despot sate, While busy preparation shook the court, Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wail; Within, a palace, and without, a fort : Here men of every clime appear to make resort CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 33 LVII. Richly caparison'd, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store, Circled the wide extending court below ; Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridor ; And ofttimes through the area's echoing door Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away : The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingled in their many-hued array, While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day. LVIII. The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see ; The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon ; The Delhi with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive : the lively, supple Greek ; And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son ; The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around, too potent to be meek, LIX. Are mix'd conspicuous : some recline in groups, Scanning the motley scene that varies round ; There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops, And some that smoke, and some that play, are found ; Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground ; Half whisperiug there the Greek is heard to prate ; Hark ! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, u There is no god but God ! — to prayer — lo ! God is great! " LX. Just at this season Ramazani's fast Through the long day its penance did maintain : But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again : Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within ; The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, As page and slave anon were passing out and in. LXI. Here woman's voice is never heard : apart, And scarce permitted, guarded, veil'd, to move, She yields to one her person and her heart, Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove ; For, not unhappy in her master's love, And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares, Blest cares ! all other feelings far above ! Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears, Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares. LXII. In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring Of living water from the centre rose, Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, Ali reclined, a man of war and woes ; Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, While Gentleness her milder radiance throws Along that aged venerable face, The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace. LXIII. It is not that yon hoary lengthening bea\d 111 suits the passions which belong to youth ; Love conquers age — so Hafiz hath averr'd, So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth — But crimes that scorn the tender voice of Ruth, Beseeming all men ill, hut most the man In years, have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth ; Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal span, In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began. LXIV. 'Mid many things most new to ear and eye The pilgrim rested here his weary feet, And gazed around on Moslem luxury, Till quickly wearied ■with that spacious seat Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat Of sated Grandeur from the city's noise : And were it humbler it in sooth were sweet ; But Peace abhorreth artificial joys, And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys. LXV. Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack Not virtues, were those virtues more mature. Where is the foe that ever saw their back ? Who can so well the toil of war endure ? Their native fastnesses not more secure Than they in doubtful times of troublous need : Their wrath how deadly ! but their friendship sur» When Gratitude or Valor bids them bleed, Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead LXVI. Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's towei Thronging to war in splendor and success ; And after viewed them when, within their power Himself, awhile the victim of distress ; That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press But these did shelter him beneath their roof, When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less, And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof — - 7 In aught that tries the heart how few withstand th» proof ! LXVII. It chanced that adverse winds vnce drove his bark Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore, When all around was desolate and dark ■ To land was perilous, to sojourn more ; Yet for a while the mariners forbore, Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk : [sort At length they ventured forth, though doubting That those who loathe alike the Frank and Turk Might once again renew their ancient butcher-work LXYIII. Vain fear ! the Suliotes stretch'd the welcome hand, Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp, Kinder than polish'd slaves, though not so bland, And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp, And fill'd the bowl, and trimm'd the cheerful lamp, And spread their fare ; though homely, all they had ; Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp- To rest the weary and to sooth the sad, Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad. 34 BYRON'S WORKS. LXIX. It came to pass, that when he aid address " Himself to quit at length this mountain-land, Combined marauders half-way barr'd egress, And wasted far and near with glaive and brand ; And therefore did he take a trusty band To traverse Acarnania's forest wide, In war well season'd, and with labors tann'd, Till he did greet white Achelous tide, A-nd from his further bank JEtolia's wolds espied. LXX. "Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove, Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast, As winds come lightly whispering from the west Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene : — Here Harold was received a welcome guest ; Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene, For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence glean. LXXI. i On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed, The feast was done, the red wine circling fast, 28 And he that unawares had there ygazed With gaping wonderment had stared aghast ; For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past, The native revels of the troop began ; Each Palikar 29 his sabre from him cast, And bounding hand in hand, man link'd to man, Yelling their uncouth dirge, loDg daunced the kirtled clan. LXXII. Childe Harold at a little distance stood And view'd, but not displeased, the revelrie, Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude ; In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee ; And, as the flames along their faces gleam'd, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream'd : 30 1. S1 Tambourgi ! Tambourgi ! * thy 'larum afar Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war ; All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote ! 2. Oh ! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote ? To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. 3. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live ? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego ? What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe ? Macedonia sends forth her invincible race ; For a time they abandon the cave and the chase : But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er. Then the pirates of Parga that aweil by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert the captive on shore. I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy ; Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair. And many a maid from her mother shall tear. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall sooth ; Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyr® And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. Remember the moment when Previsa fell, 32 The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conquerors' yell, The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spared 9. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear ; He neither must know who would serve the Vizier : Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. 10. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let theyellow-hair'd* Giaoursf view his horse-tail} with dread ; [banks, When his Delhis§ come dashing in blood o'er the How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! 11. Sclictar ! || unsheathe then our chief's scimitar : Tambourgi ! thy 'larum gives promise of war. Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore, Shall view us as victors, or view us no move ' LXXIII. Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! 33 Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, And long accustom'd bondage uncreate ? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylce's sepulchral strait — Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurota's banks, and call thee from the tomb ? LXXIV. Spirit of freedom ! when on Phyle's brow 34 Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain ? Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; Nor rise thy sons, but klly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd. • Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. t Infidel. J Horse-tails are the insigna of a Pacha. $ Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope. 5 Sword-bearer CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 3a LXXV. In all save form alone, how changed ! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty ! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage : For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. LXXVI. Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not [blow ? Who would be free themselves must strike the By their right arms the conquest must be wrought ? Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye ? no ! True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. Shades of the Helots ! triumph o'er your foe ! Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame. LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; And the Serai's impenetrable tower Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; 35 Or Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest The 36 prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, May wind their path of blood along the West ; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth — ere lenten days begin That penance which then - holy rites prepare To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer ; But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share ; In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic train of merry Carnival. LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul ! once the empress of their reign ? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas ! her woes will still pervade my strain !) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor 'heard such song, A.s woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore, Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echo'd back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan : The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still: Oh Love ! young Love ! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years o: ill! LXXXIL But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, Even through the closest searment half betray'd i To such the gentle murmurs of the main Seem to reecho all they mourn in vain ; To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain : How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud ' LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast • Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword : Ah ! Greece ! they love thee least who owe thee most ! Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde LXXXIV. When riseth Lacedtemcn's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored ; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ; An hour may lay it in the dust : and when Can man in shatter'd splendor renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate I LXXXV. And yet how lovely in thine age of wo, Land of lost gods and godlike men ! art thou ! Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, 8 * Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now ; Thy fame, thy temples to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough : So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth ; LXXXVI. Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ; W Save where Tritonia's any shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave ; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the gray stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sig.fi "Alas!" 36 BYRON'S WORKS. LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as -wild ; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air ; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. LXXXVIII. Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground ; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Mara- thon LXXXIX. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same ; Unchanged in all except its foreign lord — Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word ; 39 • Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's ca- reer. XC. The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow ; The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below, Death in the front, Destruction in the rear ! Such was the scene — what now remaineth here ? What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground, Recording freedom's smile, and Asia's tear ? The rifled urn, the violated mound, The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger ! spurns around. XCI. Yet tc the remnants of thy splendor past Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied throng ; Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ; Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore ; Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! Which sages venerate, and bards adore, its Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. XCII. The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth ; He that is lonely, hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth. Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth. But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. XCIII. Let such approach this consecrated land, And pass in peace along the magic waste ; But spare its relics — let no busy hand Deface the scenes, already how defaced! Not for such purpose were these altars placed ; Revere the remnants nations once revered : So may our country's name be undisgraced, So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear" A By every honest joy of love and life endear'd! XCIV. For thee, who thus in too protracted song Hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng Of louder minstrels in these later days ; To such resign the strife for fading bays, — 111 may such contest now the spirit move Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise; Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please, when none are left to love. XCV. Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one ! Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me, Who did for me what none beside have done, Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. What is my being ? thou hast ceased to be ! Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see : Would they had never been, or were to come ! Would he had ne'er returned, to find fresh cause to roam. XCYI. Oh ! ever loving, lovely, and beloved ! How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed ! But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. [hast. All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death ! thou The parent, friend, and now the more than friend ; Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. XCVII. Then must I plunge again into the crowd, And follow all that Peace disdains to seek ? Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud. False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek. To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak ; Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer. To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ; Smiles form the channel of a future tear, Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer. XCVIII. What is the worst of woes that wait on age ? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastoner hnmbly let me how O'er hearts divided, and o'er hopes destroy'd ; Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd, And wlh the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO III. •' Ann que cer.e application vous format tie penser a autre chose ; il n'y a en lirite tie remede que celui-la et le lemps." — Leltre du Roi de Prusse a. '•■Alembert, Sept. 7, 1776. Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then ive parted, — not as now we part, But with a hope. — Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me ; and on high The winds lift up then- voices : I depart, "Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye. II. Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar ! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead ! Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on ; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. III. In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind ; Again I seize the theme then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards : in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a steril track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower appears. IV. Since my young days of passion — joy, or pain, Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, And both may jar ; it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, So that it ween me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. He, who grown aged in this world of wo, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him ; nor below Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell Still unimpair'd, though old, i:i the soul's haunted cell. VI. 'Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form or fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. What am I ? Nothing : but not so art thou, Soul of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth. Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth. VII. Yet must I think less wildly : — I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame ; And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late ! Yet am I changed ; though still enough the sam* In strength to bear what time can not abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. VIII. Something too much of this ; — but now 'tis past, And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long absent Harold reappears at last ; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him [heal; In soul and aspect as in age : years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb ; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quaff' d too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood ; but he fill'd again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deem'd its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd, for ever fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'dnot; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, , Entering with every step he took through many a scene. Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind ; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation ; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Natrare'i hand. XL But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek To wear it ? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, Nor feci the heart can never all grow old ? Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ? Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fend prime. 88 BYRON'S WORKS XII. But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man ; with whom he held Little in common ; untaught to submit [quell' d His thoughts to others, though his soul was In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompell'd, He would not yield dominion of his mind To spirits against whom his own rebell'd ; Proud though in desolation ; which could find A life within itself, to breath without mankind. XIII. Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam ; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship ; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake. XIV. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born And human frailties, were forgotten quite : [jars, Could he have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy ; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. XV. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Droop'd as a wild- born falcon with dipt wing, To whom the boundless ah alone were home : Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his why dome Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. XVI. Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom ; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, [wreck Which, though 'twere wild, — as on the phmder'd When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. XVII. Stop ! — For thy tread is on an Empire's dust . An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below ! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust ? Nor column trophied for triumphal show ? None ; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — How that red rain hath made the harvest grow ! And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, Vhou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ? XVIII. And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo ; How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! In "pride of place " ' here last the eagle flew, Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; Ambition's life and labors all were vain ; He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broke* chain. XIX. Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more free ? Did nations combat to make One submit ; Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ? What ! shall reviving Thraldom again be The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days ? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage ? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones ? No : prove before ya praise ! XX. If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more ! In vain fan cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain, years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions : all that most endears Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. XXI There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; 3 But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! XXII. Did ye not hear it ? — No ; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; On with the dan-ce ! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — But, hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! XXIII. Within a window'd niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could queli. He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting fell CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 3& XXIV. Ah ! then and there was hunting to and fro, And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness ; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Eince upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ? XXV. And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips — " The foe ! They come ! they come ! " XXVI. And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills [rose ! Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instills The stirring memory of a thousand years, And 4 Evan's, 3 Donald's fame rings in each clans- man's ears ! XXVII. And Ardennes 6 waves above them her green leaves Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. XXVIII. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty'§ circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, ' The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day Battle's magnificently-stern array ! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent ! XXIX. Their praise is hynvn'd by loftier harps than mine ; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong, And partly that bright names will hallow song ; And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd, They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard ! XXX. There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, And mine were nothing, had I such to give ; But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, And saw around me the wide field revive With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring. 7 XXXI. I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom tc teach Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of May for a moment sooth, it cannot slake [Fame The fever of vain longing, and the name So honcr'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. XXXII. They mourn, but smile at length ; and, smiling, The tree will wither long before it fall ; [mourn : The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn: The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the^all In massy hoariness ; the ruin'd wall Stands when its wind- worn battlements are gone ; The bars survive the captive they enthral ; [sun ; The day drags through tho' storms keep out the And thus the heart mil break, yet brokenly live on XXXIII. Even as a broken mirror, which the glass In every fragment multiplies ; and makes A thousand images of one that was, The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such things are untoW XXXIV. There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison, — a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it were As nothing did we die ; but Life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the 8 Dead Sea's shore, All ashes to the taste : Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years ot life, — say, would he name threescore ? XXXV. The Psalmist number'd out the years of rr.nn •■ They are enough ; and if thy talc be true, Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span, More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo ! Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say— " Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day ! " And this is much, and all which will not pass away 40 BYRON'S WORKS. XXXVI. There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, Whose spirit antithetically mixt One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixt, Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been ; For daring made thy rise as fall : thou seek'st Even now to reassume the imperial mien, ^nd shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene ! XXXVII. Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. XXXVIII. Oh, more or less than man — in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field ; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. XXXIX. Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide, With that untaught innate philosophy, Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; — [smiled When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled. XL. Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could contemn Men and their thoughts ; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use, Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow : 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. XLI. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock ; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy Their admiration thy best weapon shone ; [throne. The part of Philip's son was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ; For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den ! 9 XLII. But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. XLIII. This makes the madmen who have made men ma Mustoxidi, Agiletti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honorable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Let- tres ; and in some of the very highest ; — Europe — the World — has but one Canova. It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that " La pianta uomo nasce piii robusta in Italia che in qua- lunque altra terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disj. puted on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neigh- bors, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admis- sible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisi- tions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the des- olation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched "longing after immortality," — the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the laborers' chorus, " Roma ! Rorr.a ! Roma ! Roma non e piii come era prima," it was difficult not to contrast this rrftlancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the car- nage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men Whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me, " Non movero mai corda 0*"e la turba di sue ciance assorda." What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till \% becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a »£»■ pended Habeas Corpus ; it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, " Verily they will have their reward," and at no very distant period. Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state ; and repeat once more how truly I am ever Your obliged and affectionate friend, BYRON. I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ; l A palace and a prison on each hand : I saw from out the wave her structures rise A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles ! II. She looks a sea-Cybele fresh from ocean Rising with her tiara of proud towers 2 v At airy distance, with majestic motion, And such she was ; her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap ah gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity in- creased. III. In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more, 3 And silent rows the songless gondolier ; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear : Those days are gone — but beauty still is here — States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die : Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy. IV. But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway ; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto ; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierra, cannot be swept or worn away— The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore. V. The beings of the mind are not of clay ; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence : that which fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate ; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died. And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 49 VI. W touch is the refugi of our youth and age, The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy ; And this worn feeling peoples many a page, And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye ; Yet there are things whose strong reality Outshines our fairy-land ; in shape and hues More beautiful than our fantastic sky, And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse : VII. I saw or dream'd of such, — but let them go — They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams ; And whatsoe'er the}' were — are now but so : I could replace them if I would ; still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found ; Let these too go — for waking reason deems Such overweening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround. VIII. I've taught me other tongues — and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger ; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise ; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with — ay, or without mankind ; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause ; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, IX. Perhaps I loved it well ; and should I lay My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it — if we may Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine My hopes of being remember'd in my line With my land's language : if too fond and far These aspirations in their scope incline, — If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar My name from out the temple where the dead Are honor'd by the nations — let it be — And light the laurels on a loftier head ! And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — *• Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." 4 Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed : I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. XL The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; And, annual marriage now no more renew'd, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood ! St. Mark yet sees his Lion where he stood 5 Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power, Over the proud place where an Emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. 7 XII. The Saubian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — • An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptered cities ; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! 7 Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe XIII. Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? s Are they not bridled? — Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun. Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. XIV. In youth she was all glory, — a new Tyre,— Her very by-word sprung from victory, The " Planter of the Lion," 9 which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea ; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite ; Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. XV. Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, Have yielded to the stranger ; empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, 10 Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. XVI. When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, And fettcr'd thousands bore the yoke of war Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 11 Her voice their only ransom from afar ; See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. XVII. Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot Which tics thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, Albion ! to thee : the Ocean queen should not Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall Of Venice think of thine, despite thy waterv wal} Y 50 BYRON'S WORKS. XVIII. I loved her from my boyhood— she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water-columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; ' And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, 12 Hid stamp'd her image in me, and even so, Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance even dearer in her day of wo, Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. XIX. I can repeople with the past — and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And meditation chastened down, enough ; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought ; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice ! have their colors caught : There are some feelings Time can not benumb, Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. XX. But from their nature will the tanncn grow 13 Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks, Rooted in barrenness, where nought below Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks The howling tempest, till its height and frame Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same. XXI. Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of life and sufferance make its firm abode In bare and desolate bosoms : mute The camel labors with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd In vain should such example be ; if they, Things of ignoble or of savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. XXII. All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, Even by the sufferer ; and in each event, Ends : — Some with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd, Return to whence they came — with like intent, And weave their web again ; some, bow'd and bent, Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, And perish with the reed on which they leant ; Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb : XXIII. But e\ er and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever : it may be a sound — A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring — A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound, striking the electrii chain wherewith we are darkly bound ; XXIV. And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, [anew, The cold — the changed — perchance the dead— « The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too many ! — yet how few ! XXV. But my soul wanders ; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track ' Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, XXVI. The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome I And even since, and now, fair Italy ! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree : Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility ; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced. XXVII. The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colors seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure ah — an island of the blest! XXVIII. A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 14 Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rha:tian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order : — gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd withic it glows, XXIX. Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar, Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change ; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till— 'tis gone— and all U gray. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 51 XXX. XXXVI. There is a tomb in Arqua, — rear'd in air, Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose The bones of Laura's lover ; here repair Many familiar with his well-sung woes, The pilgrims of his genius. He arose To raise a language, and his land reclaim From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes : Watering the tree which bears his lady's name I3 With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. XXXI. They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died ; 16 The mountain-village where his latter days Went down the vale of years ; and 'tis their pride — An honest pride — and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger's gaze His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain, Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. XXXII. And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt Is one of that complexion which seems made For those who their mortality have felt, And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, Which shows a distant prospect far away Of busy cities, now in vain display'd, For they can lure no further ; and the ray Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, — XXXIII. Developing the mountains, leaves and flowers, And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours With a calm languor, which, though to the eye Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. If from society we learn to live, 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die ; It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive : XXXIV. Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 17 The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell and hell itself a murkier gloom. XXXV. Ferrara ! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as 'twere a curse upon the scats Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before And Tasso is their glory and their shame. Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell! And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame, And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell : The miserable despot could not quell The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scatter'd the clouds away — and on that name attend XXXVII. The tears and praises of all time ; while thine Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line Is shaken into nothing ; but the link Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn — Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink From thee ! if in another station born, Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn : XXXVIII. Thou ! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty : He with a glory round his furrow'd brow, Which emanated then, and dazzles now, In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 18 [lyfe, No strain which shamed his country's creaking That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire ! XXXIX. Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 'twas hk In life and death to be the mark where Wrong Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss. Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song ! Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long The tide of generations shall roll on, And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine ? though all in one Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun. XL. Great as thou art, yet paralell'd by those, Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, The bards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; Then not unequal to the Florentine, The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth A new creation with his magic line, And, like the Ariosto of the North, Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightlv worth. XLI. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 19 The iron crown of laurel's mimie'd leaves Nor was the ominous element unjust, For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves * Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, And the false semblance but disgraced his brow , Yet still if fondly Superstition grieves, Know, that the lighning sanctifies below 21 Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred now 52 BYRON'S WORKS. X^II. Italia ! oh Italia ! thou who hast 22 The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, — On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. Oh God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress : XLIII. Then might'st thou more appal ; or, less, desired. Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms ; then, still untircd, Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. XLIV. "Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 23 The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind, The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, Came Megara before me, and behind .ZBgma lay, Piraeus on the right, ' And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined Along the prow, and saw all these unite In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; ^ XLV. For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site, Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light, And the crush'd relics of their vanish' d might. The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, These sepulchres of cities, which excite Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. XLVI. That page is now before me, and on mine His country's ruin added to the mass Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, And I in desolation : all that was Of then destruction is ; and now, alas ! Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, In the same dust and blackness, and we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form, 24 Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. XLVII. Yet, Italy ! through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side ; Mother of arts ! as once of arms ; thy hand Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! Europe, repentant of her parricide, Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven. Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. XLVIII. But Arno wins us to the fair white walls. Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps ^ A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps. Was modern Luxury of Commerce born. And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn XLIX. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills a The air around with beauty ; we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality ; the veil Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What mind can make, when Nature's self would And to the fond idolaters of old [fail ; Envy the innate flesh which such a soul could mould : We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there- Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart. Away ! — there need no words, nor terms precis*, The paltry jargon of the marble mart, Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : Blood — pulse — and breast, confirm the Dardan Shep- herd's prize. LI. Appear'dst thou not in Paris in this guise ? Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or, In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War ? And gazing in thy face as toward a star, Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! 26 while thy lips are With lava kisses melting while they burn, Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn ! LII. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate That feeling to express, or to improve, The gods become as mortals, and man's fate Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us : — let it go ! We can recall such visions, and create, [grow From what has been, or might be, things which Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. Lin. Heave to learned fingers, and wise hands, The artist and his ape, to teach and tell How well his connoisseurship understands The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell ; Let these describe the undescribable : [stream I would not their vile breath should crisp the Wherein that image shall for ever dwell ; The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 5J LIV. In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 27 Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Even in itself an immortality. Though there were nothing save the past, and this, The particle of those sublimities Which have relapsed to chaos : — here repose Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, 2s The starry Galileo, with his woes ; Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. 29 LV. These are four minds, which, like the elements, Might furnish forth creation : — Italy ! [rents Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, And hath denied, to every other sky, Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay Is still impregnate with divinity, Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. LVI. But where repose the all Etruscan three — Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, The Bard of Prose, creative spirit ! he Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, And have their country's marbles nought to say ? Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust ? LVII. Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, 30 Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; 31 Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore Their children's children would in vain adore With the remorse of ages ; and the crown & Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, His .life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine own. LVIII. Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd s 3 His dust, — and lies it now her Great among, With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue ? That music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb Uptorn, must bear the hyama bigot's wrong, No more amidst the meaner dead find room, Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom ! LIX. And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, Yet for this want more noted, as of yore The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more: Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, Fortress of falling empire ! honor'd sleeps The immortal exile ; — Arqua, too, her store Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, IVhile Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and w«eps. LX. What is her pyramid of precious stones ?** Of phorphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones Of merchant-dukes ? the momentary dews Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, Whose names are the mausoleums of the muse, Are gently prest with far more reverent tread Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. LXI. There be more things to greet tte heart and eyes In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; There be more marvels yet — but not for mind ; For I have been accustom'd to entwine My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, Than Art in galleries : though a work divine Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wield* LXII. Is of another temper, and I roam By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home, For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles Come back before me, as his skill beguiles The host between the mountains and the shore. Where Courage falls in her despairing files, And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore, Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er LXIII. Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds ; And such the storm of battle on this day, And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blind* To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray / An ear#iquake reel'd unheedingly away ! M None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, And yawning forth a grave for those who lay Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet ! LXIV. The Earth to them was as a rolling bark Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw The Ocean round, but had no time to mark The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, In them suspended, rcck'd not of the awe [birds Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds Stumbling o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words. LXV. Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — A little rill of scanty stream and bed — A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain • And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and tnrn'd the unwilling water! red. 54 BYRON'S WORKS. LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave 36 Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes ; the purest god of gentle waters ! And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — (l mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daugh- ters ! LXVII. And on thy happy shore a temple still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, Upon a mild declivity of hill, Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bub- bling tales. LXVIII. Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! If through the air a zephyr more serene Win to the brow, 'tis his ; and if ye trace Along his margin a more eloquent green, If on the heart the freshness of the scene Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. LXIX. The roar of waters ! from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice ; The fall of waters ! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shaking the atyss ; The hell of waters ! where they howl and bias, And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That girds the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, LXX. And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald : — how profound The gulf ! and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows More like the fountain of an infant sea Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, [back ! With many windings, through the vale : — Look Lo ! where it comes like an eternity, As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread. — a matchless cata- ract. 3 . 7 LXXII. Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the glittering mora, An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 313 Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn ; Resembling, 'mid the tortiu'e of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which — had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar The thundering lauwine — might be worshipp'd more : 39 But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never trodden snow, and seen the hoar Glaciers of bleak Mount-Blanc both far and near, And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, LXXIV. Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, For still they soar'd unutterably high ; I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; Athos, Olympus, iEtna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity, All, save the lone Soracte's heights display'a Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid LXXV. For our remembrance, and from out the plain Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain May he, who will, nis recollections rake And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latian echoes ; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill' d dull lesson, forced down word by word 40 In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record LXXVI. Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, [taught Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought By the impatience of my early thought, That, with the freshness wearing out before My mind could relish what it might have sought If free to choose, I cannot now lestore Its health ; but what it then detested, stil! abhor. LXXVII. Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hat^d so, Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a ciuse To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, To comprehend, but never love thy verse, Although no deeper moralist rehearse Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, Awakening- without wounding the touch'd heart, Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 55 LXXVIII. Oh Rom» ! my country ! city of the soul ! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, Lone mother of dead empires ! and control In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! Whose agonies are evils of a day — k. world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe of nations ! there she stands Childless and crownless, in her voiceless wo, An empty urn, within her wither'd hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago ; The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now; 41 The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climb'd the capitol ; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night ? LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap All round us ; we but feel our way to err : The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap Our hands, and cry "Eureka! " it is clear — When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. LXXXII. Alas ! the lofty city ! and alas ! The trebly hundred triumphs ! 42 and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see that brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free ! LXXXIII. Oh, thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, 43 Triumphant Sylla ! Thou, who didst subdue Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown Annihilated senates — Roman, too, With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown — LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine To what would one day dwindle that which made Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid ? She who was named Eternal, and array'd Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd, Until the o'ercanopied horizon fail'd, Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was Almighty hail'd ! LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors ; but our own The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See What crimes it costs to be a moment free And famous through all ages ! but beneath His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; His day of double victory and death Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield nii breath. LXXXVI. The third of the same moon whose former course Had all but crown'd him, on the selfsame day Deposed him gently from his throne of force, And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.* 4 And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and swajr And all we deem delightful, and consume Our souls to compass through each arduous way, Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? Were they but so in man's, how different were nls doom. LXXXVH. And thou, dread statue ! yet exist in 45 The austerest form of naked majesty, Thou who beheld'st 'mid the assassins' din, At thy bathed base the bloody C;esar lie, Folding his robe in dying dignity, An offering to thine altar from the queen Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die, And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? LXXXVIII. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! *• She-wolf! whose brazen -imaged dugs impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome Where, as a monument of antique art, Thou standest : — Mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etherial dart, And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? LXXXIX. Thou dost ; — but all thy foster babes are dead— The men of iron ; and the world hath rear'd Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled In imitation of the things they fear'd, [steer'd And fought and conquer'd, and the same course At apish distance ; but as yet none have, Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd, Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 56 BYRON'S WORKS. XC. The fooi of false dominion — and a kind Of bastard Caesar, following him of old "With steps unequal : for the Roman's mind Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould, 47 With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, And an immortal instinct which redeem'd The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd. XCI. And came— and saw — and conquer'd ! But the man Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van, Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; With but one weakest weakness — vanity, Coquettish in ambition — still he aim'd — M what? can he avouch — or answer what he claim' d ? XCII. And would be all or nothing — nor could wait For the sure grave to level him ; few years Had fix'd him with the Caesars in his fate On whom we tread : For this the conqueror rears The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears And blood of earth flow on as they have fiow'd, An universal deluge, which appears Without an ark for wretched man's abode, And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy rainbow, God ! XCIII. What from this barren being do we reap ? Our senses narrow, and cur reason frail, 43 Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale : Opinion and Omnipotence, — whose veil Mantles the earth with darkness, until right And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale Lest their own judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. XCIV. And thus they plod in sluggish misery, Rotting from she to son, and age to age, Proud of then- trampled nature, and so die, Bequeathing their hereditary rage To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage War for their chains, and rather than be free, Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage Within the same arena where they see Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. xcv. I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between Man and his Maker, — but of things allow'd, Aver'd and known, — and daily, hourly seen — The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd, And the intent of tyranny avow'd. The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown The apes of him who humbled once the proud, And shook them from their slumbers on the throne ; Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. XCVI. Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be, And Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise when she Sprung forth a Pallas, arrn'd and undefiled ? Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe n.2 suck shore ? XCVII. But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, And fatal have her Saturnalia been To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; Because the deadly days which we have seen, And vile Ambition, that built up between Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, And the base pageant last upon the scene, Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his second fall. XCVIII. Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Screams like the thunder-storm against the wind The trumpet voice, though broken now and dying The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ; Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth, But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. XCIX. There is a stern round tower of other days,* 3 Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, Such as an army's baffled strength delays, Standing with half its battlements alone, And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity, where wave The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ;— » What was this tower of strength ? within its cave What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid ? — A woman's grave. C. But who was she, the lady of the dead, Tomb'd in a palace ? was she chaste and fair ? Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? How lived — how loved — how died she ? Was sh« So honor'd — and conspicusly there, [not Where meaner relics mnst not dare to rot, Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? CI. Was she as those who love their lords, or they Who love the lords of others ? such have been Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war, Inveterate in virtue ? did she lean To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affeo tions are. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 57 CII. Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bow'd With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favorites — early death; yet shed 50 A sunset charm around her, and illume With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of lier consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. CHI. Perchance she died in age — surviving all, Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray On her long tresses, which might yet recall, It may be, still a something of the day When they were braided, and her proud array And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed By Rome But whither would Conjecture stray ? Thus much alone we know — Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife; behold his love or pride ! CIV. I know not why — but standing thus by thee, It seems as if I had thine inmate known, Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me With recollected music, though the tone Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone Till I had bodied forth the heated mind Forms from the flowing wreck which Ruin leaves behind ; CV. And from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks, Built me a little bark of hope, once more To battle with the ocean and the shocks Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar Which rushes on the solitary shore Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear : But could I gather from the wave-worn store Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. CVI. Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony Shall henceforth be my music, and the night The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry, As I now hear them, in the fading light Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, Answering each other on the Palatine, [bright, With their large eyes, all glistening gray and And sailing pinions. — Upon such a shrine What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. CVIL Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown [steep'd In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd, Deeming it midnight: — Temples, baths, or halls ? Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reap'd From her research hath been, that these are walls — Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus the mighty falls. 51 8 CVII1. There is the moral of all human tales ; 52 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here, Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amass'd All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! draw near, CIX. Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep, — for here There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled, Of Glory's gewgags shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd ! Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build ? CX. Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base ! What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow ? Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, Titus or Trajan's ? No — 'tis that of Time : Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sub- lime, 53 CXI. Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, And looking to the stars : they had contain'd A spirit which with these would find a home The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd. The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd, But yielded back his conquests : — he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd, With household blood and wine, serenely wore His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 54 CXII. Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the Tarpeian ? fittest goal of Treason's race, [steep The promontory whence the Traitor's leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero ! CXIII. The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, From the first hour of empire in the bud To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd ; But long before had freedom's face been veil'd, And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; Till every lawless soldier who assail'd Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes Or raised the venal voice of. baser prostitutes 58 BYRON'S WORKS. CXIV. Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, from her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — Rienzi ! last of Romans ! While the tree 55 Of freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — The forum's champion, and the people's chief — Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas ! too brief. cxv. Egeira ! sweet creation of some heart M Which found no mortal-resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair ; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring ; whatsoe'er thy birth, Ihou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. CXVI. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water drops ; the face Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep CXVII. Fantastically tangled ; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems color'd by its skies. CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ; The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, Blend a celestial with a human heart ; And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighiag, Share with immortal transports ? could thine art Make them indeed immortal, and impart The purity of heaven to earthly joys, Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — The dull satiety which all destroys — |md root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? cxx. Alas ! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert ; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; such the plan-* Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. CXXI. Oh Love ? no habitant of earth thou art — An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, Even with its own desiring phantasy, And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied—* wrung — and riven. CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation : — where, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized t In him alone. Can Nature show so fair ? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? CXXIII. Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy — but the cure Is bitterer still ; as charm by charm unwind Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize — wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp away — Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslak'd the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first— But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 'tis the same, Each idle — and all ill — and none the worst — For all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. exxv. Few — none — find what they love or could have loved, Though accident, blind contact, and the strong Necessity of loving, have removed Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong ; And Circumstance, that unspiritual god And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have trod. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 59 CXXVI. Our life is a false nature — 'tis not in The harmony of things, — this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,' "Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly — 'tis a base 57 Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought — our last and only place Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine : Though from our birth the faculty divine Is chain'd and tortured — cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared mind, The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. CXXVIII. Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, "Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of the earth, which Time hathbent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruin'd battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. exxx. Oh Time ! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And only healer when the heart hath bled — Time ! the corrector where our judgments err, The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift, "Which never loses though it doth defer — Time, the avenger ! unto thee I lift My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift: CXXXI. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate : — If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne Good, and reserved my pride against the hate "Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? CXXXII. And thou, who never yet of human wrong Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! M Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long— Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss, And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss. For that unnatural retribution— just, Had it but been from hands less near — in this Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! Dost thou not hear my heart ? — Awake ! thou shalt, and must. CXXXIII. It is not that I may not have incurr'd For my ancestral faults or mine the wouni I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd "With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound; But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take [found, The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and Which if i" have not taken for the sake But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake CXXXIV. And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now I shrink from what is suffer'd : let him speak "Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak ; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes ; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse ! exxxv. That curse shall be Forgiveness. — Have I not — Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven !— Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven ? Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away ? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. CXXXVI. From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do ? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to hapiy fools its speechless obloquy. CXXXVII. But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. bO BYRON'S WORKS. CXXXVIII. The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! Nameless yet thus omnipotent, which here Walk'st in. the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene . Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. CXXXIX. And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, As man was slaughter'd by his fellow-man. And wherefore slaughter'd ? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot , CXL. I see before me the Gladiator lie : 59 He leans upon his hand — his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow^.j From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him — he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. CXLI. He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away. He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother, — he, their sire, Butcher' d to make a Roman holiday — 60 All this rush'd with his blood — Shall he expire And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your ire ! CXLII. But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam, And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, 61 My voice sounds much — and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void — seats crush'd — walls bow'd — And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. CXLIIL A ruin — yet what ruin ! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities have been rear'd; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd. Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd ? Alas ! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is near'd ; It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. CXLIV. But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; When the stars twinkle through the loops of timq And 'the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head ; 62 "When the light shines serene but doth not glare Then in this magic circle raise the dead : Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on their dust y« tread. CXLV. " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; • "When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; "And when Rome falls — the World." From oul own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unalter'd all ; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will. CXLVI. Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; M Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and tyrant's Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home [rods Of art and Piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Rome ! CXLVII. Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts ! Despoil'd yet perfect, with thy circle spreads A holiness appealing to all hearts — To art a model ; and to him who treads Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; And they who feel for genius may repose Their eyes on honored forms, whose busts around them close. 63 CXLVIII. There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear /ight" What do I gaze on ? Nothing : Look again ! Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight — Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so ; I see them full and plain — An old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar : — but what does she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare? CXLIX. Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart, and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not — Cain wa* Eve's. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 64 CL. But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift : — it is her she To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth.. No ; he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide [higher Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm holds no such tide. CLI. The starry fable of the milky way Has not thy story's purity ; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds : — Oh, holiest nurse ! No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss To thy she's heart, replenishing its source With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. CLII. Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high, 67 Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome : How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic niirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! CLIII. But lo ! — the dome — the vast and wondrous dome, 68 To which Diana's marvel was a cell — Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell The hyena and the jackall in their shade ; I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd; CLIV. But thou, of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — Worthiest of God, the holy and the true, Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook his former city, what could be, Of earthly structures, in his honor piled, Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. CLV. Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; And why ? it is not lessen'd ; but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. CLVI. Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; Vastness which grows — but grows to harmonize—" All musical in its immensities ; [flame Rich marbles — richer painting — shrines where The lamps of gold — and haughty dcmc which vies In ah with Earth's chief structure, though then frarco Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the cloud* must claim. CLVII. Thou seest not all ; but piecemeal thou must brean To seperate contemplation, the great whole ; And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul To more immediate objects, and control Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart Its eloquent proportions, and unroll In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, CLVIII. Not by its fault — but thine : Our outward sense Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is That what we have of feeling most intense Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great Defies at first our Nature's littleness, Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size of what they contemplate. CLIX. Then pause, and be enlightened ; there is mcie In such a survey than the sating gaze Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore The worship of the place, or the mere praise Of art and its great masters, who could raise What former time, nor skill, nor thought could The fountain of sublimity displays [plan : Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of -nan Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. CLX. Or, turning to the Vatican, go see LaoccoOn's torture dignifying pain — A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending : — Tain The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench ; the long envenomed chaui Rivets the living links, — the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. CLXI. Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and light — The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, And majesty, flash their full lightnings by Developing in that one glance the Deitv 62 BYRON'S WORKS. CLXII. But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Long'd for a deathless lover from above, And madden'd in that vision — are exprest All that ideal beauty ever bless'd The mind with in its most unearthly mood, "When each conception was a heavenly guest — A ray of immortality — and stood, Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god ! CLXIII. And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath array'd With an eternal glory — which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought ; And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust — nor hath it caught A. tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought. CLXIV. But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, ' The being who upheld it through the past ? Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. He is no more — these breathings are his last, His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, And he himself as nothing : — if he was Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, CLXV. Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all That we inherit in its mortal shroud, And spreads the dim and universal pall [cloud Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd, Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays A melancholy halo scarce allow'd To hover on the verge of darkness ; rays Badder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, CLXVI. And send us prying into the abyss To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this Its wretched essence ; and to dream of fame, And to wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear, — but never more, Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : It is enough in sooth that mice we bore These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat was gore. CLXVII. Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, A long low distant murmur of dread sound, Such as arises when a nation bleeds With some deep and immedicable wound; [ground, Through storm and darkness yawns the rending The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrow'd, And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 8he clasps a babe to w-hom her breast yields no relief. CLXVIII. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thoa ? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead ? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head ? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, Death hush'd that pang for ever ; with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for One ; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! CLXX. Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made ; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes : in the dust The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions ! How we did intrust Futurity to her ! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherd's eyes : — 'twas but a meteor beam'd. CLXXI. Wo unto us, not her ; for she sleeps well : The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate* 9 Which stumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath Against thair blind omnipotence a weight [flung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon 01 late, — CLXXII. These might have been her destiny ; but no, » Our hearts deny it : and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe ; But now a bride and mother — and now there ! How many ties did that stern moment tear ! From thy She's to his humblest subject's breast Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and oppresJ The land which loved thee so that none could lovi thee best. CLXXIII 70 Lo, Nemi ! navell'd in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snak« CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 63 CLXXIV. And neai Albano's scarce divided waves Shine fro n a sister valley ; — and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war, "Arms and the Man," whose reascending star Rose o'er an empire : — but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome ; — and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight, The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bards delight. 71 CLXXV. But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part, — so let it be, — His task and mine alike are nearly done ; Yet once more let us look upon the sea ; The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd CLXXYI. Upon the blue Symplegades : long years— » Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both ; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our moral race hath run, "We have had our reward — and it is here : That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, An#reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear A.s if th«.re were no man to trouble what is clear. CLXXYII. Oh ! that the desert were my dwelling-place "With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her ! Ye Elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 'I feel myself exalted — Can ye not Accord me such a being ? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot, CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the "Universe, and feel Who'': I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth rernahi A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncofrin'd, and un- known. CLXXX. His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise [wields And shake him from thee : the vile strength he For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war : These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— • Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they P Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests : in all time, Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime-" The image of Eternity — the throne Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomleet alone. CLXXXIY. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me "Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, j And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 64 BYRON'S WORKS. CLXXXV. My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme Has died into an echo ; it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — "Would it were worthier ! but I am not now That which I have been — and my visions flit Less palpably before me — and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. CLXXXVI. Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been— A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell i Ye ! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell ; Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain, If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE CANTO I. Yes 1 sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine. Stanza i. line 6. The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock. " One," said the guide, " of a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth ; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cow-house. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery ; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the moun- tain ; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausahias From this part descend the fountain and the " Dews of Castalie." And rest ye at our " Lady's house of too." Stanza xx. line 4. The Convent of " Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Senora de Pena,* on the sun:mit of the rock. Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty of the view. • Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misappre- hension of the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word : with It, Pena signifies a rock ; without it, Pena has the sense 1 adopted. 1 do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as, though the common acceptation affixed to it is " Our Lady of the Rock," 1 may well assume the other sense from th» eewaities practised there. 3. Throughout this purple land, where lata secures not life. Stanza xxi. line last. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen ; but that Englishmen were daily butchered : and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop and in a carriage with a friend ; had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal ; in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished ! 4. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! Stanza xxiv. line 1. The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies ol Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders ; he has perhaps changed the character of a nation, recon ciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. Stanza xxix. line 1. The extent of Mafra is prodigious ; it contains a NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 6* pala;e, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decorations ; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendor. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. 6. Well doth the Spanish hind the difference knoic 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. Stanza xxxiii. lines 8 and 9. As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. 7. When Cava's traitor sire first call' A the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore. Stanza xxxv. lines 3 and 4. Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fast- nesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Grenada : Fernando Septimo" in No ! as he speeds, he chants, " Viva el Rey .'" Stanza xlviii. line 5. "Viva, el Rey Fernando !" Long live King Fer- dinand ! is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs : they are chiefly in dispraise of the aid king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them ; some of the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. 9. Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet. Stanza 1. lines 2 and 3. The red cockade, with the centre. 10. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. Stanza li. line last. All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville. 11. FoiVd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall. Stanza lvi. line last. Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza. When the author was at Seville she walked "daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. 12. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd Denotes hoip soft that chin which bears his touch. Stanza lviii. lines 1 and 2. " Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem." Aul. Gel. 13. Oh, thou Parnassus ! Stanza lx. line 1. These stanzas were written in Castri, (Delphos,) at the foot of Parnassus, now called Aiaxvpa — Liakura. 9 14. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days. Stanza lxv. lines 1 and 2 Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. 15. Ask ye, Boeotian shades, the reason why f Stanza lxx. line 5. This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such it question : not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Bosotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved. 16. Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. Stanza lxxxii. line last. "Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat." Luc. 17. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. Stanza lxxxv. line 7. Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the Governor of Cadiz. 18. "War even to the knife!" Stanza lxxxvi. line last. War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza. 19. And thou, my friend ! §c. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honorable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coinbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I had lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction : " Insatiate archer ! could not one suffice ? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn." I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honors, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired: while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. CANTO II. l. despite of war and wasting fire Stanza i. line 4. Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by th« explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. 66 BYRON'S WORKS. But worse than steel and flame, and ages slow, Is the dread, sceptre and dominion dire Of men 10/10 never felt the sacred (/low That thoughts of thee and thine on polish' d breasts bestoic. Stanza i. line 6. We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld; the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues of patriotism to exalt, and of valor to defend his country, appear more con- spicuous than in the record of what Athens was and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of gen erals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agent; of certain British nobility and gentry. " The wild foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Baby- lon," were surely less degrading than such inhab- itants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest ; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman ! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens ; but it remained for the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire, during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard: it changed its worshippers ; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion ; its violation is a triple sacrilege. But " Man, vain man, Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep." 3. Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. Stanza v. line 2. It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead ; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease ; and he was indeed neg- lected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honor of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c, and at last even Anti- nous, whose death was as heroic as his life was in- famous. 4. Here, son of Saturn ! teas thy favorite throne. Stanza x. line 3. The temple of Jupitur Olympius, of which six- teen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive ; orig- inally there were one hundred and fifty. These columns, however, are by many supposed ±o belong to the Pantheon. 5. And bear these altars o'er the long reluctant brine. Stanza xi. line last The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago. To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time have spared. Stanza xii. line 2. At this moment, (January 3, 1809,) besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyneus to receive every portable telws Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in common with many of his countrymen — for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion — thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the agent of devastation ; and like the Greek finder of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of plunder. Between this artist and the French Con- snl Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains for his own government, there is now a violent dispute concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the wheel of which — I wish they were both broken upon it — has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri has laid his complaint before the Waywodc. Lord Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of Signor Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far as Sunium,* till he accompanied us in our second excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, are most beautiful ; but they are almost all unfin- ished. While he and his patrons confine them- selves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their little absurdities are as harmless as insect or fox- hunting, maiden speechifying, barouche-driving, or any such pastime ; but when they carry away three or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy relics that time and barbarism have left to the most injured and most celebrated of cities ; when they destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works which have been the admiration of ages, I know no motive which can excuse, no name which can desig- nate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge of Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. The mos,t un- blushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis ; while the wanton and useless deface- ment of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration. On this occasion I speak impartially : I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival ; but I have some early prepossession in favor of Greece, and do not think the honor of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica. Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less ; but some others, more or less noble, yet " all honorable men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to * Now Cape Colonna. Jn all Attica, if we except Athens itself, and Marathon, there is no scene more Interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observa- tion and design ; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome ; and the traveller will be struck with the beaut)' of the prospect over " Isles tliat crown the AZgcan deep:" but fcr an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recol- lection of Falcone ■■ and Campbell : "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Minutes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing v. ry sagaciously, but Isely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved uur party, which was too small to lu.ve opposed any effectual resistance. donna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates : there " The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque." (See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, &t , £ut there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for heneiT. 1 was fortunate enough to engage a Tery superior German artist J and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levariine scenes, by the arrive, of his performances. .NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. bl the "Waywode, mining and countermining, they have done nothing at all. We had such ink-shed, and wine- shed, which almost ended in bloodshed ! Lord E.'s " prig " — see Jonathan Wild for the definition of " priggism " — quarrelled with another, Gropius* by name, (a very good name too for his business,) and muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prussian : this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to re- member their squabble, for they wanted to make me their arbitrator. 7- Her softs too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains. Stanza xii. lines 7 and 8. I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his ';o me, as a note to the above lines. "When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and in moving of it, great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, eaid to Lusieri, TeAmc \ — I -was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the pres- ent Disdar. . 8. Where was thine JEgis, Pallas ! that appall' d Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way f Stanza xiv. lines 1 and 2. According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis ; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischiev- ous as the Scottish peer.— See Chandler. the netted canopy. Stanza xviii. line 2. The netting to prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action. 10. But not in silence 2>ass Calypso's isles Stanza xxix. line 1. Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso. 11. Land of Albania .' let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men! Stanza xxxviii. lines 5 and 6. Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander ; and the celebrated Scander- berg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scandcrberg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pclla in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, • This Sir Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels; but 1 am sorry to say, that he has, through ii used sanction or that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance In the steps of Sr. Lusieri. A shiplull ol his trophies was detitined, and 1 believe confie ttantinople, in 1810. 1 am most hippy to be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, arid that his noble patron disavows all coiiucxi ion with him, except as an artist. If th ■ error hi the first and Becond edition of this porn) has given the nob] ■ lord ii meni'i pain I am very sorry ibr it; flr. Gropius has assumed lor years the name of his agent : and though 1 care not much condemn myself for sharing in tie- mistake ol so many, I am happy in lieing one of the first to he undeceroyd. Indeed, 1 have as much pleasure in contradicUng this as 1 felt regret is stating iu and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his ex- ploits. Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country within sight of Italy is less known than the inte- rior of America." Circumstances, of little conse- quence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions ; and, witli the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (Oc- tober, 1809), carrying on war against Ibraham Pacha, whom he had driven to Herat, a strong for- tress which he was then besieging : on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepoleni, his high ness's birthplace, and favorite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat ; at this juncture the Vizier had made it his head-quarters. After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed ; but though furnished with every accom- modation, and escorted by one of the vizier's secre fhries, we were nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey which, on our return, barely occupied four. On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and Liboehabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in size ; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper. On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may proba- bly precede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him. But some few observations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder cli- mate. The kilt, though white ; the spare, active form ; their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and then- hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. _ No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neigh- bors as the Albanese ; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems ; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes £ neither. Their habits are predatory — all are armed ; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, and Gegdes, are treacherous ; the others difter somewhat in garb, and essentially in charac- ter. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favorably. I was attended by two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my observation ; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service, are rarely to be found. The Infidel was named Ba- silius, the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri ; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us ; and Dervish was one of fifty who ac- companied us through the forests of Acarnania to the banks of Achelous, and onward to Messalonghi in iEtolia. There I took him into my own service, and never had occasion to repent it till the moment of my departure. When, in 1810, after the departure of my friend Mr. II. for England, I was seized with a severe fever in the Morea, these men saved my life by frighten- ing away my physician, whose throat they threat- ened to cut if I was not cured within a given time. To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retri bution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's prescriptions, I attributed my recovery. I had left my last remaining English servant at Athens ; my dragoman was as ill as myself, and my poor Ar- naouts nursed me with an attention that would have done honor to civilization. They had a variety of adventures ; for the Mos- lem, Dervish, bcinc; "a remarkably handsome man, I was always squabbling with the husbands of Athens 68 BYRON'S WORKS. insomuch that four of the principal Turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the Convent, on the sub- ject of his having taken a woman from the bath — whom he had lawfully bought, however — a thing quite contrary to etiquette. Basili, also, was extremely gallant among his own persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the church, mixed with the highest contempt of church- men, whom he cuffed \ipon occasion in a most het- erodox manner. Yet he never passed a church without crossing himself ; and I remember the risk he ran in entering St. Sophia, in Stambol, because it had once been a place of his worship. On remon- strating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, "our church is holy, our priests are thieves ; " and then he crossed himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas " who refused to assist in any required operation, as was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi of his village. Indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants can- not exist than the lower o^er of the Greek clergy. When preparations were maae xor my ieturn, my Albanians were summoned to receive their pay. Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters, with his bag of piastres. I sent for Der- vish, but for some time he was not to be found ; at last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some other of my Greek acquaintances, paid me a visit. Dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it to the ground ; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room, weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our efforts to console him only produced this answer, " M 20. Monastic Zitza, fyc. Stanza xlviii. line 1. The convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley of the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and not far from Zitza forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and iEtolia may contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior ; as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad ; I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constanti- nople ; but from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made. 21. Here dwells the caloyer. Stanza xlix. line 6. The Greek monks are so called. 22. Nature's volcanic amphitheatre. Stanza li. line 2. The Chimariot mountains appear to have been rolcanic. 23. -behold black Acheron! Stanza li. line 6. Now called Kalamas. Albanese cloak. 24. -in his white capote. Stanza Hi. line 7. 25. The sun had stink behind vast Tomerit. Stanza lv. line 1. Anciently Tomarus. 