rfliHTi , ;- ! -' i- ^niT-M 
 
 '^ } ii^ ^^"»^^''' ' ^^ ^ ^ ^
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 / / -^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■y 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ./ 
 
 /'/'^//c^^^^/^ r^^/y^ ^^.^C^T? . 
 
 
 / 
 
 ^- 
 
 I T A L Y.
 
 Preparing for Publication, 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 IHE DELUGE: 
 
 A DRAMA, 
 
 IN TWELVE SCENES. 
 AND 
 
 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS 
 WITH OTHER POEMS.
 
 ITALY; 
 
 A POEM, 
 
 M'lTH 
 
 HISTORICAL AND CLASSICAL NOTES. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EDMUND READE, 
 
 AUTHOR OP CAIN THE WANDERER. 
 
 Sed neque Medorum sylvae ditissima teiTa, 
 
 Nee puleher Ganges, atqiie auro turbidus Ilennus, 
 
 Laudibus Italise certeiit. 
 
 Virgil. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 1838.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY iBOTSON AND PALMER, 
 SAVOY STREET, STRAKU.
 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART., M.P. 
 
 ^•c. (^c. c^r. 
 
 Sir, 
 Having received your express permission for the Dedi- 
 cation, conveyed to mo in a very gratifying manner, 
 through the medium of a mutual friend, I will only take 
 leave to say that I do not address you either in your 
 character as a politician, or as a patriot. Poetry has 
 no politics : poets ought to merge their political tenden- 
 cies in the love of their Country, and in the best in- 
 terests of general humanity ; and who, among those who 
 differ most from your own views, ever questioned your 
 sincerity here ? 
 
 When nearly arrived at the completion of the work 
 on which I had been engaged, I looked round to con- 
 sider to whom I should offer it, for, touching so largely 
 on the arts, it seemed more particularly to require a l)e- 
 
 BG^GGS
 
 VI DEDICATION. 
 
 dication. 1 consulted a literary friend of unquestioned 
 judgment and ability : — " Select the highest," was the 
 reply ; " political feelings he must have, but from those 
 of pai'ty he should stand aloof." My mind involunta- 
 rily turned to yourself; chiefly, perhaps, for a reason 
 which had not been expressed ; I felt, that, from the appa- 
 rent freshness of your classical remembrances and asso- 
 ciations, the offering might not be altogether unwelcome ; 
 for poetry, or the imaginative and reasoning faculties, 
 when employed on such a subject as Italy, afford in- 
 deed, (to use language which was ardently responded 
 to on a stirring occasion,*) " a noble relaxation, 
 " which, while it unbends, invigorates tlie mind — while 
 " it is relieving and refreshing it from the exhaustion of 
 " present contention, is bracing and fortifying it from 
 " that which is to come." 
 
 With the highest sentiments of admiration 
 and respect, 
 1 have the honour to remain, Sir, 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 JOHN EDMUND READE. 
 
 * Inaugural Address delivered at Glasgow.
 
 It has been suggested that, on the publication of a 
 Work, on the important subject chosen, the Author 
 should say something more of self than appears in 
 the Preface subjoined. In compliance with this sugges- 
 tion, he will devote as few words as are absolutely 
 necessary to that ungracious subject. 
 
 From the age of eighteen to that of thirty-seven years, 
 the aim and end of his ambition has tended towards 
 one point — to j)rove himself a Poet. It was during the 
 year 1829, having previously essayed a small volume 
 of minor pieces, which met attention, that he pub- 
 lished a Dramatic Poem, entitled " Cain the Wan- 
 derer." It appeai-ed during the Author's absence, 
 and in what Publishers term the dead time of the 
 season. Rough, ho\\ever, and unpolished as were
 
 its lines, oven to ruggedness, the reception which 
 it met with surpassed tlie writer's expectations. 
 Even now, the liberal spirit of one literary paper * 
 is remembered ; the first which devoted to it a lead- 
 ing article, the more gratifying, as its Editor was 
 then a stranger to the Author. Various other re- 
 viewers were more generous than they were just; 
 until, at length, the Edinbm'gh Review, in an article 
 which was felt, at the time, as rather unnecessarily 
 severe, exposed the many defects of the Drama. The 
 article, it is possible, was designed as a rough 
 kindness to the writer. The second edition of the 
 Poem, already in hand, was, in consequence, imme- 
 diately withdrawn, and the Author earnestly set him- 
 self to revise that which he felt he had too hastily 
 thrown out; a task which — with subsequent produc- 
 tions — he is thankful he has been permitted to ac- 
 complish. A lover, even to enthusiasm, of Nature, he 
 has everywhere exemplified its influences in his 
 writings; feelmg that, to whatever extent education 
 and art may exalt and refine the mind, all our real 
 images of transcendental greatness, of beauty, and of 
 power, are drawn from that source alone. 
 * The Literary Gazette.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 At the close of the year 1834, I forwarded a Tour, 
 written in prose, to my Publishers, descriptive of what 
 I had seen in the South.* I purposed to continue it, 
 l)ut found, that when standing before objects of the 
 great and beautifiil, in art, or nature, my thoughts in- 
 voluntarily toned themselves to a higher strain of lan- 
 guage than that which best accords with prose. I, 
 therefore, most willingly returned to what most writers 
 of verse are willing to consider their natural vocation ; 
 and if an author's own testimony to the closest possible 
 fidelity on his part, with regard to description, thought, 
 and feeling, can be supposed to give the reader any ad- 
 ditional interest in the work, I can with truth aver 
 that I have scarcely written a line except in the pre- 
 
 * Extracts have appealed in llie Metropolitan Magazine — entitled 
 Prose by A Poet.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 sence of the objects described ; and as in the whole 
 limitless kingdoms of Art and Nature, as in the moral 
 world, I believe the Good and the Beautiful everywhere 
 presides, and, if sought for, is everywhere to be found, 
 so I have only written when 1 have felt myself under 
 their immediate influences. 
 
 I must aver with the like truth, however, that I did 
 not visit Italy with the slightest design of writing a 
 Poem. It was among the Statues and Paintings of the 
 Tribune, at Florence, that I first wrote down the im- 
 pressions of the hour ; until I found, when at Rome 
 and Naples, that the habit had entailed its necessity : 
 the slender thread, or, rather, rivulet of Poetry, which, 
 at first, had drawn me on, deepened and widened into 
 a stream, to which I, insensibly, devoted every 
 thought and feeling. 
 
 I have carefully avoided reference to Continental, or, 
 indeed, to any politics, varying as they do with the 
 time. Italy must, at last, be united, and recover her 
 freedom : it is the ultimate destiny of all nations ; but, 
 as with Poland, her hour has not arrived. As the world 
 of Nature is overcast by the sullen mists, and sluggish 
 vapours of a Winter's sky, when the Sun, once so ani- 
 mating and enlivening, indicates his presence only by 
 the common light in which all live and enjoy ; so
 
 PKEFACE. XI 
 
 under the more palpable oppressions of despotic sway, 
 chilling and nipping all genial influences, and blighting 
 or restraining all that vigorous growth, which, allowed 
 to exercise its energies, would so adom and benefit 
 humanity, does an Empire draw on its languishing 
 existence, awaiting the dawn, the glow, and the warmth 
 of Liberty, which must as inevitably return to her as 
 the Star to its wonted course, or as the Sun to the sum- 
 mer's morning. 
 
 I have dwelt only on those objects which ai'e innnu- 
 table and eternal : on her master-works of Art, both in 
 Painting and in Sculpture ; and on the sublimest forms 
 of Nature in that glorious land, over which the Al- 
 mighty seems more especially to cast his mantle of the 
 Beautiful. 
 
 Italy stands like a winter's tree ; the summers that 
 shone upon it, and brought forth all its strength, and 
 fruits, and foliage, have passed away ; yet, though 
 denuded of its once too rank luxuriance, its limbs mo- 
 tionless and lifeless, that life is dead in appearance 
 only; the vital principle condenses round its heart; 
 but a Kingdom, with all its giant energies and infinite 
 existence, cannot be rooted up or overthrown ; the sun, 
 the freedom, and the life, that warmed, expanded, 
 and invigorated it;> mighty ramifications, must again
 
 yii PREFACE. 
 
 burst forth. Nature, by ber own inimuta])lc biws, must 
 again assert her energies ; and Nations, tollowiug her 
 example, gather themselves together, and rejoice be- 
 neath its protecting shadows. 
 
 On works of Art, the Statues for example, whatever 
 novelty, real or seeming, my stanzas may pretend to, 
 consists in this ; that I extract from them, and I en- 
 deavour to enforce, that moral feeling with which T am 
 satisfied every Master-Artist of ancient times was im- 
 pressed, and of which he endeavoured to make his work 
 the reflection. I felt that it animated them all, each hav- 
 ing its pecidiar stamp of character ; and feeling this, I 
 have endeavoured to embody my impressions. I con- 
 sider that Pliny, also, has expressed a similar sentiment, 
 though couched in different language ; for, speaking of a 
 famous Painter, he observes — In unius hujus operibus 
 intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur ; et cum sit ars 
 summa, ingenium tamen ultra artem est.* 
 
 Be it, also, borne in mind, that in addition to various 
 objects in Florence and Rome, and much of classic 
 ground hitherto untouched, the whole temtory of 
 Naples, with all its exhaustless treasuries, lay open to 
 
 * In the works of this man, more is always understood than is painted : 
 and when he has attained the height of art, the mind of the Artist is felt 
 beyond it.
 
 PREFACE. XI U 
 
 tlio scholar, and, still more, to the reflective and the 
 imaginative observer. Pompeii, Vesuvius, Baise, Cuma, 
 Capri, with all their im])ressive reminiscences ; Sor- 
 rento, Amalfi, and perhaps, above them all, P.estum, 
 may be considered by the Poet, as unbroken, almost 
 as untrodden ground. 
 