26. And Laot ■Slide and fierce came roaring by. Stanza lv. line 2. The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it ; and immediately above Tepalen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at "Westminster ; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow- traveller, Mr. Hobhouse. In the summer it must be much narrower. It certainly is the* finest river in the Levant ; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Schamander, nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty. 27. And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof. Stanza lxvi line 8. Alluding to the wreckers of Cornwall 28. the red wine circling fast. Stanza lxxi. line 2. The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and indeed very few of the others. 29. Each Palikar his sabre from him cast. Stanza lxxi. line 7- Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person from UaXtKapi, a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese who speak Romaic — it means properly " a lad." . 30. While thus in concert, &;c. Stanza lxxii. line last. As a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of the Illyric, I here insert two of their most pop- ular choral songs, which are generally chanted in dancing by men or women indiscriminately. The first words are merely a kind of chorus without meaning, like some in our own and all other languages. 1. 1. Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Lo, Lo, I come, I come ; Naciarura, popuso. be thou silent. 2. Naciarura na civin Ha penderini ti hin. Ha pe uderi escrotini Ti vin ti mar servetini. Caliriote me surme Ea ha pe pse dua tive. Buo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Gi egem spirta esimiro. Caliriote vu le funde Ede vete tunde tunde. Caliriote me surme Ti mi put e poi mi le. Se ti puta citi mora Si mi ri ni veti udo gia. Va la ni il che cadale Celo more, more celo. 10. Plu hari ti tircte. Plu huron cia pra seti. I come, I run ; open tha door that I may enter. Open the door by halves, that 1 may take my tur- ban. 4. Caliriotes* with the dark eyes, open the gate that I may enter. 5. Lo, Lo, I hear thee, my soul. 6. An Arnaout girl, in costly garb, walks with grace- ful pride. 7. Caliriot maid of the dark eyes, give me a kiss. If I have kissed thee, what hast thou gained ! My soul is consumed with fire. 9. Dance lightly, more gent- ly, and gently still. 10. Make not so much dust to destroy your em broidered hose. The last stanza would puzzle a commentator ; the men have certainly buskins of the most beautiful texture, but the ladies (to whom the above is supr posed to be addressed) have nothing under their little yellow boots and slippers but a well-turned and sometimes very white ankle. The Arnaout girls are much handsomer than the Greeks, and their dress is far more picturesque. They preserve their shape much longer also, from being always in the open air. It is to be observed, that the Arnaout is not a written language ; the words of this song, therefore, as well as the one which follows, are spelt according to their pronunciation. They are copied by one who speaks and understands the dialect perfectly, and who is a native of Athens. 1. 1. Ndi scfda tinde ulavossa I am wounded by thy love Vettimi upri vi lofsa. and have loved but to scorch myself. 2. 2. Ah vaisisso mi privi lofse Thou hast consumed mc Si mi rini mi la vosse. Ah, maid ! thou hast struck me to the heart. Albanese, particularly the women, are frequently termed "Caliri : what ref£00 I inquired in vain. 70 Uti tasa rob a stua Sitti eve tulati dua. Roba stinori ssidua Qu mi sini vetti dua. Qurmini dua civileni Roba ti siarmi tildi eni. 6. Ultara pisa vaisisso me simi rin ti hapti Eti mi bire a piste si gui dendroi tiltati. BYRON'S WORKS. 3. have said I wish no dowry, but thine eyes and eye-lashes. The accursed dowry I want not, but thee only. ^ Give me thy charms, and let the portion feed the flames. 6. I have loved thee, maid, with a sincere soul, but thou hast left me like a withered tree. 7. 7- Udi vura udorini udiri ci- If I have placed my hand cova cilti mora on thy bosom, what Udorini talti hollna u ede have I gained ? my eiimoni mora. hand is withdrawn, but retains the flame. I believe the two last stanzas, as they are in a different measure, ought to belong to another bal- lad. An idea something similar to the thought in *he last lines was expressed by Socrates, whose arm having come in contact with one of his " vxokoXtwi," Crilobulus or Cleobodus, the philosopher com- plained of a shooting pain as far as the shoulder for some days after, and therefore very properly resolved to teach his disciples in future without touching them. 31. Tambourgi! Tambourgi ! thy larum afar, $c. Song, Stanza i. line 1. These Stanzas are partly taken from different Albanese songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition of the Albanese in Romaic and Italian. 32. Remember the moment when Previsafcll. Song, Stanza viii. line 1. It was taken by storm from the French. Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth, &c. Stanza lxxiii. line 1. Some thoughts on this subject will be found in the subjoined papers. 34. Spirit of freedom ! when on Phylc's brow 'Thou sai'st with Thrasijbuhts and his train. Stanza lxxiv. lines 1 and 2. Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains ; it was Beized by Thrasybulus previous to the expulsion of the Thirty. 35. ~R.er.cive the fiery Frank, her former gxiest. Stanza lxxvii. line 4. When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. — See Gibbon. 36. The prophet 's tomb of all its pious spoil. Stanza lxxvii. line 6. Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. 37. Thy vales of ever-green, thy hills of snow — Stanza lxxxv. line ft. On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer ; but I never saw ii lie on the plains, even in winter. 38. Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave. Stanza lxxxvi. lines 1 and 2. Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave formed by the quarries still remains, and will till the end of time. 3D. When Marathon became a magic- word. Stanza lxxxix. line 7. " Siste Viator — heroa calcas ! " was the epitaph on the famous count Merci ; — what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred ('Greeks) who fell on Marathon ? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fau- vel ; few or no relics, as vases, &c, were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds ! Alas !— " Expende, — quot lib?~as in duce summo — inve- nies ! " — was the dust of Miltiades worth no more ? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. PAPERS REFERRED TO BY NOTE 3o. Before I say any thing about a city of which every body, traveller or not, has thought it necessary to say something, I will request Miss Owenson, when she next borrows an Athenian heroine for her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a " Disdar Aga," (who by the by is not an Aga,) the most im- polite of petty officers, the greatest patron of lar- ceny Athens ever saw, (except Lord E.) and the unworthy occupant of the Acropolis, on a handsome annual stipend of 150 piastres, (eight pounds sterl- ing,) out of which he has only to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated Ottoman Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause of the husband of " Ida of Athens " nearly suffering the bastinado ; and be- cause the said "Disdar" is a turbulent husband and beats his wife ; so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance in behalf of " Ida." Having premised thus much, on a matter of such import to the readers of romances, I may now leave Ida, to mention her birthplace. Setting aside the magic of the name, and all those associations which it would be pedantic and superfluous to recapitulate, the very situation of Athens would render it the favorite of all who have eyes for art or nature. The climate, to me at least, appeared a perpetual spring ; during eight months I never passed a day without being as many hours on horseback ; rain is extremely rare, snow never lies in the plains, and a cloudy day is an agreeable rarity. In Spain, Portugal, and every part of the East which I visited, except Ionia and Attica, I perceived no such superiority of climate to our own; and at Constantinople, where I passed May, June, and part of July, (4810,) you might " damn th6 climate, and complain of spleen," five days out oJ seven. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 71 The air of the Morea is heavy and unwholesome, »ut the moment yon pass the Isthmus in the direc- tion of Megara the change is strikingly percepti- ble. But I tear Hcsiod will still be found" correct in his description of a Boeotian winter. We found at Livadia an " esprit fort " in a Greek bishop, of all free thinkers ! This worthy hypocrite rallied his own religion with great intrepidity, (but not before his flock,) and talked of a mass as a " coglioneiia." It was impossible to think better of him for this ; but, for a Boeotian, he was brisk with all his absurdity. This phenomenon (with the ex- ception indeed of Thebes, the remains of Chaeronea, the plain of Platea, Orehoinenus, Livadyi, and its nominal cave of Trophonius ) was the only remarka- ble thing we saw before we passed Mount Cithseron, The fountain of Dirce turns a mill : at least my companion (who resolving to be at once cleanly and classical, bathed in it) pronounced it to be the foun- tain of Diree, and any body who thinks it worth while may contradict him. At Castri we drank of half a dozen streamlets, some not of the purest, be- fore we decided to our satisfaction which was the true Castalian, and even that had a villanous twang, probably from the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic fever, like poor Dr. Chandler. From b'ort Phyle of which large remains still ex- ist, the Plain of Athens, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the .lEgean, and the Acropolis, burst upon the eye at once ; in my opinion, a more glorious prospect than even Cintra or Istambol. Not the view from the Troad, with Ida, the Hellespont, and the more dis- tant Mount Athos, can equal it, though so superior in extent. I heard much of the beauty of Arcadia, but ex- cepting the view from the monastery of Megaspelion, ( which is inferior to Zitza in a command of country,) and the descent from the mountains on the way from Tripolitza to Argos, Arcadia has little to recom- mend it beyond the name. "Sternitur, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos." Virgil could have put this inte the mouth of none but an Argive, and (with reverence be it spoken) it does not deserve the epithet. And if the Polynices of Statius, " In mediis audit duo litora campis," did actually hear both shores in crossing the isth- mus of Corinth, he had better ears than have ever been worn in such a journey since. " Athens," says a celebrated topographer, "is still the most polished city of Greece." Perhaps it mav be of Greece, but not of the Greeks ; for Joannina in Epirus is universally allowed, among themselves, to be superior in the wealth, refinement, learning, and dialect of its inhabitants. The Athenians are remarkable for their cunning ; and the lower or- ders are not improperly characterized in that prov- erb, which classes them with " the Jews of Salonica, and the Turks of the Negropont." Among the various foreigners resident in Athens, French, Italians, Germans, Ragusans, &c, there was never a difference of opinion in then estimate of the Greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with great acrimony. Mr Fauvel the French consul, who has passed thirty years principally at Athens, and to whose talents as an artist and manners as a gentleman none who have known him can refuse their testimo- ny, has frequently declared in my hearing, that the Greeks do not deserve to be emancipated; reason- ing on the grounds of their "national and individual depravity ;" while he forgot that such depravity is to be attributed to causes which can only be remov- ed by the measure he reprobates. Mr.' Roque, a French merchant of respectability long settled in Athens, asserted with the most amusing gravity, " Sir they are the same cartnlle that existed in tin days of Themistocles /" an alarm- ing remark to the " Laudator temporis acti." The ancients banished Themistocles, the moderns cheat Monsieur Roque: thus great men have ever been treated ! In short, all the Franks who are fixtures, and most of the Englishmen, Germans, Danes, &c, o{ passage came over by degrees to their opinion, on much the same grounds that a Turk in England would condemn the nation by wholesale, because he was wronged. >by his lacquey, and overcharged by his washerwoman. Certainly it was not a little staggering when the Sieurs Fauvel and Lusicri, the two greatest dema- gogues of the day, who divide between them the power of Pericles and the popularity of Cleon, and puzzle the poor Waywode with perpetual dirferences, agreed in the utter condemnation, " nulla virtute redemption," of the Greeks in general, and of the Athenians in particular. For my own humble opinion, I am loth to haz- ard it, knowing, as I do, that there be now in MS. no less than five tours of the first magnitude and of the most threatening aspect, all in typographical array, by persons of wit, and honor, and regular common-place books ; but, if I may say this without offence, it seems to me rather hard to declare so posi- tively and pertinaciously, as almost every body has declared, that the Greeks, because they are very bad, will never be better. Eaton and Sonnini have led us astray by their panegyrics and projects ; but, on the other hand, Do Pauw and Thornton have debased the Greeks be yond their demerits. The Greeks will never be independent ; they will never be sovereigns as heretofore, and God forbid they ever should ! but they may be subjects with- out being slaves. Our colonies are not independent, but they are free and industrious, and such may Greece be hereafter. At present like the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews throughout the world, and such other cudgelled and heterodox people, they sutler all the moral and physical ills that can afflict humanity. Their life is a struggle against truth ; they are vicious in their own defence. They are so unused to kindness, that when they occasionally meet with it they look upon it with suspicion, as a dog often beaten snaps at your fingers if you attempt to caress him. "They are ungrateful, notoriously, abominably ungrate- ful!" — this is a general cry. Now, in the name of Nemesis ! for what are they to be grateful ? Where is the human being that ever conferred a benefit on Greek or Greeks r They are to be grateful to the Turks for their fetters, and to the Franks for their broken promises and lying counsels. They are to be grateful to the artist who engraves their ruins, and to the antiquary who carries them away ; to the traveller whose janissary flogs them, and to the scribbler whose journal abuses them ! This is the amount of their obligations to foreigners. II. Franciscan Convent, Athens, January 23, 1811. Among the remnants of the barbarous policy of the earlier ages, are the traces of bondage which yet exist in different countries ; whose inhabitants however divided in religion and manners, almost all agree in oppression. The English have at last compassionated their Negroes, and under a less bigoted government, may probably one day release their Catholic brethren : but the interposition of foreigners alone can eman- cipate the Greeks, who otherwise, appear to have as small a chance of redemption from the Turks, as the Jews have from mankind in general. Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough ; at least the younger men of Europe devoted much of their time to the study of the Greek writers and history, which would be more usefully spent in mas- tering their own. Of the moderns, we are perhaps mere neglectful than they deserve ; and while every man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out b« 72 BYRON'S WORKS. youth, and often his age, in the study of the lan- guage and of the harangues of the Athenian dem- agogues in favor of freedom, the real or supposed descendants of these sturdy republicans are left to the actual tyranny of their masters, although a very slight effort is required to strike off their chains. To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising again to their pristine superiority, would be ridiculous ; as the rest of the world must resume its barbarism, after reasserting the sovereignty of Greece : but there seems to be no very great obsta- cle, except in the apathy of the Franks, to their becoming an useful dependency, or even a free state with a proper guarantee ; — under correction, howev- er, be it spoken, for many and well-informed men doubt the practicability even of this. The Greeks have never lost their hope, though they are now more divided in opinion on the subject of their probable deliverers. Religion recommends the Russians ; but they have twice been deceived and abandoned by that power, and the dreadful les- son they received after the Muscovite desertion in the Morca has never been forgotten. The French they dislike ; although the subjugation of the rest of Europe will, probably, be attended by the deliv- erance of continental Greece. The islanders look to the English for succor, as they have very late- ly possessed themselves of the Ionian republic, Corfu excepted. But whoever appear with arms in their hands will be welcome ; and when that day ar- rives, Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans, they cannot expect it from the Giaours. But instead of considering what they have been, and speculating on what they may be, let us look at them as they are. And here it is impossible to reconcile the con- trariety of opinions : some, particularly the mer- chants, decrying the Greeks in the strongest lan- guage ; others, generally travellers, turning periods in their eulogy, and publishing very curious specula- tions grafted on their former state, which can have no more effect on their present lot, than the exist- ence of the Incas on the future fortunes of Peru. One very ingenious person terms them the "nat- ural allies of Englishmen ;" another, no less ingen- ious, will not allow them to be the allies of anybody, and denies their very descent from the ancients ; a third, more ingenious than either, builds a Greek empire on a Russian foundation, and realizes (on paper) all the chimeras of Catherine II. As to the question of their descent, what can it import whe- ther the Mamotes are the lineal Laconians or not r or the present Athenians as indigenous as the bees of Hyrnettus, or as the grasshoppers, to which they once likened themselves ? What Englishman cares if he be of a Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Trojan blood ? or who, except a Welshman, is afflicted with a desire of being descended from Caractacus ? The poor Greeks do not so much abound in the good things of this world, as to render even their claims to antiquity an object of envy ; it is very cruel, then, in Mr. Thornton to disturb them in the possession of all that time has left them : viz. their pedigree, of which they are the more tenacious, as it is all they can call their own. It would be worth while to publish together, and compare, the works of Messrs. Thornton and De Pauw, Eton and Son- nini ; paradox on one side, and prejudice on the other. Mr. Thornton conceives himself to have claims to the public confidence from a fourteen years' residence at Pera; perhaps he may on the subject of the Turks, but this can give him no more insight into the real state of Greece and her inhabitants, than as many years spent in Wapping into that of the Western Highlands. The Greeks ot Constantinople live in Fanal ; and if Mr. Thornton did not oftener cross the Golden Horn than his brother merchants are accustomed to do. I should place no great reliance on his information. I actually heard one of these gentlemen boast of neir little general intercourse with the city, and as- sert of himself, with an ah- of triumph, that 'he had been but four times at Constantinople in as many years. As to Mr. Thornton's voyage in the Black Sea with Greek vessels, they gave him the same idea of Greesti as a cruise to Berwick in a Scotch smack would o\ Johnny Grot's house. Upon what grounds, then, does he arrogate the right of condemning by wholesale a body of men, of whom he can know little ? It is rather a curious circumstance that Mr. Thornton, who so lavishly dispraises Pouqueville, on every oc- casion of mentioning the Turks, has yet resource to him as authority on the Greeks, and terms him an impartial observer. Now Dr. Pouqueville is as little entitled to that appellation, as Mr. Thornton tc con- fer it on him. The fact is, we are deplorably in want of informa- tion on the subject of the Greeks, and in particular their literature, nor is there any probability of our being better acquainted, till our intercourse becomes more intimate, or their independence confirmed : the relations of passing travellers are as little to be de- pended on as the invectives of angry factors ; but till something more can be attained, we must be content with the little to be acquired from similar sources.* However defective these may be, they are prefera ble to the paradoxes of men who have read super- ficially of the ancients, and seen nothing of the moderns, such as De Pauw; who when he asserts the British breed of horses is ruined by Newmarket, and that the Spartans were cowards in the field, be- trays an equal knowledge of English horses and Spartan men. His "philosophical observations" have a much better claim to the title of "poeti- cal." It could not be expected that he who liber- ally condemns some of the most celebrated institu- tions of the ancient, should have mercy on the modern Greeks : and it fortunately happens, that the absurdity of his hypothesis on their forefathers refutes his sentence on themselves. Let us trust, then, that in spite of the prophecies of De Pauw, and the doubts of Mr. Thornton, there is a reasonable hope of the redemption of a race ol men, who, whatever may be the errors of their re- ligion and policy, have been amply punished by three centuries and a half of captivity. III. Athens, Franciscan Convent, Mar. 17, 1811. 11 1 must have some talk with this learned Theban." Some time after my return from Constantinople to this city, I received the thirty-first number of the Edinburgh Review as a great favor, and certainly at this distance an acceptable one, from the captain of an English frigate off Salamis. In that number, * A word, en passant, with Mr. Thornton and Dr. Pouqueville, who have been guilty between them of sadly clipping the Sultan's Turkish. Dr. Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of " Suleyjnan Yeyen," i. e. quoth the Doctor " Suleyvian, Vie eater of corrosive subli- mate." " Aha," Uiinks Mr. Thornton, (angry with the Doctor for the fiftieth time,) " have I caught you ? " — Then, in a note twice the thickness o! the Doctor's anecdote, he questions the Doctor's proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity in his own. — " For," observes Mr. Thornton, (after inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb,) " it means nothing more than Suleyntan tlie eater," and quite e . miners the supplementary " sublimate." Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr. Thornton, when he next resides "fourteen years in the factory," will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, lie will discover that " Suteijman yeyen," put together discreetly, mean the " Sisal- lower of sublimate," without any " Suleyman" in the case: " .Suleyma" signifying "corrosive sublimate," and not being i occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough After Mr. Thornton's frequent hints o( profound Orie found this out before he sang such pecans ove After this, 1 think " Travellers versu proper name on this nth the addition of n. ttalism, he might hare • Dr. Pouqueville. : Factors " shall be our motto, thougk the above Mr. Thornton has condemned " hoc genus ouine," for mistake and misrepresentation. " Ne Sutor ultra crepidam," " No merchant beyond !jj» bales.'' N. B. For the benefit of Mr. Thornton, " Su or " is not a urcpei name. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 73 Art. 3. containing the review of a French transla- tion of Strabo, there are introduced some remarks on the modern Greeks and their literature, with a short account of Coray, a co-translator in the French version. On those remarks I mean to ground a few observations, and the spot where I now write will I hop be sufficient excuse for introducing them in a work in some degree connected with the subject. Coray, the most celebrated of living Greeks, at least among the Franks, was born at Scio, (in the Review Smyrna is stated, I have reason to think, incorrect- ly,) and, besides the translation of Beccaria and oth- er works mentioned by the Reviewer, has published a lexicon in Romaic and French, if I may trust the assurance of some Danish travellers lately arrived from Paris ; but the latest we have seen here in French and Greek is that of Gregory Zolihogloou.* Coray has recently been involved in an unpleasant controversy with M. Gail,f a Parisian commentator and editor of some translations from the Greek poets, in consequence of the Institute having awarded him the prize for his version of Hippocrates " Ilc.oi iSariiiu," &c, to the disparagement, and con- sequently displeasure of the said Gail. To his ex- ertions literary and patriotic great praise is un- doubtedly due, but a part of that praise ought not to be withheld from the two brothers Zosimado, (merchants settled in Leghorn,) who sent him to Paris, and maintained him for the express purpose of elucidating the ancient, and adding to the mod- ern, researches of his countrymen. Coray, how- ever, is not considered by his countrymen equal to some who lived in the two last centuries ; more par- ticularly Dorotheus of Mitylene, whose Hellenic writings are so much esteemed by the Greeks that Meletius terms him, " Mctu tov SovKvditnv icai =.lvu- 6vtix apaxTus 'EWrjyaiv." (P. 224 Ecclesiastical His- tory, vol. 4.) Panagiotes, Kodrikas, the translator of Fonte- nellc, and Kamarases, who translated Ocellus Lu- canus on the Universe into French, Christodoulus, and more particularly Psalida, whom I have con- versed with in Joannina, are also in high repute among their literati. The last-mentioned has pub- lished in Romaic and Latin a work on " True Hap- piness," dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois, who is stated by the Reviewer to be the only mod- ern except Coray who has distinguished himself by a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the Polyzois Lam- panitziotes of Yanina, who has published a number of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less than an itinerant vender of books ; with the con- tents of which he had no concern beyond his name on the title-page, placed there to secure his prop- erty in the publication ; and he was, moreover, a man utterly destitute of scholastic acquirements. As the name, however, is not uncommon, some other Polyzois may have edited the Epistles of Aris- toenetus. It is be regretted that the system of continental blockade has closed the few channels through which the Greeks received their publications, particularly Venice and Trieste. Even the common grammars for children are become too dear for the lower orders. Amongst their original works the Geography of Meletius Archbishop of Athens, and a multitude of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets, are to be met with ; their grammars and lexicons of two, three, and lour languages, are numerous and excellent. Their poetry is in rhyme. The most singular piece I have lately seen is a satire in dia- • 1 have in my possession an excellent Lexicon ' TOl y\h)(T>p<'l!ed me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The gentienu •', having enjoyed many a triumph, on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a s. ight ooation for 'Jn present. 74 BYRON'S WORKS. the "ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that period spoke a dialect, " which would not have dis- graced the lips of an Athenian " I do not know how that might be, but am sorry to say the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, are much altered ; being far from choice either in their dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are barbarous to a proverb : " SI AOrjva TTpoTii x o3 P a Ti yai6apuv; Tp££i; roypa." In Gibbon, vol. x. page 161, is the following sen- tence: — "The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the church and palace sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be as- serted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the " ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Caesar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Com- nena wrote three centuries before : and those royal pages are not esteemed the best models of composi- tion, although the princess yX^rrav tixw AKPIBSZX ArTiKi^ovaav. In the Fanal, and in Yanina, the best Greek is spoken : in the latter there is a flour- ishing school under the direction of Psalida. There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making a tour of observation through Greece : he is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow- commoner of most colleges. I mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant among the Greeks. The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright, the author of the beautiful poem " Horee Ionicae," as qualified so give details of these nominal Romans and de- generate Greeks, and also of their language; but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian dialect of the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hellenic : for the Albanians speak a Romaic as no- toriously corrupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. Yanina, (where, next to the Fanal, the Greek is purest,) although the capi- tal of Ali Pacha's dominions, is not in Albania but Epirus ; and beyond Delvinachi in Albania proper, up to Argyrocastro and Tepaleen, (beyond which I did not advance,) they speak worse Greek than even the Athenians, I was attended for a year and a half by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mother tongue is Illyric, and I never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have seen not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the army of Vely Pacha), praised for their Greek, but often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms. I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, among which some from the Bey of Corinth, writ- ten to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, and others by the dragoman of the Caimacam of the Morea, (which last governs in Vely Pacha's absence,) are said to be favorable specimens of their epistolary style. I also received some at Constantinople from private persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true antique character. The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue in its past and present state, to a para- dox (page 59) on the great mischief of the knowl- edge of "his own language has done to Coray, who, it seems, is less, likely to understand the ancient Greek, because he is perfect master of the modern ! This observation follows a paragraph, recommend- ing, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as " a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also to the classical scholar ; in short, to every body except the only person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses ; and by a parity of reasoning, our old language is conjectured to be probably more attainable by "foreigners," than by ourselves! Now I am in- clined to think, that a Dutch Tyro in our tongue (albeit himself cf Saxon blood) would be sadly perplexed with " Sir Tristrem," or any other given " Auchinleck MS." with or without a grammar oi glossary ; and to most apprehensions it seems evident that none but a native can acquire a com- petent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollet's Lismahago, who maintains that the purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible ; but if he does, the fault is in the man rather than in his mother tongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the native student. — Here the Reviewer pro- ceeds to business on Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks. Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aber- deen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole, and many others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen people. The few observations I have offered I should have left where I made them, had not the article in question, and above all the spot where I read it, induced me to advert to those pages, which the advantage of my present situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make the attempt. I have endeavored to waive the personal feelings, which rise in despite of me in touching upon any part of the Edinburgh Review ; not from a wish to conciliate the favor of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly pub- lished, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a disqusition of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place. ADDITIONAL NOTE, ON THE TURKS. The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished of late years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of sullen civility, very comfortable to voyagers. It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey ; since it is possible to live among them twenty years without acquiring infor- mation, at least from themselves. As far as my own slight experience carried me I have no com- plaint to make ; but am indebted for many civilities, (I might almost say for friendship,) and much hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Veli Pacha of the Morea, and several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a bon vlvant, and as social a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. During the carnival, when our English party were masquerading, both himself and his successor were more happy to "receive masks" than any dowager in Grosvenor square. On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend and visitor, the Cadi of Thebes, was carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in Christendom ; while the worthy Waywode himself triumphed in his fall. In all money transactions with the Moslems, I ever found the strictest honor, the highest disinter- estedness. In transacting business with them, there are none of those dirty peculations, under the name of interest, difference of exchange, com- mission, &c, &c, uniformly found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even of the first houses in Pera. With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar value — a horse, or a shawl. In thr capital and at court the citizens and courtiers are formed in the same school with those of Christianity; but there does not exist a mor« NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 75 honorable, friendly, and high spirited character than the true Turkish provincial Aga, or Moslem country gentleman. It is not meant here to desig- nate tne governors of towns, but those Agas who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less extent in Greece and Asia Minor. The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rabble in countries with greater pretensians to civilization. A Moslem, in walking the streets of our country-towns, would be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar situation in Turkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress. The best accounts of the religion, and different sects of Islamism, may be found in D'Ollison's French; of then - manners, &c, perhaps in Thorn- ton's English. The Ottomans, with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal, at least, to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can at least say what they are not : they are not treacherous, they are not cowardly, they do not burn heretics, they are not assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to their capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, and devout to their God without an inquisi- tion. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Russians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question, whether Europe would gain by the exchange ? England would cer- tainly be the loser. "With regard to that ignorance of which they are bo generally, and sometimes justly accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in what useful points of knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the common arts of life ? In then manufactures ? Is a Turkish sabre inferior to a Toledo ? or is a Turk worse clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Span- iard ? Are their Pachas worse educated than a Grandee ? or an Effendi than a Knight of St. Jago. I think not. I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking whether my fellow-traveller and myself were in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now this question from a boy of ten years old proved that his education had not been neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age knows the difference of the Divan from a College of Dervises ; but I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded, as he had been entirely by his Turkish tutors, has learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament it were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his instructors did not con- fine his studies to the Koran. In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended ; and the poor are taught without the church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the system is not yet printed ; (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, and books printed on the late military institution of the Nizam Gedidd ;) nor have I heard whether the Mufti and the Mollas have subscribed, or the Caima- 3am and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenious youth of the turban should be taught not to " pray to God their way." The Greeks also — a kind of Eastern Irish papists — have a college of their own at Maynooth — no, at Haivali ; where the heterodox receive much the same kind of counte- nance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the English legislature. Who shall then affirm that the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and ortho- dox of all possible kingdoms ? But, though they rIIow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to participate in their privileges ; no, let them fight their battles, and pay their haratcn, (taxes,) be drubbed in this world, and damn~u in the next. And shall we then emancipate our Irish Helots ? Mahomet forbid ! We should then be bad Mussul- mans, and worse Christians ; at present we unite tho best of both — Jesuitical faith, and something not much inferior to Turkish toleration. APPENDIX. Among an enslaved people, obliged to have re- course to foreign presses even for their books of re- ligion, it is less to be wondered at that we find so few publications on general subjects than that wo find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to dis- cover any nation with so great a proportion of books and their authors, as the Greeks of the present century. " Ay," but say the generous advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, ay, but these are mostly, if not all, eclesiastical tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well, and pray what else can they write about ? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government of his own country ; or a Frenchman, who may abuse ev ery government except his own, and who may n.nge at will over every philosophical, religious, scien T .i*:'j, skeptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and cannot touch on science for want of instruction ; if he doubts, he is excommunicated and damned ; therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern philosophy ; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks ! there are no such things. What then is left him, if he has a turn for scribbling ? Relig- ion, and holy biography: and it is natural enough that those who have so little in this life should look to the next. It is no great wonder then that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen* should have touched on any thing but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twen- ty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius's Ecclesiastical History. From this I subjoin an ex- tract of those who have written on general sub- jects ; which will be followed by some specimens of the Romaic. LIST OP ROMAIC AUTHORS.* Neophitus Diakonos (the deacon) of the Morea, has published an extensive grammer, and also some political regulations, which last were left unfinished at his death. Prokopius of Moscopolis, (a town in Epirus,) has written and published a catalogue of the learned Greeks. Seraphin, of Periclea, is the author of many works in the Turkish language, but Greek charac- ter ; for the Christians of Caramania, who do not speak Romaic, but read the character. Eustathius Psalidas, of Bucharest, a physician, made the tour of England for the purpose of study •%api.v nadnacus) : but though his name is enumer- ated, it is not stated that he has written any thing. Kallinikus Torgeraus, Patriarch of Constantino- ple : many poems of his are extant, and also prose tracts, and a catalogue of patriarchs since the last taking of Constantinople. Anastasius Macedon, of Naxos, member of the royal academy of Warsaw. A church biographer. • It to to be observed, that the names given are not in chronological order but consist of some selected at a venture from among those who flourish** from the taking of Constantinople to the time of Mektius. 76 BYRON'S WORKS. Demetrius Pamperes, a Moscopolitc, has written many works, particularly " A Commentary on He- siod's Shield of Hercules," and two hundred tales, (of what is not specified,) and has published his correspondence with the celebrated George names are not taken from any publication. t A translation of this song will be found among the smaller Pqprra in page 539. OOsv iladc'Tcoi' 'EXXfivun K^KKa\a dvSpaoipcva; Jlvcvpara icrKopiriapiva, ro'jpa \df>£T£ rrvofiv ; 2 Tiif vi]V tPjs aa\i7iyy6s («o« cvva%9qrc bXa bpov. T>ii> STTTaXotpov £r/r£fr£, Kal vikSts 7t/3o rravToii To brrXa as Xa6top£v, etc. "ZirdpTa UtrdpTa, ri K"ipdcrai vttvov Xffiapyov, /3a8iv; ^VTrvrjcov, (cpd££ AS/jvaj, avppaxov TravTOT£ivfjv. 'EiiQvpfio-ov AcoiviSov rjpcjoj TOV £aKOVS"Ov", tov dv&pvs iTraivc.jit.voV) (poStpov (cat Tpopcpov, To. oirXa &s XdSwp.£v, etc 4. "Ottou sis tus QeppoTriXac rrdXcpov airos KpoT£i, Kal tovs Ylipcas div (cardcrrao-iv cipdJTriaav na7apx u S ivaTpaiKov (piXiXXriva Siavd pdQovt riiv ahiav, p£T ai)Tov iva prjTpmroXiTrjv, £tVa iva 0X&X uiTirtv, £TT£ira iva TtpaypaTCVripj Kal 'iva 7rpo£0-r<3ra. E!tt£ pas, ip£is Tt]v 0K~Sa6iav Kal Ti)v drrapriyopriTOV twv TovpXoiv Tvpavviav, ttcos Tats f vXaTs Kal iSpiapnvs Kal oic'ripQ&topiav Ttaiiiov, TtapOivoiv, yvvaiKoiv dvi'iKovarov (pQopuav* Aiv £tX0' £o-£i"j d-noyovoi £Ktivwv tojv 'EXX>]vu>v TaJf lX£v9ipii)v Kal aotpdv Kal t£>v (piXoTraTptSoiv, Kal Trios £K£ivoi drriOvrjaKov yta tiiv LX£vQ£piav. /cat rojpa icus vtt6k£io-6£ tis tLtouiv Tvpavviav, (cat 7roi'oi' yivos s vvv £KaraaTnaaT£ rr)v (poiTtvtiv EXXacJa. /3a6&! £>s iva cKiXcdpov, u>s o-kotcivt/v Xap.rrdSav OpiXti, eit'Xrar£ rpat/ct, £i'ir£ pas Tr]v alriav /!)> KpVTTTTlS TIT70T£S i}ptOV, Xv£ TYjV aTTOjOtUl/ 'O *IAE'AAHNOZ: 'Poj(70'-aj'}'Xo-vdXXot, 'EXXcif, Kal o\t aXXot, t)tov, tis Xir£, iroo-ov p£ydXr\. vvv Si aOXia, (cat dva(ia d

'/ dpadia, So' fiprropovo-av vd t>iv ftcryrjccr; tovt' cir) to x £ LP°u T 'l" b&riyovat. airri oT£vd^£i, to. tIkvcl (cpd^st, ard vd TtpoK&irTovv bXa rp^i-afci, (tat tj5t' £Xrrt^£t on /c£pc5t?£t £Vp£iv £K£lvO TTOV T1\V IfXoyi^tl. Ma oartj roX/ti5o-£t vd t>iv {vrrvf]o-Ti fiy£t o-tov a6n" X^P'S TiVa xpioi" NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 77 The above is the commencement of a long dra- matic satire on the Greek priesthood, princes, and gentry: it is contemptible as a composition, but perhaps curious as a specimen of their rhyme ; I have the whole in MS. but this extract will be found sufficient. The Romaic in this composition is so easy as to render a version an insult to a scholar ; but those who do not understand the original will excuse the following bad translation of what is in itself indifferent. TRANSLATION. A Russian, Englishman, and Frenchman making the tour of Greece, and observing the miserable slate of the country, interrogate, in turn, a Greek Patriot, to learn the cause ; afterwards an Arch- bishop, then a Vlackbey,* a Merchant, and Cogia Bachi or Primate. Thou friend of thy country ! to strangers record Why bear ye the yoke of the Ottoman Lord ? Why bear ye these fetters thus tamely display'd,_ The wrongs of the matron, the stripling, and maid ? The descendants of Hellas's race are not ye ! The patriot sons of the sage and the free, Thus sprung from the blood of the noble and brave, To vilely exist as the Mussulman slave ! Not such were the fathers your annals can boast, Who conquer'd and died for the freedom you lost ! Not such was your land in her earlier hour, The day-star of nations in wisdom and power ! And still will you thus unresisting increase, Oh shameful dishonor ! the dar.kness of Greece ? Then tell us, beloved Achaean ! reveal The cause of the woes which you cannot conceal. The reply of the Philellenist I have not trans- lated, as it is no better than the question of the travelling triumvirate ; and the above will suffi- ciently show with what kind of composition the Greek's are now satisfied. I trust I have not much injured the original in the few lines given as faith- fully, and as near the " Oil, Miss Bailey ! unfortunate Miss Bailey 1 " measure of the Romaic, as I could make them. Almost all their pieces, above a song, which aspire to the name of poetry, contain exactly the quantity of feet of " A captain bold of Halifax, who lived in country quarters," which is in fact the present heroic couplet of the Romaic. SCENE FROM 'O KA-i-ENE'S TRANSLATED PKOM THE ITALIAN OF GOLDONI, BY SPEHIDION VLANTI. SKHNH Kf. JlAATZTAA cis r>]v vdprav rov xaviov, (cat 01 avoidcv. II A A. T il 6££ .' and to napatiipi pov cifiavri va aKoioM lilv ipiovrjv rov dvSpos pov av aires rival cSu), £tf>6aoa oc taipdv va tov \cvrponiaaio. [Eiyaivci cvas SovXus and to to; arTi'pi.2 ILiAt/oipi, ncs pov, oc napaxaXoi, voids Uial CKCl CIS £K£tl'Ol'C TOVS dvTaScSS AOYA. Tone x. n, ' 1cr 'A"" avSpcs. Evas b Kvp Evyivios, b dXXos b Kvp MiipTiiOc 'ScanoXirdvos, (cot 6 rpiros '» Kvp Kdvrc AcavSpos AoSevms. IIAA. Amijitra cis airnvs Slv riva, b Aap:tVtoc, av ipios Siv aXXa^cv ovopa. A I'" A. Na £ji ij KaXfi tvxi tov Kvp Evycviov. [IHvojv- "OAOI. Na Jjf, va Jij. IIAA. Airoc uvai b avSpas uov X&jptc aAAo. KaAJ dvOpbine, K'ipc jjov Tyv x a P lv va /"' cvvrpo!>ciov Ts dncdaivw. ['Zvrcpxcrai cis tov lavrdv rije.] [And tol vapaOvpa tuv dvrdSojv ipaivovrai SXoi, birov oriKdvojvrai and to Tpanc^i svyxttrucvoi, Sid t6v %a Kapvcrc AEA T>'iko>, ipvyc aV cSoj. IIAA. Jiufideia, /SoijOcia. [ipcvyci and rijv OKifiav, 5 AcavSpos StAst va rr\v dicoXovdijay pi to onaoOi, Kal b Eiy- tov Sacra.] TPA. [Ms cva nuiro pi $ayl els piav ncr^ira nr)Sa diro to napaOvpi, Kal tjtcvyei tig tov Kacvyci XiywvTas' Rumores fupre.] [Povpop£c ipevyc.']* \Ol AovXoi and to cpyaaTripi dnepvovv cis to xuvi, /cai kXciovv t!]v vdprav.'] [BIT. Mcvct £t'c tov Ka Etc ckcTvo to x°- vl - [M^ T ° o-vadl cig to x^P L cvavriov tov Eiytvlov.] EYT. 'Oxi, p'l ycvoiro vori' riaai ci-as o-KXr/poKapSos cvavriov rris yvvaiKds aov, Kal cyo> SrcXct r!]v Siaipcvrevaoi ojc cis rd varcpov a7pa. AEA. S«5 Kapvco opKov vrjs SiXci rd pcravoidarjs. [K\vvriyii tov Eiycviuv pi to crn-aOt.] EYr. Acv oc 0o6ovpai. [Kararpcxd tov AcavSpov, ko.1 7rof 0ia^ci va avpOr, onioo) t6pov, bnov cvpicKiovraf dvoiKrdv to cnijri rijs xoprarpiac, IpGaivci cie aird, Kal aioverai.] TRANSLATION. Platzida from the Door of the Hotel, and the Others. Pla. Oh God ! from the window it seemed that I heard my husband's voice. If he is here, I have arrived in time to make him ashamed. [-1 Servant enters from the Shop.] Boy, tell me, pray, who are in those chambers. Serv. Three gentlemen : one, Sign or Eugenio ; the other, Signor Martio, the Neapolitan ; and the third, my Lord, the Count Leander Ardenti. Pla. Flaminio is not among these, unless he has changed his name. Leander. [Within, drinking. ] Long live the good fortune of Signor Eugenio. [The ichole Company, Long live, etc.] (Literally. No £f/, vd (fj, May he live.) Pla. Without doubt that is my husband. [To the Serv.] My good man, do me the favor to ao company me above to those gentlemen ; I have some business. Serv. At your commands. [Aside.] The old office of us waiters. [He goes out of the Gami?ig- Housc.] Ridolpho. [To Victoria on another part of the staqe.] Courage, courage, be of good cheer, it is nothing. Victoria. I feel as if about to die. [Leaning on him as if fainting.] [From the windows above all within are seen rising from table in confusion : Leander starts Vlackbey, Prince of VVallacbia, 78 BYRON'S WORKS. at the sight of Platzida, and appears by his gestures to threaten her life.] Eugenio. No, stop Martio. Don't attempt Leander. Away, fly from hence ! Pla. Help ! Help ! [Mies down the stairs, Lean- der attempting to follow with his sword, Eugenio hinders him.'] [Trappola with a plate of meat leaps over the bal- cony from the window, and runs into the Coffee- Hozise.] [Platzida runs out of the Gaming-House, and takes shelter in the Hotel.] [Martio steals softly out of the Gaming-House, and goes off, exclaiming "Rumores fuge." The Servants from the Gaming-House enter the Hotel, and- shut the door.] [Victoria remains in the Coffee-House assisted by Ridolpho.J [Leander sword in hand opposite Eugenio, ex- claims, Give way — I will enter that hotel.] Eugenio. No, that shall never be. You are a scoundrel to your wife, and I will defend her to the last drop of my blood. Leander. I will give you cause to repent this. [Menacing loith his sword.] Eugenio. I fear you not. [He attacks Leander, and makes him give back so much, that finding the door of the dancing girl's house open, Leander es- capes through, and so finishes.] * AIA'AOroi OI'KIAKOI'. Familiar Dialogues. Aiii va fijrJjo-ps tva. itpdypa. To ask for any thing. S(7f -apaxaXw, Soccri pe av I pray you, give me if you Bptfsre. please. iftpETt ps. Bring me. AuveiazTz pe. Lend me. RriyaivSTE vd JijrijCErE. Go to seek. Tdjpa ciOiq. Now directly. SI dxpiSi, pov Kvpie, na^ere My dear Sir, do me this pz aiiTfjv t>]v x cl P"'- favor. EyCo ads -rrapuKuXui. I entreat you. Bj cb ads iiopKi^h). I conjure you. E; d> ads to $ijrw Sta %dpiv. I ask it of you as a'favor. Tr.oxpzdJasre pz els i6aov. Oblige me so much. Adyia spuTiica, J) dydirm- Affectionate expressions. Ztorj pov. h-KplSf] poV IpVXfh A-raTrjrt pov, dxpii KapSir^a pov. A j ut/j pov. My life. My dear soul. My dear. My heart. My love. Aidvacvxaptarfisris, vdxdpys To thank, pay compli- ni:pt-,uiiacs, teal (ptXiKals ments, and testify re- Se%icatr£s. gard. Ej'U ads evxapiarw. I thank you. Xds ypiapl^at x&piv. I return you thanks. Sac. up.n ijr6xpeos Kara ttoX- I am much obliged to you. Aii. * Soji'Erai — " finishes " — awkwardly enough, but it is the literal trans- lation of the Romaic. The original of this comedy of Goldoni's I never read, but it does not appear one of his best. " II Bugiardo " is one of the most lively ; but 1 do not think it has been translated into Romaic ; it is much more amusing than our own " Liar," by Foote. The character of Lelio is belter drawl) than Young Wilding. Goldoni's comedies amount to fifty; gome perhi ipa tin* best in Europe, and others the worst. His lile is also one r{ the lv-st fcpechnens of aulobiography, and, as Gibbon has observed, " more dramatic thai! any of his plays." The above scene was selected as contain- mg some of the most familiar Romaic idioms, not for any wit which it displays, Ir-ce there is more done than said, the greater part consisting of stage directions. The original is one of the few comedies by Goldoni uliich is »itl out frV buffoonery ot the speaking Harlequin. E/w SeAcj to xdpei pzrd xa- I will do it with pleasure pas Me oXr/v pov rijv xaooiav. Me Ka\r]v pov xapSiav. Sac tlpai vrrdxpzo;. Elpat b\os c6ik6s aas. Elpat SovXos aas. TarreivdraTOS 6ovXos. EicrrE/caia rroAXci zbyzvixfis. IIoAAu xzipd^zaBz. To l'x<» Sid xapdv pov vd ads SovXzvaay. E?ot£ ciiytviKos /cat zinrpoa- nyopns. Avto cluat itpznov. TiSzXztz; Ti bpi^ETs; Sac 7rapa/caAu"5 vd pi pSTa- X£tpi^£o-0£ zXzvOzpa. Xtopif Trepnroirjazs. Xds dyairw eJ bXris pov /cap- SCas. _ Kui £j'to bpnla)$. TipljacTZ pi rais irpoarayaXs aas. "E,\;£T£ TlTTOTtS vd pi irpoaTa- £ztz ; Ilp«o"ru^£r£ tov SovXdv aas. Xlpoapzvio rue Tipoaayds aas- Me xdpvzrz pzydXrjv Tipfjv. 'Wavuvvri vepiKOiriacs ads, TTupaKaXw. ripoaKWfiaeTC Ik p'zpovs pov Tot' dpxovra, 5) tov Kipiov. BcSaicoaeri tov 7rco; tov iv Ovpovpai. TStGaidJaeTS tov ttws tov dya- TTOJ. Aiv -^eAoj \ti\pci va tov tS ti-io. Tlpoanvvi'ipaTa pov tie ri]v dpxdvTiaaav. Tlriyaiv£T£ ipTTpoodd /cat ctiTc dKoXovQio. H^evpio /caAard xpt'oc pov. HJrfpoj to tivai pov. Me KapvtTt vd ivrpi-iopai pi TaTs roaais tpiXoijipuavvais aas. GeAete Aoitov va. /capto piav u^p£idr»;ra. Xirdyii) iptrpoaOd d>a vd ads vzaxovooi. Aid vdndpu) tijv irpoaTayijv aas. Aiv dyajrej Toaais Tttpivoi- r\azs- Aiv clpai TtKEiws vcpuroiriTt- /cdc. Avro aval to KaXffTtpov. Toaov to KaXf\Ttpov. "E,xEr£ X6yov, ix CTZ oixatov. Aid vd fieSaiidays, vd dpvri- 6ys, vd avyKUTavcvaiis, ktX. EiVat d.\r/9ivi5i' > rival dXi'i- BioTaTov. Aiu va aas Etirco Trjv dXrJ- deiav. Oi'tcoc, IVsi avai. TloTos dptyiSdXXct ; Aiv avai irocrtoc Api6oXia. Tii irioTEioj, iiv to rtarEoto. With all my heart. Most cordially. I am obliged to yon. I am wholly yours. I am your servant. Your most humble serv ant. You are too obliging. You take too much trouble. I have a pleasure in serv ing you. You are obliging and kind That is right. What is your pleasure ? What are your comma 1 ids? I beg you will treat :n<: freely. Without ceremonj . I love you with all my heart. And I the same. Honor me with your com- mands. Have you any commands for me ? Command your servant, I wait your commands. You do me great honor. Not so much ceremony ] beg. Present my respects to the gentleman, or his lordship. Assure him of my remem- brance. Assure him of my friend- ship. I will not fail to tell hirr of it. My compliments to hei ladyship. Go before, and I will fol low you. I well know my duty. I know my situation. You confound me with sc much civility. Would you have me then be guilty of an incivil- ity? I go before to obey you. To comply with your com mand. s I do not like so much cer- emony. I am not at all ceremoni- ous. This is belter. So much the better. You are in the right. To affirm, deny, consent, It is true, it is very true. To tell you the truth. Really it is so. Who doubts it ? There is no doubt. I believe it, I dc not be lieve it. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 73 Atyot ro va.1 &.cyiij to o'xt- BdAAw GTi\>IU.<< OTl £11/01. BdAAoi o-Ttx'UKi on Scv tivai IT^ri. Nai, pa ri]v irioriv pov. Ei'f ti;p jviciihloriv pov. Mil rijv (Jtoiji/ fiov. Nut, oas opii'.o. Self 4tivv(o ooo-av ripinievoi avOy *d> opvv'o iT(ii/td si's r/jf Tt- pqv jlOV. Tl(]v dXti- dttav. Eya> rrds to fftScuiilia. To iirpoi0iv6v. Eivai ipsvScs, Aiv rival TiiiOTCg d~d aiTO. Elvai iva xlizv&og, /tia d-drr/. EyCi darci^opovv (ix u £"* TCVa ) Eyco to siiradia va yeXiaa. Tjj dXt]9cia. Mi apian KdTi: iroAAd. T,vyKUTai'€v ivavTitovupai ris rouro. Ata id irvpSuvXspOijs, va oto- XaaOi's, ij va Aito&aaicrQS' Tt itpiirti va Kapupsv ; Ti £d Kapojuev ; Tt pi avaftovXcvcTS va Kapoi ; 'OttoTov Tp6i:ov SsXupcv pcra- XeipiaQii i';acTi ; ''As KOfiojpisv ir^o. Eii'ni KaXrjTepov iyo) va. — — 'ZraOiirt dAi ;. i . A'.v ii'hXcv rival KaXfircpov i'(i ; Eyo> ayaxovoa naXfirspa. QiX&rt Kapei Ka\flTBpa av — 'Alpy)!v TiTuv I. 'EN dpxv IV 6 X6yo$, HOj'Oj Kai b Xoyo; rjroc psra Kai 6 X6yoi i]v -pits tov Qlov, Utov >;at 6xds htov 6 Xtiyos. Kai Bed; fjv 6 Xdyos. 2. 'EroBruj !}tov ec's tiiv doxnv aera Qeov. 3. "OXa [ra ttou) uara] Jiii piaoo tov [Xoyov] hyivtjBav, xai X'-^P'S aurov 6iv i'yive Kaviva tin lyivt. 4. Eij ai/) nrov to 0aif twv dv- Qpojiriov. 5. Kilt TO 1V (TKO- Ttiav (ptyyei, Kai >') oKOTtia Siv to KaraXaSs. 6. ' Eyivev ivag avOpiovo; dirscTaXucvos dird tov Gedr, to Svopa tov \wavvr,s. 2. Ouroj iji iv dp\5. npd. tov Oiov 3. Iliiira Si aiTOv iycvcTv Kai \ tools avTov iyivcTO oiSl '. I/, S ] J ovtv. 4. 'Ei/ aVToi foiii ijv, it-ii y Ctoi"; fjv to (p£5s tcjv di'bptir- r,o>v. 5. Kai to 0aif iv riji rsKorln (paivtt, Kai /; CKOTia avro oi KariXaScv. 6. 'E> tVCTO llvOpWTTOS d-TT- earaXixivos irapa Qeov, ovopa uvtoj '[gjuh/j/j. THE INSCRIPTIONS AT ORCHOMENUS. FROM MELETIUS. 'OPXOMEXO'S, KOivds 'Zkoittov, ttoXis ttotI TrXovaiuy Ta.Tr) Kai icrxvpoiTaTri, rrpSrcpov KaXovuivi) Botcortxai 'AO/J- vat, £if TTjV o-oiav rJTOv b Nadf to>v XapiTov, cis tov bnoiot iirXnpwvov TiXri o't QriSaioi, ovrtvog to k'Saipos dvco-KatpOrf 7:otI vtto Toiv Ao-rraXd) kivv. 'E-ui'r/j toi^ov et's nuri/i/ ti;» koXiv ra XapiTtjaia, tov bnoiov dyQvos tvpov iviypas' cv ptt &rj piii KoivoZs. " O'i'iJe iviKOiV tov dyoJva Tiov Xapirrjc-iiov. S«A7ricrri;f. Mi7i'tf 'AtoAAoji/i'ou 'AvTioxtvf d-rro "SlaiavSoon Kf\pv\. Zaii'Aof Zm'iAoij Ila^tof Yaxp-pSos. NoDfiiji/itif Novpriviov 'AQrjvaTos. Tloir/TiiS i-mov. 'Ap'ivias Ar/poKXcovs Br/Saios. AiXriTt'is. 'A-huXXoootos ' Atto\XoS6tov Kp»i« Ai'AcoJdf Po'Jiir7rof PoJitttou 'Apyijos. KiOaptorijf. poO£ov TapavTivdg. HoiriTits TpayMonSv. 'ZoipoKXiis "ZoiPokXCovs 'AOrivaTos- 'YiroKpiTfis. Ka6iptx°S QcoSoJpov QriBaTo;. Iloirjriif KoipioStav. 'AXi\avSpo$ 'ApiaTOivos 'AOr/vaTPi 'Xkokpittis. "ArraAof 'ArrdAou 'AdnvaXos. OiiJe iv'iKfov tov vr)pr)TOv dj(3i/a ri/f buoSti>snt TlaiSas avXioras. AiokXjj; KnXXtpnSov Qrj6aio;. IlaiSas riycpSvag. Sr/jarfyof Evvikov Qr/Saios. "AvSpas avXricras. AioKXrJs KaXXtpfiSnv BrjSaTos "AvSpas j)yzu6vas. Y6Snrros VoSiirirov 'Apycios. TpayoiSds. 'l-TTOKparns 'ApiaTOpivovs Podio; Kcouijodf 80 BYRON'S WORKS. KaXXiarpaTog 'E£ax£OT0V QrfiaXog. Tfi ipiviKia. KaptoSiiav Yloir/Trig. AXi^avSpog 'Apiariuvus 'A9iivaXog. 'Ev Si ri) iripa SojptKtSg. Mvaaivco dpxofTog dyo}vo9£Tiov7og rd XapiTEiriov, cvapi6u-rco navroiv 08 tvi Se iviKojcrav to- XapiTtcria. YaXmyKT&s. QiXtvog "SiXiVto 'A9dvEiog. KdpouJ. EipoJSas H'OKpdriog QziSziog. HiEiTag. Mijorcop Mijaroptis 'Pooxaievs PalpEvSog. Kpdroiv KXi'ovog f)ci6Eiog. AiXztTag. GsptyEVElg HpaicXn'cJao Kov^iKtjvS;. AvXaEiSog. AapijvETog rXavKio"Apyiog. KiBapiuTag. Tdparpog 'ApaAwco Ai'oXfij diro Movpivag TpayaEvSdg. 'AaKXairidSwpog Uivdeao TapavTtvdg. KotpaEvSog. tiiKocrrparo; (tiXocrrpdrco OciScici; Td imviKCia KwpaEvSdg Evapxos Hpoddrco Kopcowiij." 'Ev dXXcp XWa ' Mvpixoj lioXvKp&rovg 'lapoivvpog Sioyirwvog avSpzaai XopayEiaavTZg viKdaavrzg Siovvaov aviQrjKav Tipcovcg dp- Xovroi aiXiovTog /cAeoj aSovrog dXKio9iviog." 'Ei/ trepo) XiOo. 1 &wdpx<>} apxovTOs, pEivdg SttXovOio), dpx' "j Et>- ScoXi dpx£<5dpco (pwnEia Sg dniSuKa and raj uovy- ypaipio nioa tcoi/ TroAfpdp^coi', Kt] tcoi/ KaroTTTaiov, dvEXo- pzvog rag anvyyptKpois rag Kipivag trap ti(pp6va, ki] ijtiSiav Kr\ natrikXeiv K% Tipopzicov (poiKEiag, Krj SaporEXzXv XvcriSdpci), ki] Siovvaov Ka<[>icoSoja> 'Xflpavtia. xdr to \pd apxovrog, pzivbg AXaXKopEviw F dpvwv, noXv- kXeioj Tapias dmdoiKZ evSoiXv upx£<5dpco (pwKzXt and rag i twv KllTOTTTdlOV. " 'ApxovTog ev ipxopevo Sui/dp^co, pzvbg ' AXaXKOpEvioi iv Si F iXmir] Mtj/wiruo 'Apx^Xdo) pEivdg Trpdrco. 'Opo- \oyd EuBojXv F eXutui, o k>] Ttj tt6Xi ipx^ixcviwii. 'Ete<<5?/ KCK rug EKopiarr] EbStoXog 7rup rijj ii6\iog to Savciov a-irav kut iig bpoXoyiag rag Tediaag §vvapx<>> &pX nVT °Si pt'iroj c£iXuv6i't>, ki) niiT oqi^iXsTri aiiTo} in oi9lv nap rav rrSXiv, dXX' aTtx 1 ndvra TTEpX iravrog, k>i dxo&EudavQi ttj irdXi to ixoi'TEg Tag bpoXnyiag, ci phv ttoti SeSopevov %pdi/oi/ Et'6'.i.Xti et'i vopiag F tVi d-ETrapa jSovEacii guvv iTrrrus &id KaTiiig Fi ican TrpnSiirvs o-ovv nyvg %EiXir]g dpxi- T(3 Xpdi/(o b iviavrog b pErh Qivap\ov apxovTd ipxopEviog diroypa- ■pin'1'] Si EiJ'/iwX'ii/ nar' iviavrdv EKaoTov Trap tou rapiav if); tov vopdiv ai> rdrc Kavpara rail/ irpu)6dTO)v, K>] toiv fiyuv, kx] Toiv ffuv&v, k>; tmu 'Ukcou, k!i KaTiva daapaiwv Ji>i) to -XuSnf pEi diroypdtpEco Se nXiuva rtov yEypap- /evmv ev tT, auv) x M pz' Lal V Sixarig r\ to zvvopiov Bvj3tj>Xov dipEiXEt Xtg Toiv zpxopEviuv dpyovpiti) -irraod/coi'ra Ei'ficoXu xaO' EKaarov iviaVTdv, KH t6kov ipEpiTtii Spaxpag .raj pvag t/cdo-raj (card pEivt toi> Ki] EpirpaxTog torto tov 'ipxopiviov icat Ta ij-ijg." 'Ev aXXoig Xidoig. "' AvoScopa crvv]0i, iipd^Eig Kai SioiKi'iaEig ttoXXiSv Kai Siaipopuv idvoJv Kal yzvSw d>v t>]v pvripr/v SizctiaaTO Kal SiaacoaEi f) 'laTopiK)] Aifiyrjati ti'j aiuiva tov cmavra. Mia TEToia Eirio-Tfipri rival EvairSKTrirog, Kal iv ruvTia (LipiXtprj, I] kpeXttov eitteiv dvayKaia- Siarl Xoiirov >)pEiS povoi vd ri]v vaTZpovpEBa, pr\ rji-Evpovreg ovrs Tag dpxdf raiv npoydvov pag, tt69ev ttote Kal ircog Evpidriaav £i'j rdj -Karpi- Sag pag, ovtE Ta i]9r], Ta KiiTopOCopara Kal ti]v SioiKrjaiv tojv ; Av ipcoTfjupEv Toig dXXoyEvzig, fj^cvpovv va pag Soj- crovv oxi pdvov ioTopiKwg T'lv dpx'iv Kal tijv np6oSov twv rpoy6vwv pag, dXXd Kal TotroypdipiKiog pug Seixvovv Tag SioEig Toiv irarpiSoiv pag, Kal u'ioveI x^'paywyol yivopsvoi pi rovg ysoiypaipiKnvg toiv irivaKag, pag Xiyovv, iSd) llveii a'l 'AOrjvai, iSio >'i HirdpTri, iKEX al QrjSai, r6aa crdSia 5) piXia diTEXzi f] pia inapxia and riji/ dXXr/v. Tovrug ojKoSdprice r/;v piav TToXiv,tKEXvog t>iv dXXnv, Kal rX. Xlpoairt av ipo>-f\aoy piv avTovg rovg pi; EXX/ji/ajxfipaj'Wj'oiis paj, it60ev i-apaKi- vf\9t]aav vd E^Epzvvficrovv dpxdg t6oov iraA'iidj, di/Dn'oordXajj pdj diroKpivovrai pi ai)T0vg Toig Xdyovg. " KaOCog b ek Xkv- fli'aj 'AvdxapTtg, dv Siv EirEpiipxETO Ta Travzvtppdevva ekeXvu KXipura n]j 'EXXdJoj, dv Siv ipfyopzXTo to. dfiwpara, rd r'ldrj Kal Toig vopovg tiov 'EXXf]vu>v, i'iOzXe pEivy ^KvOrjg Kal to dvopa Kal to Ttnaypa' ovtoj Kal b {jpETEpog larpdj, dv Siv ipdvOavE rd tov 'ImrOKparovg, Siv iSivaro vd npo\wpficrn £i'j Tt]v TExvqv tov. Av b iv ijpXv vop^dzTr/g Siv E^ETa^E rd tov SiiAtofoj, AvKovpyov, Kal IT'rraicov, Siv iSivaro vd pv- Opfio-rj Kal vd'KaXiEpyi'icrri Ta r']0r] riov bpoyEvaJv tov Av 6 Pi)rwp Siv dirrjvQi^ETO Tag EvippaSziag Kal Tovg %ap(£j/r(cr- poij tov Artpoadivovg, Siv ivEpyovo-Ev £i'j rdj ipvx<*g to~>v aKpoaTuiv tov Av b Ne'oj Avd\aptng, b Kiptog 'A6Sdg BapBoXopaXug Siv dvEyivwoKZ pi pEydXr,v inipoviiv Kal gke- xpiv rovg ttXeov iyKp'iTovg avyypaEXg ti2v 'EXX>']vo)v, eJs- pEVvdv aVTuig Kard/JdSoj inl rpiaKovraSvio ete,Sev tjOeXev E^V(pdi>ii TOVTrjv T>)v iTEpl 'EXXfivcov loToptav tov, t'JTig TIzpi f/yEatg tov Neou 'Ai/axdpurtoj nap' oi>TuvT:pocro)vopdc9)],Kal £ij o'Xaj raj EvpcowaiKag SiaXEKtovg pzTEyXoiTTiaBri.'" Kal iv Ivl XoiyM, ol vzcoTEpoi, dv Sev znzpvav Sia bSr/yovg tov{ npoyovnvg pag, litlsXav io-oig TTEptBipoivrai paraiiog pixpi tov vvi'. AOrd Siv Eivai X6yia ivQovaiaiypivov Sid to c/iiXo- yEvig TpaiKOv, Etvai Si (j)iXaXf]9ovg TEppavov, ogrig ipErd- (ppacrz tov Ntoi/ 'Avdxapo-iv diro tov TuXXtKOV £ij rd Tep- paviKOv. Av Xonrdv Kal !]pctg SiXaipzv vd pe9e^u>pev rtjf yvaioEotg Ttov XapTrpuiv KUTopOoipaToiv birov EKavav ol $avpap'i£opEv, Eig Kaipov bnuv ol dXXoyr.vug SavpdZ^ovair avTovs, Kal cos iraTEpag navToiauovv pauiiasiog ozBovTai, a? avvSpdpeopEv arravTZg npoBipiog tig tijv ekSooiv tov $avpa- atov tovtov avyypdppaTog tov fiiov 'Ai/a,\;dpiT£coj. HpEig ovv ol vnoyeypappivoi ScXopEV ekteXecei irpo%pu>i Tr\v uErd]v Kara to Svvarov npii NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 81 • j aAi> (ppaaiv riJs vvv xa9' fipas bptXias, xal rVJiJirn tuvto «r tvkov, ^zXo/jzv to xa\\w-iazi lie tovs yeoypatfrixois vivaxas pi dirXas Poj/ia'uuis Xe^zts iyxexapaypevovs eis idixa //us ypdppara, xpoo-Tidivres 6, ti aXXo XP*\°" 1 P 0V * u ' appoiiov eis t)jv iGTopiav. "O\ov to crvyypappa StXei ycVet £i'$ r6povs SioSzxa /card pipriaiv T)"ji 'IraXtxfis zx&oazois- H Ttpi) &Aot> tov avyypap- uaTOi tlvai tpiopivia Hzxai^n Tt]s Utivvzs Sta rrjv Trpoo-Oi'jxr/v TtSv yeaypafixdv -nivdxiov. 'O tpiXoyev'is ovv avvb*popr)T>is vptnzi va nXripojari ti$ xaOz rtipov tpiopivi zva xal Kapavra- via e'ixoai rijs Biswas, xal tovto \(o/'i? xappiav irpoioaiv, dXX' evdvs birov BeXzt tts zis tov oiipavov, eT^r/ xal eis TifV yf/v. To xpiopl pas to xaQripzpivov, 06s pas to ofipzpov. Kat avyxaipriae pas tul xpirt pas, x.dhos xal epzTs ovyxupovpev tovs xpzo- (ptiXeTas pas. Kiu pr/v pas ipepz eis Trzipaupov, dAAd eXev- Beptoac pas azo tov Tofi/pdV. "O-t eStxfi crov elvai i'/ Pact. Xeia Si, )'; Svvapir/, xal ij Jdfa, eis tovs aidovas. 'Apijv. IN GREEK. IIA'TEP ?ipo~>v, zv toTs oipavoTs, ayiaadfJTO) to bvo pa cev. 'EAOeVoj (j /]aitXzia ovv yzvrjtifiToj to SeXri/td aov, 015 iv oipavS), Kal itri rijs J i S- Toy aprov I'tpuv tov z-iavaiov £l'S ''ii'Tv c-i'iptpn,'. Kai ocisj ripTv tu b^ziXfipara fijjicov, ojj KOi iipets d(piep£v rot; d^tiAtrais ;/f»d>i/. Kal p>] ziazviyxi)s r\\\.aS eis Treipaapdv, dAAd pvaai t'lpas dito tov novr/poti. "On oov ia-Tiv i; 8acrt\zia, xal 1) dvvapis, xal >\ o6\a, eis 7"tf aiiovas. 6. CANTO III. 1. In "pride of place" here last the eagle few. Stanza xviii. line 5. Pride of place " is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, &c. " An E.i^rle towering in liis pride of place Was by a mousing Owl hawked at and killed. Sue as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. Stanza xx. line 9. See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogi- ton. — The best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. Denman. " Willi myrtle my sword will 1 wreathe," &c. And all went merry as a marriage-hell. Stanza xxi. line 8. On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. 4, 5. And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clans- man's ears. Stanza xxvi. line 9. Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the " gentle Lochiel" of the " forty-five." 11 And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. Stanza xxvii. line 1. The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a rem- nant of the " forest of Ardennes," famous in Boiardo's Orlando, and immortal in Shakspeare's As You Like It." It is also celebrated in Tacitus as being the spot of successful defence by the Ger- mans against the Roman encroachments. — I have ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter. I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring. Stanza xxx. line 9. My guide from Mont St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down or shivered in the battle) which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. — Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollcjw for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced ; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished, the guide said, "here Major Howard lay; I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twee over the field, com paring it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for tho scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination : I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Choero- nea, and Marathon ; and the field around Mont St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that indefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a cel- ebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all 01 these, except perhaps the last mentioned. Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. Stanza xxxiv. line 6. The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes were said to be fair without, and within ashes. — Vide Tacitus, Histor. 1, 5, 7. 9. For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den. Stanza xli. line last. The great error of Napoleon, " if we have writ our annals true," was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling foi or with them ; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals ; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is pleasanter than Moscow," would probably alienate more favor from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark. 10. What want these outlaws conquerors should have. Stanza xlviii. line 6. ' What wants that knave That a kin? should have was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrement* —See the^Ballad. 82 BYRON'S WORKS. 11. The castled crag of Drachenfels. Page 41, verse 1. Tlie castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of "the seven Mountains," over the Rhine banks: it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions : it is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river : on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew's castle, and a large cross commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother : the number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and then- situations remarkably beautiful. 12. The tohiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. Stanza lvii. line last. The monument of the young and lamented Gen-, eral Marceau (killed by a rifle ball at Alterkirchen on the last day of the fourth year of the French republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required : his name was enough ; France adored, and her enemies admired ; both wept over him. — His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word ; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there : his death was attended by suspicions of poison. A seperate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing. " The Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander in Chief Hoche." This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier gen- erals before Bonaparte monopolized her triumphs. He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland. 13. Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattcr'd wall. Stanza lviii. line 1. Ehrenbreitstein, i. e. "the broad stone of Honor," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. — It had been and could only be reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison, but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain fcr some time, and I slept in a room where I was tfciown a window at which he was said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it. 14. Unscpulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wander- ing ghost. Stanza lxiii. line last. The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Bur- gundian legion in the service of France, who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwith- standing the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages, (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country,) and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postillions, who carried them off to *ell foi knife-handles, a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of ^ars haic rendered them in great request. Of thest relics ?. ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer by might hv?< i ges, let qui m'y a fait i tablir enfht les h tos Op mon l'oiiiaii. Je dfirois volontiers a ceux qui out du gout et qui sunt sen k Vevai — vi le pays, examinez les sit i », promenez-vous sur le la ■. et dites si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour lne J«di*., pom une Claire et pour un St Preux ; mais ne les y cherchez pas." Les Confessions, livre iv. page 306, Lyons ed. 1796. In July, 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva; and as far as my own observations have led me, in a not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau ID his "Heloise," I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens, (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, Meillerie, Eivan, and the entrances of the Rhone,) without being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not all : the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehen- sive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory : it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole. If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same associations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by their adoption ; he has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection; but they have done that for him which no human being could d" tor them. I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from Meillerie (where we landed for some time) to St. Gingo during a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around, although occasion- ally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. It was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. On gaining the shore at St. Gingo, I found that the wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some tine old chestnut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the opposite height of Clarens is a chateau. The hills are covered with vineyards, and inter- spersed with some small but beautiful woods ; one of these was named the " Bosquet de Julie," and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St. Bernard, (to whom the land appertained,) that the ground might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an exiled superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the "local habitations" he has given to "airy nothings." The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Bonaparte has levelled a part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to Simplon. The road is an excellent one, but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that "La route vaut miseux que les sou« venirs." 23. Lnusannc ! and Ferney ! ye hare been the ahodes. Stanza cv. line 1. Voltuiie and Gibbon. 24. Had I not filed my mind] which, thus itself subdues. Stanza cxiii. line last 'If it be thus, ! hnve lji!ed my i O'er others' griefi that some sincerely grieve. Stanza cxiv. line 7 84 BYRON'S VVOKKW. It is said by Rochefoucault that " there is always something in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them." CANTO IV. l. 1 stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs ; A palace and a prison on each hand. Stanza i. lines 1 and 2. The communication between the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dungeons, called "pozzi," or wells, were sunk in the thick walls of the palace ; and the prisoner when taken out to die was conducted across the gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled up ; but the passage is still open, and is still known by the name of the Bridge of Sighs. The pozzi are under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve, but on the first arrival of the French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however, descend by a trap-Kloor, and crawl down through holes, half choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there ; scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, and the places of confiement themselves are totally dark. A small hole in the wall admitted the' damp air of the passages, and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet, raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors tell you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the republicans descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen years. But the inmates of the dungeons beneath had left traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still visible, and may perhaps owe something to recent ingenuity. Some of the detained appear to have offended against, and others to have belonged to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, but from the churches and belfries which they have jcratched upon the walls. The reader may not object to see a specimen of the records prompted by so terrific a solitude. As nearly as they could be copied by more than one pencil, three of them are lie as f jllows : 1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PENSA e TACI 8E FUGIK VUOI DE SPIONI INSIDIE e LACCI IL PENTIRTI.PENTIE.TI NULLA GIOVA MA BEN DI VALOR TL'O LA VERA PROVA 1607. ADI 2. GENARO. PULRE. TENTO P' LA BESTIEMMA P' AVER DATO DA MANZAR A UN MORTO IACOMO . GRITTI . SCRISSS. UN PARLAR POCHO et NEGARE PRONTO et UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA A NOI ALTRI MESCHINI 1605 EGO TOHN 3APTISTA AD ECCLESIAM CORTELLA1UUS DE CHI MI FIDO GUARDAMI DIO DE CHI NON MI FIDO MI GL'ARDARO 10 A TA H A NA V. LA S . C . Iv . R. The copyist has followed, not corrected the solecisms ; some of which are however not quite sc decided, since the letters were evidently scratched in the dark. It only need be observed, bcsteiinnia and mangiar may be read in the first inscription, which was probably written by a prisoner confined for some act of impiety committed at a funeral : that Cortellarius is the name of a parish on terra firma, near the sea ; and that the last initials evidently are put for Viva la santa Chiesa Kattolica Romania. 2. She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean. Rising with her tiara of proud towers. Stanza ii. lines 1 and 2. An old writer, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the ab*ve image, which would not be poetical were it not true. " Quo Jit ut qui superne iirbem contempletur, tur- ritenn telluris imaginem medio Oceano Jiguratam se putet inspiccre." * 3. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more. Stanza iii. line 1. The well-known song of the gondoliers, of alter- nate stanzas from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with the independence of Venice. Editions of the poem, with the original on one column, and the Venetian variations on the other, as sung by the boatmen, were once common, and are still to be found. The following extract will serve to show the difference between the Tuscan epic and the " Canta alia Barcariola." ORIGINAL. Canto 1' arme pietose, e '1 capitano Che '1 gran Sepolcro libero di Cristo, Molto egli opro col senno, e con la mano Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto ; E in van 1' Inferno a lui s' oppose, e in vane S' armo d' Asia, e di Libia il popnl misto, Che il Ciel gli die favore, e sotto a i Santi Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti. VENETIAN. L' arme pietose de cantar gho vogia, E de Goffredo la immortal braura Che al In '1 ha libera co strassia, e dogia Del nostro buon Gesu la Sepoltura De mezo mondo unito, e de quel Bogia Missier Pluton non 1' ha bu mai paura : Dio 1' ha agiuta, e '1 compagni sparpagnai Tutti '1 gh' i ha messi insieme i di del Dai. Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, take up and continue a stanza of their once familiar bard. On the 7th of last January, the author of Childe Harold, and another Englishman, the writer of this notice, rowed to the Lido with two singers, one ol whom was a carpenter, and the other a gondolier. The former placed himself at the prow, the latter at the stern of the boat. A little after leaving the quay of the Piazzetta, they began to sing, and continued their exercise until we arrived at the island. They gave us, amongst other essays, the death of Clorinda, and the palace of Armida ; and Sabclli de Veneta Urbis situ narmw, euit. Ta NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 85 Jid not smg the Venetian, but the Tuscan verses. The carpenter, however, who was the cleverer of the two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his companion, told us that he could translate the original. He added, that he could sing almost three hundred stanzas, but had not spirits (morh/u was the word he used) to learn any more, or to sing what he already knew : a man must have idle time on his hands to acquire, or to repeat, and, said the poor fellow, "look at ray clothes and at me; I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit alone can make attractive. The recitative was shrill, screaming, and monotonous, and the gondolier behind assisted his voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The carpenter used a quiet action, which he evidently endeavored to restrain ; but was too much interested in his subject altogether to repress. From these men we learnt that singing is not con- fined to the gondoliers, and that, although the cha it is seldom, if ever, voluntary, there are still several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with a few stanzas. It docs not appear that it is usual for the per- formers to row and sing at the same time. Al- though the verses of the Jerusalem are no longer casually heard, there is yet much music upon the Venetian canals ; and upon holydays, those strang- ers who are not near or informed enough to dis- tinguish the words, may fancy that many of the gondolas still resound with the strains of Tasso. The writer of some remarks which appeared in the Curiosities of Literature, must excuse his being twice quoted ; for, with the exception of some phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description. "In Venice, the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. But this talent seems at present on the decline : — at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than two persons who delivered to me in this way a passage from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to me a passage from Tasso, in the manner, as he assured me, of the gondoliers. " There are always two concerned, who alternate- ly sing the strophes. We know the melody event- ually By Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed ; it has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and the canto figuruto ; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished. " I entered a gondola by moonlight: one singer placed himself forwards and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song; when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invari- ably returned, but, according to the subject matter of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe as the object of the poem altered. " On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse and screaming : they seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivilized men, to make the excellency of their singing in the force of their voice : one seem- ed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs ; and so far from receiving delight from this scene, (shut up as I was in the box of the gen- dola,) I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. " My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this sing- ing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the shove, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now •>egan to sing against one another, and I kept walk- ing up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequent- ly stood still and hearkened to the one and to the other. " Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the at- tention ; the quickly succeeding transitions which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vocif- erations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the splendor of the moon, the deep shad- ows of the few gondolas that moved like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking pecu- liarity of the scene ; and amidst all these circum- stances, it was easy to confess the character of this wonderful harmony. " It suits perfectly well with an idle, solitary mari- ner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror, and as all is still around, he is, as it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot passengers ; a silent gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashings of the oars are scarcely to be heard. "At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two strangers : he becomes the respon- sive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit con vention they alternate verse for verse ; though the song should last the whole night through, they en tertain themselves without fatigue : the hearers, who are passing between the two, take part in the amusement. " This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remote- ness. It is plaintive but not dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organized person, said quite unex- pectedly : ' e singolare come quei canto intenerisce, e molto piu quando lo cantano meglio.' " I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the Lagouns,* particularly the women of the extreme districts of Malainocco and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of Tasso to these and similar tunes. " They have the custom, when their husbands aie fishing out at sea, to sit along the shore in the evenings, and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a distance." f The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of Venetians, even amongst the tuneful sons of Italy. The city itself can occasionally fur- nish respectable audiences for two and even three opera-houses at a time ; and there are few events in private life that do not call forth a printed and cir- culated sonnet. Does a physician or a lawyer take his degree, or a clergyman preach his maiden ser- mon, has a surgeon performed an operation, would a harlequin announce his departure or his benefit, are you to be congratulated on a marriage, or a • The writer meant Lido, whi:h is not a locg row of islands, i'lit a long island : liltus, the shore. t Curiosities of Literature, vol. 1L p. 154, edit. IS07 ; ar I Appendix xn*t to Black's Life of Taaso. 86 BYRON'S WORKS. birth, or a lawsuit, the Muses are invoked to fur- nish the same number of syllables, and the individ- ual triumphs blaze abroad in virgin white or party- colored placards on half the corners of the capital The last curtesy of a favorite " prima donna" brings down a shower of these poetical tributes from tbose upper regions, from which, in our theatres, nothing but cupids and snow-storms are accustomed to de- scend. There is a poetry in the very life of a Venetian, which, in its common course, is varied with those surprises and changes so recommendable to fiction, out so different from the sober monotony of north- ern existence ; amusements are raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, and every ob- ject being considered as equally making a part of the business of life, is announced and performed with the same earnest indifference and gay assidu- ity. The Venetian gazette constantly closes its columns with the following triple advertisement. Charade. Exposition of the most Holy Sacrament in the church of St. Theatres. St. Moses, opera. St. Benedict, a comedy of characters. St. Luke, repose. When it is recollected what the Catholics believe their consecrated wafer to be, we may perhaps think it worthy of a more respectable niche than between poetry and the play-house. Sparta hath many a worthier son than he. Stanza x. line 5. The answer of the mother of Brasidas to the strangers who praised the memory of her son. St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, Stanza xi. line 5. The lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides but the gospel which supported the paw that is now on a level with the other foot. The horses also are returned to the ill-chosen spot whence they set out, and are, as before, half hidden under the porch of St. Mark's church. Their history, after a desperate struggle, has been satisfactorily explored. The decisions and doubts of Erizzo and Zanetti, and lastly, of the Count Le- opold Cicognara, would have given them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree not more ancient than the reign of Nero. But M. de Schlegel stepped in to teach the Venetians the value of their own treas- ures, and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever, the pretension of his countrymen to this noble pro- duction.* Mr. Mustoxidi has not been left without a reply ; but, as yet, he has received no answer. It should seem that the horses are irrevocably Chian, and were transferred to Constantinople by Thcodo- sius. Lapidary writing is a favorite play of the Italians, and has conferred reputation on more than one of their literary characters. One of the best specimens of Bodoni's typography is a respectable volume of inscriptions, all written by his friend Pae- ciaudi. Several were prepared for the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the best was not selected, when the following words were ranged in gold let- ters above the cathedral porch. QUATUOR ■ EQTJORTJM ■ SIGNA y%. ■ " VENETIS ', B\ ZANTIO • CAPTA ■ AD ■ TEMP • D ■ MAR • A • R • S MCCIV • POSITA • QVJE ■ HOSTILIS • CUPIDITAS ■ A ' MDCCIIIC • ABSTULERAT ■ FRANC ■ I " IMP ■ PACIS ■ ORBI • DAT,*: • IKOPH.EUM " A ■ MDCCCXV ■ VICTOR" REDUXIT. Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be permitted to observe, that the injustice of the Ven- etians in transporting the horses from Constantino- ple was at least equal to that of the French in car- rying them to Paris, and that it would have been more prudent to have avoided all allusions to either robbery. An apostolic prince should, perhaps, have objected to affixing over the principal entrance of a metropolitan church an inscription having a refer- ence to any other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than the pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns— An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt. Stanza xii. lines 1 and 2. After many vain attempts on the part of the Ital- ians entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Bar- barossa, ar.a as fruitless attempts of the emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa, and the for- mer having received a safe conduct, had already ar- rived at Venice from Ferrara, in company with the ambassadors of the king of Sicily and the consuls of the Lombard league. There still remained, how- ever, many points to adjust, and for several days the peace was believed to be impracticable. At this juncture it was suddenly reported that the Emperor had arrived at Chioza, a town fifteen miles from the capital. The Venetians rose tumultuously, and in- sisted upon immediately conducting him to the city. The Lombards took the alarm, and departed towards Treviso. The Pope himself was apprehensive of some disaster if Frederic should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured by the prudence and address of Sebastian Ziani, the Doge. Several em- bassies passed between Chioza and the capital, until, at last, the Emperor relaxing somewhat of his pre- tensions, "laid aside his leonine ferocity, and put on the mildness of the lamb."* On Saturday, the 23d of July, in the year 1177, six Venetian galleys transferred Frederic, in great pomp, from Chioza to the island of Lido, a mile from Venice. Early the next morning the Pope, accompanied by the Sicilian ambassadors, and by the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had recalled from the main land, together with a great concourse of people, repaired from the patri- archal palace to St. Mark's church, and solemnly absolved the Emperor and his partisans from the excommunication pronounced against him. The Chancellor of the Empire, on the part of his mas- ter, renounced the anti-popes and their schismatic adherents. Immediately the Doge, with a great suite both of the clergy and laity, got on board the galleys, and waiting on Frederic, rowed him in mighty state from the Lido to the capital. The Emperor descended from the galley at the quay of the Piazetta. The Doge, the patriarch, his bish- ops and clergy, and the people of Venice with their crosses and their stan lards, inarched in solemn pro- cession before, him to the church of Saint Mark. Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the basilica, attended by his bishops and cardinals, by • Sui quattro cavilli riclla Easilica di S. Marco in Venezia. Lettera di Andrea Mustoxidi Corcirese. Padua per Bettonie compag. . . 1816. • " Qul'ous a'i^JiLis, imperator, opcrame CO, qui conla principum sicut vuli et quando vuli humiliter incliuat, leonina feritate depnsita, ovinam man suetudinem indi.it." Romualdi Salernitani Chronicon. apud Script. Uei Ital. "■•r. VII. r.. 229. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 8* the DatrifcPda of Aquileja, by the archbishops and biwL. ps w' Lombardy, all of them in state, and clot erii Romania?" And. Dand. Chronicon. cap. iii. pars xxxvii. ap. Script. Rer. Ital. torn. xii. page 331 And the Romania; is observed in the subsequent acts of the Doges, indeed (he continental possessions of the Greek empire in Europe were then generally known by the name of Romania, and that appellation is sti'. s i in the maps of Turkey as applied to Thrace. § See the v^'UinuaLon of Dnndolo's Chronicle, Ibid, page 498. Mr. Gibbon appears not to include Dolfino, following Sanudo, wlio says, " il yual tilolo si uso Jin al Doge Giovanni Dolflno. See Ylte de' Djcr.i di Vene.ua. ap. Script. Rer. Ital. torn. xxii. 530. 641. tied together, and a drawbridge or ladder let down from their higher yards to the walls. The Doge wan our of the first to rush into the city. Then was completed, said the Venetians, the prophecy of the Erythraean sibyl. " A gathering together of the powerful shall be made amidst the waves of the Adriatic, under a blind leader ; they shall beset the goat — they shall profane Byzantium — they shall blacken her buildings — her spoils shall be dispersed ; a new goat shall bleat, until they have measured out and run over fifty-four feet, nine inches, and a half."* Dandolo died on the first clay of June, 120-5, hav ing reigned thirteen years, six months, and fivo days, and was buried in the church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. Strangely enough it must sound, that the name of the rebel apothecary who received the Doge's sword, and annihilated the ancient gov ernment, in 1796-7, was Dandolo. But is not Doria's menace come to pass t Are they not bridled ? Stanza xiii. lines 3 and 4. After the loss of the battle of Pola, and the taking of Chioza on the 16th of August, 1379, by the united armament of the Genoese and Francesco da Carrara, Signor of Padua, the Venetians were reduced to the utmost despair. An embassy was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet of paper, praying them to prescribe what terms they pleased, and leave to Venice only her independence. The Prince of Padua was inclined to listen to these pro- posals, but the Genoese, who after the victory at Pola, had shouted " to Venice, to Venice, and long live St. George," determined to annihilate their rival, and Peter Doria, their commander in chief, returned this answer to the suppliants : " On God's faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Signor of Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that arc upon the porch of your evangelist St. Mark. When we l&ave bridled them, we shall keep you quiet. And this is the pleas- ure of us and of your commune. As for these my broth crs of Genoa, that you have brought with you to give up to us, I will not have them : take them back ; for, in a few days hence, I shall come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all the others." f In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as Mala- mocco, within five miles of the capital ; but their own danger and the pride of their enemies gave courage to the Venetians, who made prodigious ef- forts, and many individual sacrifices, all of them carefully recorded by their historians. Vettor Pi- sani was put at the head of thirty-four galleys. The Genoese broke up from Malamocco, and retired to Chioza in October; but they again threatened Ven- ice, which was reduced to extremities. At this time, the 1st of January, 1380, arrived Carlo Zcno, who had been cruising on the Genoese coast with fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong enough to besiege the Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22d of January by a stone bullet one hun- dred and ninety-five pounds weight, discharged from a bombard called the Trevisan. Chioza was then closely invested: five thousand auxiliaries, among whom were some English Condottieri, com- manded by one Captain Ceccho, joined the Vene- * " Fiet potentium in aquia Adriaticis congregaAo, cceco produce, IIir< cum ambigent, Byzantium propha/nabunt, adifieia demgrabunii spoliti diapergentur, Ilircus novus baktbit usgiie dum I. IV pedea etiXpoltices, et Bemie prarncrtsurati disrurrant." [CliiNihicon, ibid, par? xxxiv.] f " Allafe di Dio, Signori Vcncziani, non havcrete mai pace dal Sig~ nore di Padoua, ne dal nostro commune di Genova, se primiertunttdM non mettemo le briglie a quclii vostri ca^a'ti sfrennti, cite sono su la lieza del Vostro Evangclista S. Marco. Imbrcnati che g'i liavremo, or fartine. stare 171 buona pace. E questa e la inlenzinne nostra, e del vostt o commune. Questi miei fratelli Geneuosi clw 1 < uoi per domarci, non 4 voglio ; rimanctcgli in diclro percke io intendo da qui c poclii giortti venir- gli a riscuoter, dalic loslre pngioni, e luro.e gli allri." 88 BYRON'S WORKS. tians. The Genoese in their turn, prayed for con- ditions, but none were granted, until, at last, they surrendered at discretion ; and, on the 24th of June, 1380, the Doge Contarini made his triumphal entry into Chioza. Four thousand prisoners, nineteen galleys, many smaller vessels and barks, with all the ammunition and arms, and outfit of the expedi- tion, fell into the hands of the conquerors, who, had it not been for the inexorable answer of Doria, would have gladly reduced their dominion to the city of Venice. An account of these transactions is found in a work called the War of Chioza, written by Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at the time.* The " Planter of the Lion." Stanza xiv. line 3. Plant the Lion — that is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon — Piantelone, Pantaleon, Pan- taloon. 10. Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthralls. Stanza xv. lines 7 and 8. The population of Venice at the end ef the seven- teenth century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. The com- merce and the official employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, have both expired, f Most of the patrician man- sions are deserted, and would gradually disappear, had not the government, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two, during the last two years, expressly forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many rem- nants of the Venetian nobility are now scattered and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the banks of the Brenta, whose palladian palaces have sunk, or are sinking in the general decay. Of the " gentiluomo Vcneto," the name is still known, and that, is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. It surely may be pardoned to him if he is querulous. Whatever may have been the vices of the republic, and although the natural term of its existence may be thought by foreigners to have arrived in the due course of mor- tality, only one sentiment can be expected from the Venetians themselves. At no time were the sub- jects of the republic so unanimous in their resolu- tion to rally round the standard of St. Mark, as when it was for the last time unfurled ; and the cowardice and the treachery of the few patricians who recom- mended the fatal neutrality were confined to the per- sons of the traitors themselves. The present race can- not be thought to regret the loss of their aristocrat- ical forms, and too despotic government; they think only on their vanished independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and on this subject sus- pend for a moment their gay good humor. Venice may be said in the words of the Scripture, " to die daily; " and so general and so apparent is the de- cline, as to become painful to a stranger, not recon- ciled to the sight of a whole nation expiring as it were before his eyes. So artificial a creation, having lost that principle which called it into life and sup- ported its existence, must fall to pieces at once, and sink more rapidly t 1 ;.n it rose. The abhorrence of slavery which drove the Venetians to the sea, has, since their disaster, forced them to the land, where they may be at least overlooked amongst the crowd of dependants, and not present the humiliating 'Chronaca delia guerra di Chozac," &c. Script. Rer. Italic, torn, xv ; sunt opes, adeo ut vix ffstimari oritur, paisimoiiia, commercio, atque riz Hnuumentis, qua e Repub. percipiuut, qux banc ob causam diuturr.a fore Creditor* — S?e de Priucipatibus Ltalis. Tractatus edit. 1631. pp. 699 I. t " V StM. nnutlorutn e nobUitate ijnseint : tl qilo-1 lril>ns C rvl m the .V cnl ' 1370, and, with th in at least six places love of Petrarch was neither platonic nor poetical ; and if in one passage of his works he calls it " amorc veementeissimo ma unico ed onesto," he confesses, in a letter to a friend, that it was guilty • Life of Beattie, by Sir W. Forbes, t. ii. p. 105. 1 Mr. Gibbon called his memoirs "a labor of love," 'See Decline and Fall, cap. lxx. note 1,) and followed him with confidence and delimit. The tompil'T ofarayvo] ii s work »t take much criticism upon trust; Mr. Gibbon has dune BO, though not as readily as some other authors. I The Bonnet had lelure awakened the suspicions of Mr. Horace Walpole. Bee his letter to Wharton in 1763. § " Par ce petit manage, cette alternative de f iveurs et de rigueura Wen nenageV, on.' himr tendre e; sage amuse, pendant vingt et un ails, le pins fraud p.iete .1- son .-ieck, sans (aire la rnoindre breche a son honeur." Kim. pour la Vic tie P&rarque, Preface aux Frahgais. The Italian editor of the London editi il Pi trarch, who has translated Lord Woodhouselee, renders the " femme teudre et sage," "raffinata cioelta." Rifletaiuni- btorno a madonna Laura, p. 234, ml, iil. ed. 1811. || lu a dialogue with St Augtistin, P u irch h is described Laura as having a body exhausted with repeated ptubt. The old editors read and printed fertttrbaSombus ; bul Mr. Capperoni r, librarian to the French kins- in 1762, whosaw MS. In the Paris library, made an attestation that ' on Hi et vu'on doit lire, partubut exhaustion." De Sade joined the names of Vlcosrs. Boudot, an I B jot with Mr. Capperonler, and in the whole discussion en tliis ptubs, showed himsell a downright literary rogue. See Riflessioni, fcc., p. '267. Thomas Aquinas is called in to setde whether Petrarch's mis- tress was a chaste maid or a continent wife. TT "Pigmalion, quanto lodar tl del 1)11' imagine tuaj se mille volte N" avesti quel ch' i' sol una vorrei." Sonnettn 5S quando giunse a Simon V alto concetto. Le Rime, ic. par i. pug. 1S9, edit. Veil. 1756. "•See Riflessioni, &c, p 291. 12 the excep- tion of his celebrated visit to Venice, in company with Francesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last years of his life between that charming solitude and Padua. For four months previous to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and in the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his library chair, with his head resting upon a book. The chair is still shown among the precious relics of Arqua, which, from the uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man from the moment of his death to the present hour have, it may be hoped, a better chance of au- thenticity than the Shaksperian memorials of Strat- ford upon Avon. Arqua. (for the last syllable is accented in pro- nunciation, although the analogy of the English language has been observed in the verse), is twelvo miles from Padua, and about three miles on the right of the high road to Rovigo, in the bosom of * " (luella rea e perversa passione die solo tutto mioccupavae ire roguara nel cuore." t Azion dishone&ta are his words. I " A questa conlessione cusi sincere diede forsc occasiune una nuuva cad- uta rli' ' i fece." Tiraboscbj, Storia, § c. torn. v. lib. iv. par. ii. p .\g. 49>. § " // n'y a cue la vertu eeule qui de /aire dee iyn/iressione que la mortn' efface -pas." M. de Bimartl, J tie, in the Men* vs de I'Academie dea Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for 1711) and 1751. See o Riflessioni, fcc, p. 293. II "And if the virtue or prnder.ee of I tun was inexorable, he enjoyed d might boast of enjoying the nymph of poetry." Decline and Fail, cay lax. p. 327, vol. xii. oct. Perhaps the if is here meant for although. so BYRON'S WORKS. the Euganean hills. After a walk of twenty min- 1 society, and was only snatched from his intended utes across a flat, well- wooded meadow, you come to sepulture in their church by a foreign death. Anoth* a little blue lake, clear, but fathomless, and to the er tablet with a bust has been erected to him at foot of a succession of acclivities and hills, clothed with vineyards and orchards, rich with fir and pome- granate trees, and every sunny fruit shrub. From the banks of the lake the road winds into the hills, and the church of Arqua is soon seen between a cleft where two ridges slope towards each other, and nearly enclose the village. The houses are scattered "at intervals on the steep sides of these summits ; and that of the poet is on the edge of a little knoll overlooking two . descents, and com- manding a view not only of the glowing gardens in the dales immediately beneath, but of the wide plains, above whose low woods of mulberry and willow, thickened into a dark mass by festoons of vines, tall single cypresses, and the spires of towns are seen in the distance, which stretches to the mouths of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The climate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be -said to be buried, in a sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands conspicuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four- lately planted laurels. Petrarch's fountain, for here every thing is Petrarch's, springs and ex- pands itself beneath an artificial arch, a little below the church, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, with that soft water which was the ancient wealth of the Euganean hills. It would be more attractive, were it not, in some seasons, beset with hornets and wasps. No other coincidence could assimilate the tombs of Petrarch and Archilochus. The revolutions of centuries have spared these se- questered valleys, and the only violence which has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen by a Forentine through a rent which is still visible. The injury is not forgotten, but has served to identify the poet with the country where he was born, but where he would not live. A peasant boy of Arqua being asked who Petrarch was, replied, " that the people of the parsonage knew all about him, but that he only knew that he was a Florentine." Mr. Forsyth* was not quite correct in saying that Petrarch never returned to Tuscany after he had once quitted it when a boy. It appears he did pass through Florence on his way from Parma to Rome, and on his return in the year 1350, and remained there long enough to form some acquaintance with its most distinguished inhabitants. A Florentine gentleman, ashamed of the aversion of the poet for his native country, was eager to point out this trivial error in our accomplished traveller, whom he knew and respected for an extraordinary capacity, exten- sive erudition, and refined taste, joined to that en- gaging simplicity of manners which has been so frequently recognized as the surest, though it is certainly not an indispensable, trait of superior ge- nius. Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxious- ly traced and recorded. The house in which he lodged is shown in Venice. The inhabitants of Arezzo, in order to decide the ancient controversy between their city and the neighboring-' Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven months old, . ^ ^ dd ^^ ^ ... p _ ^ ^ „ eJil ^^^ 1790 _ and remained until his seventh year, have aesignat- t HUtoire (le 1>Acad&nie Fran S aise,depuisi652jusqu'ai70u,pari'AbM ed by along inscription the spot where their great d'Olivet, p. 181, edit. Amsterdam, 1730. "MaiB,ensirite,venanta]'usagequ'i: fellow citizen was born. A tablet has been raised to | n fait de ees talens, j'aurois montre que le bon sens n'est p;is toujours ce qui him in Parma, ill the chapel of St. Agatha, at the! domine chez lui," p. 182. Boileau said he had not changed liis opinion: cathedral.t because he was an archdeacon of that "J'enaisi peu change, dii-ii," «x., p. isi. J LaManiere do Lien Pcnser dans les ouvragea de 1 esprit, Pavia, on account of his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that city, with his son-in-law Brossano, The political condition which has for ages pre- cluded the Italians from the criticism of the living, has concentrated their attention to the illustration of the dead. 17. Or, it may be, with demons. Stanza xxxiv. line 1 The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour And our unsullied John Locke preferred the pres- ence of a child to complete solitude. 18. In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire ; And Boileau, whose rash envy, fyc. Stanza rxxviii. lines 6 and 7. Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates Tasso, may serve as well as any other specimen to justify the opinion given of the harmony of French verse. A Malerbe a Racan, prefere Theopliile, Et le clinquant du Tasse a lout l'or de Virgile. Sat. ix. vers. 176. The biographer Serassi,* out of tenderness to the reputation either of the Italian or the French poet, is eager to observe that the satirist, recanted or ex- plained away this censure, and subsequently allowed the author of the Jerusalem to be a " genius, sub- lime, vast, and happily born from the higher flights of poetry." To this we will add, that the recanta- tion is far from satisfactory, when we examine the whole anecdote as reported by Olivet. f The sen- tence pronounced against him by Bohouvsj is re- corded only to the confusion of the critic, whose palinodia the Italian makes no effort to discover, and would not perhaps accept. As to the opposi- tion which the Jerusalem encountered from the Cruscan academy, who degraded Tasso from all competition with Ariosto, below Bojardo and Pulci, the disgrace of such opposition must also in some measure be laid to the charge of Alfonso, and the court of Ferrara. For Leonard Salviati, the princi pal and nearly the sole origin of this attack, was Parenlibus prseclaris genera perantiquo Ethices Christians scriptori eixmio Romans linguae restitiitori Etruscs priucipi Africas ob carmen hac in urbe peractum regibus acclto S. P. Q.. R. laurea don&ta. Tanti Viri. Juvenilium juvenis senilium senex Sludiossissimus. Comes Nicolaus Canonicus Cicogcarus Mamiorea proxima ara excitata. Ibique condito Div. 26. •* Storia dclla Lett. &c, lib. iii. torn. n«. ,»ar. iii. p. 1220, sect. 4. ft " Mi raccoutarono que' monaci, ch' essemlo caduto un fulmina nclla loro chi'sa scliianto csso dalle tempie la coronna di lauro a quell' imniortale poet i." Op di Ei inconi, vol. iii. p. 176, eel. Milano, 1802; lettera al Sigr.or Guido S ivini Arcilisiocriiico, sull' indole di un fulmlne caduto in Dresda Par-ao 1759. XX " Appassionato ammiratore ed invitto apologista dell' Omero Ferra- rest." Th<" title was first given by Tasso, and is quoted to the confusion of Uie Tassusa, lib. ii:. pp. 262, 265, La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, 4c. these words : " Qui nacque Luclovico Ariosto it giorno 8 di Scttcmbre dell' anno 1474." But the Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusivelj for their own. They possess his bones, they show hia arm-chair, and his inkstand, and his autographs. The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by his own replaced memorial,* and by a recent inscription. The Ferrarese are mine jealous of their claims since the animosity of Denina, arising from a cause which their apologists mysteriously hint is not unknown to them, ventured to degrade their soil and climate to a Boeotian inca- pacity for all spiritual productions. A quarto vol ume has been called forth by the detraction, and this supplement to Barotti's Memoirs of the illus- trious Ferrarese has been considered a triumphant reply to the " Quado Storico Statistico dell' Alta Italia." 20. For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cl cares. Stanza xli. lines 4 and 5. The eagle, the sea calf, the laurel, f and the white vine,* were among the most approved pre- servatives against lightning ; Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Crcsar the second, $ and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunder-storm. || These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where the magical properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit ; and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised to find that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown of Tibe- rius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote a laurel was actually struck by lightning at Rome *B 21. Know that the lightning sanctifies below. Stanza xli. line 8. The Curtian lake and the F irhinal fig-tree in the Forum, having been touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the memory of the accident was preserved by a. puteal or altax, resembling the mouth of a well, with a little chapel covering the cavity supposed to be made by the thunderbolt. Bodies scathed and persons struck dead were thought to be incorruptible ;** and a stroke not fatal conferred perpetual dignity upon the man so distinguished by heaven, ff Those killed by lightning were wrapped in a white garment, and buried where they fell. The superstition was not confined to the worshippers of Jupiter; the Lombards believed in the omens fur- nished by lightning, and a Christian priest confesses that, by a diabolical skill in interpreting thunder, a seer foretold to Agilulf, Duke of Turin, an event which came to pass, and gave him a queen and a crown. jj There was, however, something equivo- cal in this sign, which the ancient inhabitants of Rome did not always consider propitious : and as the fears are likely to last longer than the consola- • " Parva sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida, parta meo sed tanien rere dornus." t Aquila, vitulus marinuB, et laurus, fulmine non feriunter. Plin. Nsi Hist. lib. ii. cap. lv. X Columella, lit). X. § Sueton. in Vit. August, cap. xe. || Sueton. in Vit. Tiberii, cap. Ixix. TT Note 2, p. 409, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1667. • ■ Viil. .1. C. BuUeogor, do Terra Motu et Fulmirdb. lib. v. cap xi. tt OiScis KcpavvdiOcli urt/joc tori, bOsv Kal coc -Srcis ti jx'j.rat. Plot. Sympos. vid. J. C. Bulling, at sup. Jt Paul! Diaconi, de Gestis Langobard. lib. iii. cap. xiv. fo. 15, edit. Taurin. 1527. 92 BYRON'S WORKS. tions of superstition, it is not strange that the Ro tnans of the age of Leo X. should have been so much terrified at some misinterpreted storms as to require the exhortations of a scholar, who arrayed all the learning on thunder and lightning to prove the omen favorable ; beginning with the flash which struck the walls of Velitrae, and including that which played upon a gate at Florence, and foretold the pontificate of one of its citizens.* Italia ! oh Italia ! §c. Stanza xlii. line 1. The two stanzas, XLII. and XLIIL, are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Fillicaja : "Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte." 23. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind. Stanza xliv. lines 1 and 2. The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicus to Cicero on the death of his daughter describes it as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different jour- neys and voyages. " On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from JEgina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me : JEgina was behind, Megara before me ; Piroeus on the right, Corinth on "the left ; all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves, if any of our friends happen to die or to be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view." f 24. And we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form Stanza xlvi. lines 7 and 8. It is Poggio who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the excla- mation, "Ut nunc onvni decore nudata, prostata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque un- dique exesi." T 25. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone. Stanza xlix. line 1. The view of the Venus of Medecis instantly sug- gests the lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with the description proves not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. The same conclusion may be deduced from another hint in the same episode of Musidora ; for Thomson's notion of the privileges of favored love must have been either very primitive, or rather deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her discreet Damon that in some happier moment he might, perhaps, be the companion of her bath : " The time may come you need not fly." The reader will recollect the anecdote told in the Life of Dr. Johnson. We will not leave the Flor- entine gallery without a word on the Whetter. It * 1. P. Valeriana de fulminum aignincationibus declamatio, ap. Grsv. Antiq. Rom. torn. v. p. 593. The declamation is addressed to Julian of Medecis. t Dr. Middleton— History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vii. p. 371, vol. ii. \ De fortuna: varietate urbis Rome, et de minis ejusdem descriptio. ap. Beltehgre, The&aur. torn. i. p. 501. seems strange that the character of that disputed statue should not be entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who has seen a sarcophagus in the vestibule of the Basilica of St. Paul without the walls, at Rome, where the whole group of thelable of Marsyas is seen in tolerable preservation ; and the Scythian slave whetting the knife is represented exactly in the same position as the celebrated master- piece. The slave is not naked ; but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Caesar. AVinkelmann, illustrating a bas relief of the same subject, follows the opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his authority might have been thought conclu- sive, even if the resemblance did not strike the most careless observer.* Among. the bronzes of the same princely collec- tion is still to be seen the inscribed tablet copied and commented up.on by Mr. Gibbon. f Our histo- rian found some difficulties, but did not desist from his illustration : he might be vexed to hear that his criticism has been thrown away on an inscription now generally recognized to be a forgery. 26. His eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy siceet cheek. Stanza li. fines 6 and 7. '0 ii. cap- lxxix. pag. 78, edit. Elzevir, 1SS9. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. Uxvii.J The affectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscrip- tions, which so often leaves us uncertain whethei the structure before us is an actual depository, or « cenotaph, or a simple memorial not of death but life, has given to the tomb of Machiavelli no in- formation as to the place or time of the birth o» death, the age or parentage, of the historian. TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM NICCOLAVS MACHIAVELLI. There seems at least no reason why the name should not have been put above the sentence which alludes to it. It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which have passed the name of Machiavelli into an epithet proverbial of iniquity, exist no longer at Florence. His memory was persecuted as his life had been, for an attachment to liberty incompatible with the new system of despotism, which succeeded the fall of the free governments of Italy. He was put to the torture for being a "libertine," that is, for wishing to restore the republic of Florence ; and such are the undying efforts of those who are in- terested in the perversion not only of the nature of actions, but the meaning of words, that what was once patriotism, has by degrees come to signify de bauch. AVe have ourselves outlived the old mean- ing of " liberality," which is now another word for treason in one country and for infatuation in all. It seems to have been a strange mistake to accuse the author of the Prince, as being a pander to tyranny ; and to think that the Inquisition would condemn his work for such a delinquency. The fact is that Machiavelli, as is usual with those against whom no crime can be proved, was suspected of, and charged with, atheism ; and the first and last most violent opposers of the Prince were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded the Inquisition " benche fosse tardo," to prohibit the treatise, and the other qualified the secretary of the Florentine republic as no better than a fool. The father Possevin was proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucchesini not to have understood it. It is clear, however, that such critics must have objected not to the slavery of the doctrines, but to the supposed tendency of a lesson which shows how distinct are the interests of a monarch from the happiness ol mankind. The Jesuits are reestablished in Italy, and the last chapter of the Prince may again call forth a particular refutation, from those who are employed once more in moulding the minds of the rising generation, so as to receive the impressions of despotism. The chapter bears for title, " Esor tazione a liberare la Italia dai Barbari," and con- cludes with a libertine excitement to the future re demption of Italy. & " Non si dere adunque lasciat pasture questa occasione, acciocclie la Italia vegqa dopo tanto tempo appaire un suo redentore. Ne posso esprimere con qua! amore ei fusse ricevuto in tuttc quelle provincie, die hanno patito per queste illuvioni esterne, eon qual sete di vendetta, eon che ostinata fede, con che lacrime. Quali porte se li serrerebenot Quali popoli li negherebbeno la obbedi- enzaf Quale Italiano li negherebbe I'ossequio? AD OGNUNO PUZZA dUESTO BAEEARO DOMIXIO." * 30. Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar. ■ Stanza lvii. line 1 Dante was born in Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles, was fourteen times ambassa dor, and once prior of the republic. When the party of Charles of Anjou triumphed over the Bi- anchi, he was absent on an embassy to Pope Boni- face VIII., and was condemned to two years' ban- * II Principe di Niccolo Machiavelli, &c, con la pr rvaiEoDG c le note Uto- riche e politiche di Mr. Amelot de la Houssaye e 1' eeame e confutation© deir opera Casmopoli, 1769. 94 BYRON'S WORKS. ishment and to a fine of eight thousand lite ; on non- payment of which lie was further punished by the sequestration of all his property. The republic, however, was not content with this satisfaction, for in 1772 was discovered in the archives at Florence a sentence in which Dante is the eleventh of a list of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be burnt alive ; Talis pervmiens igne comburatur sic quod moriatur. The pretext for this judgment was a proof of unfair barter, extortions, and illicit gains. Baracteriai >.tm iniguarum, extorsionum, et UUcitorum lucrorum,* and with such an accusation it is not strange that Dante should have always protested his innocence, and the injustice of his fellow-citizens. His appeal to Florence was accompanied by another to the Emperor Henry ; and the death of that sovereign in 1313, was the signal for a sentence of irrevocable banishment. He had before lingered near Tuscany with hopes of recall ; then travelled into the north of Italy, where Verona had to boast of his longest residence ; and he finally settled at Ravenna, which was his ordinary but not constant abode until his death. The refusal of the Venetians to grant him a public audience, on the part of Guido Novello da Polenta, his protector, is said to have been the principal cause of this event, which happened in L321. He was buried ("in sacra minorum axle") at Ravenna, in a handsome tomb, which was erected by Guido, restored by Bernardo Bembo in 1483, proctor for that republic which had refused to hear him, again restored by Cardinal Corsi in 1692, and replaced by a more magnificent sepulchre, con- structed in 1780, at the" expense of the Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. The offence or misfortune of Dante was an attachment to a defeated party, and, as his least favorable biographers allege against him, too great a freedom of speech and haughtiness of manner. But the next age paid honors almost divine to the exile. The Florentines, having in vain and frequently attempted to recover his body, crowned his image in a church, f and his picture is still one of the idols of their cathedral. They struck medals, they raised statues to him. The cities of Italy, not being able to dispute about, his own birth, contended for that of his great poem, and the Florentines thought it for their honor to prove that he had finished the seventh canto before they drove him from his native city. Fifty-one years after his death, they endowed a professorial chair for the expounding of his verses, and Boccac- cio was appointed to this patriotic employment. The example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa, and the commentators, if they performed but little service to literature, augmented the veneration which beheld a sacred or moral allegory in all the Linages of his mystic muse. His birth and his in- fancy were discovered to havef%een distinguished above those of ordinary men ; the author of the De- cameron, his earliest biographer, relates, that his mother was warned in a dream of the importance of her pregnancy : and it was found, by others, that at ten years cf age he had manifested his precocious passion for that wisdom or theology, which, under the name of Beatrice, had been mistaken for a substantial mistress. When the Divine Comedy had been recognized as a mere mortal prodiiction, and at the distance of two centuries, when criticism and competition had sobered the judgment of Ital- ians, Dante was seriously declared superior to Homer : £ and, though the preference appeared to some casuists " an heretical blasphemy worthy of the flames," the contest was vigorously maintained for nearly fifty years. In later times it was made a question which of the Lords of Verona could boast of having patronized him,* and the jealous skepti- cism of one writer would not allow Ravenna the undoubted possession of his bones. Even the crit- ical Tixaboschi was inclined to believe that the poet had foreseen and foretold one of the discoveries of Galileo. — Like the great originals of other nations, his popularity has not always maintained the same level. The last age seemed inclined to undervalue him as a model and a study ; and Bettinelli one day rebuked his pupil Monti, for poring over the harsh and obsolete extravagances of the Commedia. The present generation, having recovered from the Gal- lic idolatries of Cesarotti, has returned to the an- cient worship, and the Danteggiare of the northern Italians is thought even indisereet by the more moderate Tuscans. There is still much curious information relativp to the life and writings of this great poet which has not as yet been collected even by the Italians ; but the celebrated Ugo Foscolo meditates to supply this defect, and it is not to be regretted that this notional work has been reserved for one so devoted t© "n/8 country and the cause of truth. 31. Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, Proscribed, &;c. Stanza lvii. lines 2, 3, and 4. The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb if he was not buried at Liternum, whither he had retired to voluntary banishment. This tomb was near the sea-shore, and the story of an inscription upon it, Ingrata Patria, having given a name to a modern tower, is, if not true, an agreeable fiction. If he was not buried, he certainly lived there. •(■ In cosi angusta e solitaria villa Era '1 grand' uomo che d'Africa s'appella Fcrche prima col t'erro al vivo aprilla.J Ingratitude is generally supposed the vice peculiar to republics ; and it seems to be forgotten that for one instance of popular inconstancy, we have a hundred examples of the fall of courtly favorites. Besides, a people have often repented — a monarch seldom or never. Leaving apart many familiar proofs of this fact, a short story may show the dif- ference between even an aristocracy and the multi- tude. Vettor Pisani, having been defeated in 1354 at Potolongo, and many years afterwards in the move decisive action of Pola, by the Genoese, was recalled by the Venetian government, and thrown into chains. The Avvogadori proposed to behead him, but the supreme tribunal was content with the sen- tence of imprisonment. Whilst Pisani was suffer- ing this unmerited disgrace, Chioza, in the vicinity of the capital, § was, by the assistance of the Sir/nor of Padua, delivered into the hands of Pictro Doria. At the intelligence of that disaster the great bell of St. Mark's tower tolled to arms, and the people and the soldiery of the galleys were summoned to the repulse of the approaching enemy ; but they protested they would not move a step, unless Pisani were liberated and placed at their head. The great council was instantly assembled ; the prisoner was called before them, and the Doge, Andrea Conta- rini, informed him of the demands of the people and the necessities of the state, whose only hope of safety was reposed on his efforts, and who implored him to forget the indignities he had endured in her service. " I have submitted," replied the magnan- imous republican, "I have submitted to your delib- * Storia della Lett. Ital. torn. v. lib. iii. par. '2, p. 448. Tiraboschi is incor- •ct: the dates of die three decrees against DaiKe are A. D. 1302, 1314, and .'IS. t So relates Ficino, outcome think his coronation only an allegory. See Storia, &c, ut sup. p. 453. J Uy Varchi in his Ercolano. The controversy continued from 1570 to 616. See Storia, &c, torn, vii 'tb. iii. par. iii. n. 1280 • Gio. Jacopo Dionisi Canonico di Verona. Serie di Acedollo, n. 2. Sec Storia, &c, torn. v. lib. i. par. i. p. 24. t Vitam Literni e'git sine desideio urbis. See T. Liv. Hist. lib. xxxvifl. Livy reports that some said be was buried at Liternum, othe re at Rome lb cap. lv. % Trionfo della Castita. § See note 8, page 62. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 95 tratitf us without complain*-; I have supported pa- tiently the pains of imprisonment, for they were inflicted at your command : this is no time to in- quire whether I deserved them — the good of the re- public may have seemed to require it, and that which the republic resolves is always resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my lite for the preser- vation of tuy country." Pisani was appointed gen- eral!- im i L by his exertions, in conjunction with those leno, the Venetians soon recovered the ascendancy over their maritime rivals. The Italian communities were no less unjust to their citizens than the Greek republics. Liberty, both with the one and the other, seems to have been a national, not an individual object: and, not- withstanding the boasted equality before the laios which an ancient Greek writer* considered the great distinctive mark between his countrymen and the barb tri uis, the mutual rights of fellow-citizens seem never to have been the principal scope of the old democracies. The world may have not yet seen an essay b' the author of the Italian Republics, in which the distinction between the liberty of former states and the signification attached to that word by the happier constitution of England, is ingeni ously developed. The Italians, however, when they had free, still looked back' with a sigh upon these times of turbulence, when every citizen might rise to a share of sovereign power, and have never been taught fully to appreciate the repose o" a monarchy. Sperone Speroni, when Francis Maria II. Duke of Rovere proposed the question, " which was preferable, the republic or the principality — the perfect and not durable, or the less perfect and not so liable to change," replied, "that our happiness is to be measured by its quality, not by its duration ; and that he preferred to live for one day like a man, than for a hundred years like a brute, a stock, or a stone." This was thought, and called, a magnificent answer, down to the last days of Italian servitude. f 32. And the crown Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown. Stanza lvii. lines 6, 7, and 8. The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which confiscated the property of his father, who had been banished shortly after the exile of Dante. His crown did not dazzle them; but when in the next year they were in want of his assistance in the formation of their university, they repented of their injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua to entreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the 1 bosom of his native country, where he might finish his immortal Africa, and enjoy witB his recovered possessions, the esteem of all classes of his fellow-citizens. They gave him the option of the book and the science he might condescend to expound: they called him the glory of his country, who was dear, and would be dearer to them ; and they added, that if there was anything ttnpleasing in their letter, he ought to return among them, were it only to correct their style, j Petrarch seemed at first to listen to their flattery and to the entreaties of his friend, but he did not return to Florence, and preferred a pilgrimage to the tomb of Laura and the shades of Vaucluse. 33. Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed His dust. Stanza lviii. lines 1 and 2. * The Gnvk boasted that he whs in a'O/i jj. See the last chapter of the first book ol' Dtonysius of Halicarnassiis. t " l J tntorno alia magru]/Soa ri*; wto," &c. S rassi Vita del Tasso, lib. iii. r '?■ H9, torn. ii. edit. k 2. Bergamo. J " Accingiti innoltre, se ci e 1 cito ancor I'esoitartl, a eompire l'immortal tua Africa. . . . Se ti avrienne d'iuconlrare nel nostra Etiie cosa chc ii dispi* «cU, cib debb' essere un altro moUvo ad esaudire i drtsiderj della tua patria." Storm della Lett. ltal. torn. v. par. i. lib. . pajr. 70. Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James, at Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the place of his birth. There he passed the latter part of his life in a course of laborious study, which shortened his existence; and there might his have beer. secure, if riot of honor, at least of repose. But the " hyaena bigots " of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccaccio, and ejected it from the holy precincts of St. Michael and St. James. The occasion, and, it may be hoped, the excuse, of this ejectment was the making of a new floor for the church ; but thi is, that the tombstone was taken up and thrown aside at the bottom of the building. Ignorance may share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to relate such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for their great names, could it not be ac- companied by a trait more honorably conformable to the general character of the nation. The principal person of the district, the last branch of the house of Medicis, afforded that protection to the memory of the insulted dead which her best ancestors had dispensed upon all cotemporary merit. The Mar- chioness Lenzoni rescued the tombstone of Boccac- cio from the neglect in which it had sometime lain, and found for it an honorable elevation in her own mansion. She has done more : the house in which the poet lived has been as little respected as his tomb, and is falling to ruin over the head of one indifferent to the name of its former tenant. It consists of two or three tittle chambers, and a low tower, on which Cosmo II. affixed an inscription This house she has taken measures to purchase, and proposes to devote to it that care and consider- ation which are attached to the cradle and to the roof of genius. This is not the place to undertake the defence of Boccaccio; but the man who exhausted his little patrimony in the acquirement of learning, who was among the first, if not the first, to allure the sci- ence and the poetry of Greece to the bosom of Italy ; — who not only invented a new style, but founded, or certainly fixed, a new language ; who, besides the esteem of every polite court of Europe, was thought worthy of employment by the predom- inant republic of his own country, and, what is more, of the friendship of Petrarch, who lived the life of a philosopher and a freeman, and who died* in the pursuit of knowledge, — such a lean might have found more consideration than he has nee with from the priest of Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who strikes off his portrait as an odious, con- temptible, licentious writer, whose impure remains should be suffered to rot without a record.* That English traveller, unfortunately for those who have to deplore the loss of a very amiable person, is be- yond all criticism ; but the mortality which did not protect Boccaccio from Mr. Eustace, must not de- fend Mr. Eustace from the impartial judgment of his successors. — Death may canonize his virtues, not his errors ; and it may be modestly pronoun :< d that he transgressed, not only as an author, but as a man, when he evoked the shade of Boccacio ; :i com- pany with that of Aretine, amidst the sepulchres of Santa Croce, merely to dismiss it with indignity. As far as respects " II fU^-ello dc' Principi, II Divin Pietro Arelino " Classical Tour, cap. ix. vol. ii. p. 335, edit. 3d. " Of Uoccaccio, tl«- lera Petronius, we say nothing; the abuse of genius is more odious and . in) (iiilr than its absence; and it impure lira- where the impurs dns of a licentious author aro consigned to llteir kindred dust. For the the traveller may piss unnoticed the tomb of die malignant Aretino." This dubious phrase is hardly enough to save the tourist from the suspicii a tomb was in ■ church of St. Luke at Venice, and gave rise to the famous) hich some notice is taken in Eayl-'. Now the words of Mr. Busts > a i us to think the tomb was at Florence, or at least whs to be i bw acre recognized. Wis ther the inscripuoc. so much disputi 1 v. is < rer written ob the tomb cannot now be decided, for all memorial of lias author has Juop peared from the church of Su Luke. 96 BYRON'S WORKS. it is of little import what censure is passed upon a coxcomb who owes his present existence to the above burlesque character given to him by the poet whose amber has preserved many other grubs and worms ; but to classify Boccaccio with such a per eon, and to excommunicate his very ashes, must of itself make us doubt of the qualification of the classical tourist for writing upon Italian, or, indeed upon any other literature ; for ignorance on one point may incapacitate an author merely for that particular topic, but subjection to a professional prejudice must render him an unsafe director on all occasions. Any perversion and injustice may be made what is vulgarly called "a case of con- science," and this poor excuse is all that can be offered for the priest of Certaldo, or the author of the Classical Tour. It would have answered the purpose to confine the censure to the novels of Boc- caccio, and gratitudS to that'source which supplied the muse of Dryden with her last and most harmo- nious numbers might perhaps have restricted that censure to the objectionable qualities of the hun- dred tales. At any rate the repentance of Boccaccio might have arrested his exhumation, and it should have been recollected and told, that in his old age he wrote a letter to his friend to discourage the reading of the Decameron, for the sake of modesty, and for the sake of the author, who would not have an apologist always at hand to state in his excuse that he wrote it when young, and at the command of his superiors.* It is neither the licentiousness of the writer, nor the evil propensities of the reader, which have given to the Decameron alone, of all the works of Boccaccio, a perpetual popularity. The establishment of a new and delightful dialect con- ferred an immortality on the works in which it was first fixed. The sonnets of Petrarch were, for the same reason, fated to survive his self-admired Africa, the "favorite of kings." The invariable traits of nature and feeling with which the novels, as well as the \erses, abound, have doubtless been the chief source of the foreign celebrity of both authors ; but Boccaccio, as a man, is no more to oe estimated by that work, than Petrarch is to be regarded in no other light than ;;■; the lover of Laura. Even, how- ever, had the father of the Tuscan prose been known only as the author of the Decameron, a considerate writer would have been cautious to pronounce a sentence irreconcilable with the unerring voice of many ages and nations. An irrevocable value has never been stamped upon any work solely recom- mended by impuritj . The true source of the outcry against Boccaccio, which began at a very early period, was the choice of his scandalous personages in the cloisters as well as the courts ; but the princes only laughed at the gallant adventures so unjustly charged upon queen rheodelinda, whilst the priesthood cried shame upon the debauchees drawn from the convent and the hermitage ; and most probably for the opposite reason, namely, that the picture was faithful to the life. Two of the novels are allowed to be facts use- fully turned into tales, to deride the canonization of rogues and laymen. Ser Ciappelletto and Marcelli- nus are cited with applause even by the decent Mu- latori.f The great Arnaud, as he is quoted in Bayle, states, that a new edition of the novels was proposed, of -which the expurgation consisted in omitting the words "monk" and "nun," and tacking the immoralities to other names. The lit- erary history of Italy particularizes no such edition ; but it was not long before the whole of Europe had but one opinion of the Decameron: and the absolu- tion of the author seems to have been a point set- tled at least a hundred years ago. "On se feroit siffler si Ton pretendoit convaincre Boccace de n'avoir pas ete honnete homme, puis qu'il a fait Is Decameron." So said one of the best men, and perhaps the best critic, that ever lived — the very martyr to impartiality.* But as this information, that in the beginning of the last century one would have been hooted at for pretending that Boccaccio was not a good man, may seem to come from one of those enemies who are to be suspected, even when they make us a present of truth, a more acceptable contrast with the proscription of the body, soul, and muse of Boccaccio may be found in a few words from the virtuous, the patriotic cotemporary, who thought one of the tales of this impure writer worthy a Latin version from his own pen. " I have remarked elsewhere," says Petrarch, writing to Boccaccio, " that the book itself has been worried by certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff arid voice. Nor teas I astonished, for I have had proof of the vigor of your mind, and I know you have fallen on that unaccommodating incapable race of mortals who, whatever they either like not, or know not, or cannot do, are sure to reprehend in others; and on those occasions only put on a shoio of learning and eloquence, bid otherwise are entirely dumb." f It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood do not resemble those of Certaldo, and that one of them who did not possess the bones of Boccaccio would not lose the opportunity of raising a cenotaph to his memory. Bevius, canon of Padua, at the be- ginning of the sixteenth century, erected at Arqua, opposite to the tomb of the Laureate, a tablet, in which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honors of Dante and of Petrach. 34. What is her pyramid of precious stones? Stanza lx. line 1. Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and expires with his grandson ; that stream is pure only at the source ; and it is in search of some me- morial of the virtuous republicans of the family that we visit the church of St. Lorenzo at Florence. The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pave- ment slab, simply inscribed to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici. J It was very natural for Corinna § to suppose that the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de' depositi was intended for his great namesake ; but the magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. ' The decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepulchral peace which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning , families in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing but a faithful picture. " Notwithstanding all the sedi- tions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibclins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued popu- lous, strong, and exceeding rich ; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Mcdices is thought t r we destroyed nine parts in ten of the poop 1 it province. Among other things it is r ''hat when Philip the Second of S7 1 to the Duke of Florence, his an. Rome sent him word, that he had than * " Non enim ubique est, qui in excusationem meam consurgens dicat, juve- nis scripsit, et majoris coactus imperio." The letter was addressed to Magh- inard of Cavalcanti, marshal of the kingdom of Sicily. See Tiraboschi, Storia, Slc, ton), v. par. ii. lib. iii. pag. 525, ed. Ven. 1795. t Duuertazioni sopra le Antichita ltaliane, Diss, lviii. p. 25c, ton;, iii. edit. Milan, 1731. • Edaircisse merit, &.C., &c, p. 633, edit. B;. to Bayle's Dictionary. t "Animadveni alicubi librum ipsum canum den baculo egregie tuaque voce defensam. Nee mirnttis genii tut novi, et scio expurtus esses hominum genus ■ qui quiequid ipsi vel nolunt vel nesciunt, vel non possuilt, in ad hoc umim docti et arguti, sed elingues ad reliqua." . . , catio, Opp. torn. i. p. 540, edit. Basil. J Cosmos Medices, Decreto Publico, Pater Pat>->f!. § Corinue, liv. xviii. cap. iii. vol. iii. page 248. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 850,000 subjects ; and it is not believed there are now 2<>,G00 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns that were then good, and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with sedi- tions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unpros- perous, they still retained such strength, that when Charles VIII. of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people, taking arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon such condi- tions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel re- ports, that in that time Florence alone, with the Val d' Anio, a small territory belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring together, 13-5,000 well-armed men ; whereas now that city, with all the others in that province, are brought to such despicable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and baseness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves if they were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Naples, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence ; they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the govern- ment they are under." * From the usurper Cosmo down to the imbecile Gaston, we look in vain for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a patriot to the command of his fellow-citizens. The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cos- mo, had operated so entire a change in the Tuscan character, that the candid Florentines, in excuse for some imperfections in the philanthropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the sovereign was the only liberal man in his dominions. Yet that excellent prince himself had no other notion of a national assembly, than of a body to represent the wants and wishes, not the will, of the people. An earthquake reeVd unheededly away. Stanza lxiii. line 5. " And such was their mutual animosity, so intent were they upon the battle, that the earthquake, which Overthrew in great part many of the cities of Italy, which turned the course of rapid streams, poured back the sea upon the rivers, and tore down the very mountains, teas not felt by one of the combatants." f Such is the description of Livy. It may be doubted whether modern tactics would admit of such an ab- straction. The site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be mistaken. The traveller from the village under Cortona to Casa di Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, has for the first two or three miles, around him, but more particularly to the right, that flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order to in- duce the Consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. On his left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills bending down towards the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy " montes Cortonenses," and now named the Gualandra. These hills he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itineraries pretend to have been so denominated from the bones found there ; but there have been no bones found there, and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into the roots of the moun- tains until the sixty-seventh milestone from Flo- rence. The ascent thence is not steep but perpetual, and continues for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, with Borghetto, a * On Government, chap, ii. sect. xxvi. pag. 208, edit. 1751. Sidney is, together with Locke and Hoadley, one of Mr. Hume's M despicable " writers. T " Tantusque fuit ardor animorum, eado intentus pugntc animus, ut eon, terras molum qui multarum urbium Itatiae magnas partes prostravit, avertitqne curtu rapido amnea mare fluminibua invexit, montes lapsu ingenti proruit, Mmo pugnantium senserit." . . . Tit. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. xii. 13 round tower close upon the water; and tic undu- lating hills partially covered with wood, among which the road winds, sink by degrees into the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal placed his horse,* in the jaws of or rather above the pass, which was between the lake and the present road, and most probably close to Bor- ghetto, just under the lowest of the " tumuli." + On a summit to the left, above the road, is an old circular ruin which the peasants call "the Tower of Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon hirr as he descends the Gualandra. He soon finds him self in a vale enclosed to the left and in front and behind him by the Gualandra hills, bending round in a segment larger than a semicircle, and running down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the right and form the chord of this mountain a ;c. The position cannot be guessed at from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely enclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It then, indeed, appears "a place made as it were on pur- pose for a snare," locus insidiis natus. " Borghetto is then found to stand in a narrow, marshy pass close to the hill and to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at the opposite turn of the mountains than through the little town of Passignano, which is pushed into the' water by the foot of a high rocky acclivity." J There is a woody eminence branching down from the mountains into the upper end of the plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a white village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this eminence as the one on which Han- nibal encamped and drew out his heavy-armed Af- fricans and Spaniards in a conspicuous position. $ From this spot he despatched his Balearic and light armed troops round through the Gualandra heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an ambush among the broken acclivities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Flaminius came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset ; and, without send- ing any spies before him, marched through the pass the next morning before the day had quite broken, so that he perceived nothing of the horse and light troops above and about him, and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front on the hill of Torre. i| The consul began to draw out his army in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in am- bush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto. Thus the Romans were completely enclosed, hav- ing the lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills filled with the light-armed on their left flank, and being pre- vented from receding by the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, and all the different corps in ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. At the same moment all his troops on the eminences be- hind and in the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Ro- mans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy among • " Equites ad ipsas fauces saltus tumulis apte tegentibus local." T. Livii lib. xxii. cap. iv. f l( Ubi maxime montes Cortonenses Thrasiraenus subit." ibid. J " Inde colics assurgunt." Ibid. § Tdi/ piv Kara tt(i6uitov rT,c iropcias \6•>• '"■ cap. 83. The account in Folybim it not so easily reconcilable with present appearances as that m Livy; he talks of hills to the right and left ot the pass and valley; but when Flaminrtu entered he tad the lake at the right of both. J " A tergo et super caput decepere idsidia:." T. Liv. &c. 98 BYRON'S WORKS. theni, on every side, and before they could fall into then- ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were sur- rounded and lost. There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile further on, is called " the bloody rivulet," and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the " Sanguinetto " and the hills, which, they oay, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other paT-t of the plain is covered with thick set olive-trees in corn grounds, and is n6\vhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, in- deed, most probable, that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Ro- mans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain and to pierce through the main army of Han- nibal. The Romans fought desperately for three hours, but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a gen- eral dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet, many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pre- tensions and the name of the " stream of blood.'' Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north gome painter ic the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Man- tua with her native Virgil.* To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene, tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hanni- bal the Carthaginian is the only -ancient name re- membered on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown ; but the postillions on that road have been taught to show the very spot where II Console Romano was slain. Of all who fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, pre- served indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler, of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the vic- torious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale. It was hardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the President Deputy, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to Rome. But thou, Clitumnus. Stanza lxvi. line 1. No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto, and no site, or scenery even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 37. Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cat aract. Stanza lxxi. line 9. I saw the " Cascata del marmore " of Terni twice, at different periods ; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only ; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cas- cades and torrents of Switzerland put togetner. the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Ar- penaz, &c, are rills in comparative appearance. OJ the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it. 38. An iris sits a?nidst the infernal surge. Stanza lxxii. line 3. Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of his, the reader may have seen a short account in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like " the hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be ar- tificial — this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high, as the little lake called Pie' di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe,* and the ancient naturalist, among other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus. f A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone. % 39. The thundering lauiome. Stanza lxxiii. line 5. In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine. • 40. i" abhorred Too much, to conquer for the poet's sane, The drill d dull lesson, forced down word by word. Stanza lxxv. lines 6, 7, and 8. These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D — n Homo, &c, but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty ; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart ; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened" and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of composi tions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin^knd Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Shakspeare, (" To be, or not to be," for instance,) from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise not of mind but of memory : so that when we are old enough to en- joy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy ; and I believe no one could, or can be more attached to Harrow than I have al- ways been, and with reason ; — a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life ; and my preceptor (the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury) was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late — when I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feeling towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and venera tion — of one who would more gladly boast of hav- * "Reatini me ad sua Tempe duxerunl." Cicer. epiat. ad Attic, xv. b. iv. t " In eodem lacu nullo non die apparere arcus." Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. * About the middle of the XHth century the coins of Mantua bore on one i cap. lxii. lide the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d'ltalia, pi. xvii. i. 6. . . Voyage J Aid. Manut. de Reatina urbe agroque, ap. Saliengre, Thesaur. torn. iaus le JVUlauais, 4c, par. A. Z. Millin. torn. ii. pag. 2M, Paris, 1817. p. 773. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 99 ng been his pupil, if, by more closely following his njunctions, he could reflect any honor upon his in- itructor. 41. The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now. Stanza lxxix. line 5. For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult Historical Illustra- tions of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 42. The trebly hundred triumphs. Stanza lxxxii. line 2. Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the number of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius ; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writ- ers. 43. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, S$c. Stanza lxxxiii. line 1. Certainly were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should re- gard him as a monster unredeemed by any admira- ble quality. The atonement of his voluntary resig- nation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who, if they had not respected must have destroyed him. Tbcre could be no mean, no division of opinion ; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.* 44. And laid him with the earth's p7 % eceding clay. Stanza lxxxvi. line 4. On the third of September, Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar ; a year afterwards lie' obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester ; and a few years after, on the same day, whicli he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. 45. And thou, dread statue! still existent in The austerest form of naked majesty. Stanza lxxxvii. lines 1 and 2. The. projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the De- cline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Yacea, f and it may be added to his mention of it that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hun- dred crowns for the statue ; and presented it to Car- dinal Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judg- ment of Solomon from being executed upon the image. In a more civilized age this statue was ex- posed to an actual operation : for the French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coliseum, re- solved that their Crcsar should fall at the base of that Pompey, which was supposed to have been sprinkled with the blood of the original dictator. The nine-foot hero was therefore removed to the arena of the ampitheatre, and to facilitate its trans- port suffered the temporary amputation of its right arm. The republican tragedians had to plead that the arm was a restoration : but (heir accusers do not believe that the integrity of the statue would have Erotected it. The love of finding every coincidence as discovered the true Caesarian ichor in a stain near the rit;'ht knee ; but colder criticism has re- jected not only the blood but the portrait, and as- signed the globe of power rather to the first of the emperors than to the last of the republican masters * " Seigneur, vous changes unites mes irieea de la faeon dont jo vous vois fce a note of Pitiscus to Suetonius, po J. '221. ][ " Tu modo Pompeia lenta spatiare sub umbra." Ovid. Ar. Aman. *• Uoma instaurata, lib. ii. fo. 31 tt XaXxca — itij/tarn ira\aiil; tpyaniag. Antiq. Rom. lib 1. \\ " Ad fkurn Rumiiialern simulacra intantinm conditorum urbis sub uberibus lupte posucrunt." Liv. Hist. lib. x. cap. Ixix. This was, in the year U. C. 433, or 437. §§ "Turn statua Natttp, turn simulacra Deorum, Romnlusque et Remus cum altrice bellua vi lulminus ictis conciderunt." De Diviuat. ii. 20. " Tac- tus est ilk etiana qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, qnem inauratum in Capi- tolio parvum a{que lactantem, uberibus tupinis inhiantem futsse memiuistis." In Catiiin. iii. 8. " Hie silvestris erat Romani nominis nltrix Martia, qua parvos Mavortis seinine natos Ubcribns jrravidis vitali rore rigebat Qua turn cum pueris fiammato fulminis ictu Concidit, atque avulsa pedum vestigia liqnit." De Consulatu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Diviuat. cap. ii.) III! 'Ev yhp t<~> hiv/|'o,\((.i dv&ptavTSS tI ttoAAo! viro Ktpav- vi>v erui ;\mi" i ''>/- iv, >.ii ' «';. trApara i'iAAii t€, koi Aide ctti Ktnvos wpV)i£vov,eiKlul> ri: Tig At»vuti>r)j (tvvitL roi'Pa/ioJ nal <■{')' ru'PoJfiti^M ISpVpiliTl !'~;rrrj. Dion. Hist. lib. x'xxvii. p.!g. 37. edit. Rob. Steph. 1548. He on I mendon that the letters ofthe columui on which the laws were written were liquefied and cecome duvSpa. All thai ths Romans, did was to erect a large statue to Juri^r, iookirn JUJM*- iOO BYRON'S WORKS. quaries is, whether the wolf now in the conservators' palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cice- ro, or whether it is neither one nor the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns : Lucius Faunus * says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus f calls it the wolf of Dionys- ius, and Marlianus J talks of it as the one men- tioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly assents. $ Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves preserved in Ancient Rome ; but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian statue. || MontfauconU mentions it as as a point without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive Winkelmann ** proclaims it as haying been found at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was the temple at Romulus, and consequent- ly makes it the wolf of Dionysius. His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it was placed, not found, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the first to make the mistake, and Winkelmann followed Rycquius. Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the wolf with the twins was found ft near the arch of Septimius Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is of the same opin- ion with that learned person, and is incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert the statue tc be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the pres- ent wolf ; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck oy lightning, or otherwise injured. Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularize the Romulus and the Remus, espe- cially the first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins towards the cast : no mention is afterwards made of the wolf. This happened in A. U. C. 639. The Abate Fea, in noticing this passage of Dion (Storia delle Arti, &c, toin. i. pag. 202, note x.) says, A'on oslnnte, aggiunge Dione, cite fosse ben feminist (the wolf) by which it is clear the Abate trans- lated the Xvl mdro-Leunclavian version, which puts tjtiambis stab'dita for the original [SvuEV/1, a word that tloes not mean ben fermeta, but only raised, as may be distinctly seen from another passage of the same Dion : 'IWnvXi}- 6r/ iih> ovv a 'Aypiinras xal rov Avyova-Tov ivrnvOa ISpvaai. Hist. lib. Ivi. Dion says that Agripi«i " wished to raise a statue of Augustus in the Pantheon." * " In eailem porticu tenea lupa, cujus uberibus Romulus ac Remus lactan- tes inhiaut, conspicitur : tie hac Cicero et Virgilius semper intellexere. Livius hoc signum ab JEdilibus ex pecuniis quibus mulctati essen fccneralores, position itmuit. Antea in Comitiis ad Ficum Ruminaleru, quo loco pueri fuerant ex- posj'j location pro certo est." Luc. Fauni de Antiq. Urb. Rorn. lib. ii. cap. Tii. ap. Sallengre, torn. i. p. 217. In his XVI lilt chapter lie repeats that the ■tattles were there, but not that they were found there, t Ap. Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. J Marliani Urb. Rom. Topograph, lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another Wo.F and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi. § "Non iusant qui banc ipsam esse putent, qnam adpinximus, qure e eomito in Basilicam, Lateraninn, cum nonnullis aliis ant'quitatum reliquiis, alque hinc in Capitolium postea relata aft quamvis Marliai. js antiquam Cap- Itolinam esse maluit a Tullio ilescriptair., sui ut in re nimis dubia, trepide ad- lentimur." Just. Rycquii de Capit. Roman. Comm. cap. xxir. pag. 250, edit. Lttgd. Bat. 1696. Q Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. ^[ " Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostrat rcdibus, cumvestigio fulminis quo Ictam narrat Cicero." Diiirium Italic, torn. i. p. 174. ■* Storia delle Arti, &c, lib. iii. cap. iii. § ii. note 10. Winkelmann has intvie a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so. ff "lntfsi dire, che 1'Ercolo di hronzo, Che oggi si trova nella sala di Campidoglio, fo trovato nel foro Romano uppresso 1'arco di Settimio : c vofu trovala anche la lupa di bronzo che allala Romo'.o e Remo e sta nella Loggia de conservatori." Flam. Vacca, Memorie, num. iii. pa Tifiepi Tora/toi pCTa^i roiv 6vo ytibvpdir, i\tiiv Em j pa 'PoiftaV Ki]V riivTrjv, Upoivi &ito ~Zir) kto>, Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. eap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr has told the story oefbre tut Baronius himself was c! 'ired to detect this fable. See Nardini Roc* Vet. lib. viLcap. xii. **+ NOTES TO CH1LDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. lOi r:ed them to the temple of Romulus.* The practice U continued to this day ; and the site of the above rnurch seems to be thereby identified with that of ».he temple; so that if the wolf had been really 'ound there, as Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present statue being that seen by Dionysius.+ But Faunus, in saying that it was at the Ficus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny ; and even if he had been remarking where it was found, would not have alluded to the church of Saint Theodore, but to a very different place, near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminalis had been, and also the Comitium ; that is, the three columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up, % and perhaps, on the whole the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favor of its being the Cicero nian wolf than any that can be adduced for the con trary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected for the text of the poem as one of the most inte resting relics of the ancient city,§ and is certainly the figure, if not the very animal to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses : " Gcminos huic libera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem lmpavido3 : illam tereli cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." || 47. For the Roman's mind Was modeWd in a less terrestrial mould. Stanza xc. lines 3 and 4. It is possible to be a very great man, and to be still very inferior to Julius Caesar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary com- binations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general — the only triumphant politician — inferior to none in eloquence — comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers, that ever appeared in the world — an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage — at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings — fightingll and making love at the same moment, * u In essa gli anllchi pontefici per toglier la metnoria tie' giuochi Luper- cali istiuiiu in onore di Romolo, iutrodussero I'uso di porUirvi Bambini Oppress] da inlermita occulte, accib si liberino per l'intercessione di questo Santo, come di continuo si spcrimenla." Rione xii. Ripa accurata e suc- cinct.i descrizloDe, &c, di Roma Moderna dell' Ab. Ridotf, Venuti, 1766. f Nardini, lib. v. cap. II, convicts Pomponins Lstus crassi erroris, in putting the Ruroinal fig-tree at the church of Saint Theodore: but as Livy says the wolf was at the Ficus Ruminalis, and Dionysius at the temple of Romulus, he is obliged (cap. iv.) to own that die two were close together, as well as the Lupercal cave, shaded, as it were, by the fig-tree. X " Ad comitium ficus olim Ruminalis germinabat, subq-ia lupas rumam, hoc est, mainmam, docente Varrone, suxeraut olim Romulus et Remus j nou procul a templo hodie D. Mari.-e Libenuricis appeilato ubi /organ inveuta no- bilis ilia auiea statua lup.e geminos puerulos lactantis, quam hodie in capitolio videmus." Olai Borrichii Anliqua Urbis Romans Facies, cap. x. See also sap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini in 1687. Ap. Gttev. Anliq. Rom. torn. iv. p. 1523. § Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18, gives a medal representing on one side the wolf ■ji the same position as that in the Capitol ; and in die reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius. || ./En. viii. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his letter from Rome, who in- •lines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. T[ In his tenth book, Lucan shows him sprinkled with the blood of Pliarsalia n the arms of Cleopatra, Sanguine Thessalica; cladis perfusus adulter Adroisit Venerem curis, et miscuit armis. Alter feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse with the tgjptian sages, i id tells Achoreus, Spes sit mihi certa videndi Xiliacos fontes, bellum civile relinquom. and willing to abandon both his empire and his ros- tress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Sucb did Julius Caesar appear to his cotemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages, who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial countrymen : HE WAS JUSTLY SLA.IN.* 48. What from this barren being do toe reap? Our senses narrow, and our reason frail. Stanza xciii. lines 1 and 2. " . . . . omnes pene veteres ; qui nihil cognosei, nihil percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt ; angustos sensus ; imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vita; ; in profundo veritatem demersam ; opinionibus et insti- tutis omnia teneri ; nihil veritati relinqui : deincepa omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt." + The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this have not removed any of the im- perfections of humanity : and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affec- tation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday. 49. There is a stem rotmd tower of other days. Stanza xcix. line 1. Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Cape di Bove, in the Appian Way. See Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold 50. Prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favorites — early death. Stanza cii. lines 5 and 6. 'Ov oi Scoi (jxXoiicnv, aTruOvfjcKti veo$. To yap Savttv ovk aiaxpov d\\' aicrxptS; SavtTv. Rich. Franc. Phil. Brunck. Poetoo Gnomici, p. 231, edit. 1784. 51. Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus the mighty fills. Stanza cvii. line 9. The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled brick-work. Nothing has been told, nothing can be told, to satisfy the belief of any but a Roman antiquary. See Histor- ical Illustrations, page 206. 52. There is the moral of all human tales : 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the piast, First Freedom, and then Glory, fyc. Stanza cviii. lines 1, 2, and 3. The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of tho opinion entertained of Britain by that orator and his cotemporary Romans, has the following eloquent 11 Sic velut in tuta securi pace tranebant Noctis iter medium." Immediately afterwards, he is fighting again and defending every position. " Set! adest defensor ibique Caaar et litis aditus glatliis, hos ignih 3 arcet c-eca nocte carina lnsihiit Casar semper feliciter usus Prawipiti cursu beUorom et tempoie rapto." • "Jure casus existimetnr," says Seutonins, after a fair estimation of his character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. " Melium jure c-esiim prnnnntiavit, etiam si rogni erimine inscms fuerk : " [lib. iv. cap. 48,1 antl which was continued in the legal judgments pro nounced in justifiable horo'cides, such as kill'ng housebreakers. See Suetrm in vit. C. J. C.-rsar, with die commentary of piliscus, p. 1&4. t Acad.'-n. 1, 13. 102 BYRON'S WORKS. passage : " From their railleiies of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms ; how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty, enslaved to the most cruel as well as the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition, and religious imposture : while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the hap- py seat of liberty, plenty, and letters ; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life ; yet running perhaps the same course which Rome it- self had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth ; from wealth to luxury ; from luxury to an impatience of discipline, and corruption of morals ; till, by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liber- ty, losing everything that is valuable, sinks gradu- ally again into its original barbarism."* And apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime. Stanza ex. lines 8 and 9. The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter ; *that of Aurelius by St. Paul. See Historical Illus- trations of the IV th Canto, &c. 54. Still ice Trajan's name adore. Stanza cxi. line 9. Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes ; f and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. " When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion,j "he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind ; age had impaired none of his faculties ; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction ; he honored all the good, and he advanced them ; and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened'to informers ; he gave not way to his anger : he abstained equally from unfair exactions and un- just punishments ; he had rather be loved as a man than honored as a sovereign ; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both ; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country." 55. Rienzi, last of Romans. Stanza cxiv. line 5. The name and exploits of Rienzi must be famil- iar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and ined- ited manuscripts relative to this unhappy hero will be seen in the Illustrations to the IV th Canto. 56. * The History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vi. vol. ii. p. 102. The contrast has been reversed in a late extraordinary instance. A gentle- man was thrown into prison at Paris; efforts were made for his release. The French minister continued to detain him, under the pretence thai', he was not an Englishman, but only a Roman. See "Interesting Facts relating to Joachim Murat," pag. 139. t " Hujus tantum memorise delatum est, tit, usque ad nostram ajtatem lion aliter in Senatu principibus acclamatur, nisi, FELIC10R . AVGVSTO . MELIOR . TRAJANO." Eutrop. Brev. Hist. Rom. lib. viii. cap. v, < iT fc)C fi nadi'ipzi Tiva, tlXAa Kal tti'ivv izavraq tovs dyadovg tricot /cut epzyaXvve' Kal <5ia tovto ovtc itpnBtiTO riva avnov, ovtz ipiaci 6ia6o\aT$ rt I'lKio-Ta iirto-reie, Kal opyT] i'jKiaTa eSovXoVTO- t&v TCX[m*aTit)v riov dWurpiuv laa Kal (f>6vaiv rd>v diiKwv dircix tT0 (pt\oipcv6; re ovv tit' aVT'tts naWov )) Tiiico/ievos ex al P c > Kal T! J> t£ c5>j;<(J ;i£t' iineiKCtas avveyivero, Kal ttj yr/pnvaia acyivTtoptTzC^i co'ptXsi' dyairrjTOs flkv irao~r