 I found that copious notes were necessary to illustrate 
 various passages : the greater part of them are drawn 
 from standard authorities ; when occasional anecdotes 
 might be thought welcome, T have introduced them. 
 1 have, also, added notices set down, at the moment, 
 from my own Journal ; believing that such sketches, 
 however hasty, are more graphic, and possess more the 
 air of reality, than when elaborately finished. Occa- 
 sional extracts of the deepest interest are quoted from 
 the Roman poets and historians : but they grow so 
 much out of the subject, that I feel assured not one of 
 them will be deemed superfluous. My great object in 
 these Notes has been to interest, to make them a part 
 of the Poem. In this, I wish to hope that I have suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 I have chosen the measure adopted by Spenser, Beat- 
 tie, Thomson, and by a far higher name than the two 
 latter, as that, which, uniting in itself the heroic and 
 elegiac, allows, above all others, the greatest field of
 
 XIV I'REFACE. 
 
 latitude fcir descii]>li()n, and for every change of thought, 
 of senthuent, and of passion. I consider my Poem as a 
 depositary and a record of the thoughts and impres- 
 sions of the hour, cast in a language correspondent to 
 the objects which inspired and called it forth ; and to 
 which, if I am permitted to approach old age, I may 
 turn as a friend — once the companion and the solace of 
 many a happy hour : in whose reflection, if I may so 
 speak, I may again enjoy the pleasures of memory. 
 
 T will not conclude this Preface without commenting 
 on the present apparent distaste to Poetiy. 
 
 Not half a century since, Collins burnt his noble 
 Odes with indignation, not one single copy having 
 sold ; he is now recognised to be what he then was — a 
 Poet of the very first order. An infinitely higher ex- 
 ample than he, one whose name alone inspires venera- 
 tion, Milton, in his earlier day, with all the grandeur 
 of his transcendent genius, which he so well knew that 
 he possessed — even Milton himself, with all those 
 powers that disdained " a middle flight," looked anx- 
 iously, almost despondingly, round him, and feared 
 that even he had come " an age too late ;" not that he 
 for one moment doubted his own superhuman powers, 
 but he was oppressed with those misgivings which are 
 ever the curse of genius. He saw and felt (for hoiv
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 could he avoid feeling it?) that same callous indiffer- 
 ence to the higher order of Poetry which is so omni- 
 potent at the present hour. Yet then, had Shakspeare 
 written ; yet then, had Chaucer given us his exquisite 
 Immom-, character, and pathos : and Spenser had stamped 
 duration on a work, which, in power of creative genius, 
 left Ariosto, and, be the truth confessed, Tasso himself, 
 far behind him ; but it was his misfortune, being an 
 Enghshman, to write his own language ; and, finding 
 it imperfect, to magnify its imperfections. 
 
 That " age too late" which Milton feared, which 
 Collins felt, is as far removed ffom us to-day, as it will 
 be a thousand years hence — or ever. Our national cha- 
 ractei*, indeed, becomes less mercurial from the irresis- 
 tible tendency of Circumstance ; but Human Nature 
 and the world are the same in all ages, in all time ; 
 and it is to them the Poet addresses himself As long 
 as the resources of the imagination, and the love of the 
 true and the beautiful, form the prominent features of 
 humanity — so long shall they become the inspirers of 
 Poetry ; so long shall a portion of the human race be 
 audience " fit, though few." Can, then, the real im- 
 pressions, may I not, also, call them the inspirations 
 of Poetry, ever become a drug ? The leading Critics 
 of England, to their honour be it recorded, have
 
 XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 hours will not be judged, from impressions of its nar- 
 rower parts, but from the opinion formed of it as a 
 connected whole. For the tone of thought, and the per- 
 vading moral of the Poem, he feels that he has no 
 apology to offer
 
 TO THE LADY * * * * * 
 
 I. 
 
 The Lay hath ceased : the labour of long years : 
 The latest Vision bom from it is fled : 
 No more the ardent hope inspiring cheers, 
 That drew erewhile unconscious Fancy's tread 
 Where paths of Song to heights untrodden led-; • 
 Still doth Fame sit on her immortal shrine, 
 While Memory points the rays around her spread 
 But my heart answers not that faith divine : 
 Those aspirations now no more, as once, are mine. 
 
 c 2
 
 II. 
 
 Yet I would twine one wreath around the Song, 
 Even though its leaves should yield no fruit to me ! 
 To bloom unfading : yea, its life prolong 
 Enduring as this line ; for Poesy 
 Speaks with the solemn Voice of Prophecy, 
 And tells it shall endure, when thou, so dear. 
 So hallowed by my heart, shalt cease to be : 
 Passed— like a shade, or leaf of Autumn sear ; 
 Even as the Beautiful, for aye, decayeth here ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Then by that face which still Youth's roses tinge 
 With their last hues that fade upon thy cheek : 
 By those dark eyes beneath whose shadowy fringe 
 The star-like lights of thy piu'e Spirit break 
 Forth from the Temple of the Mind, that speak 
 Expression caught through their reflected glow ; 
 And feeling, such as Hope doth vainly seek : 
 And by that open brow whose tablets show 
 Thought, deepening to sadness — here thy glance bestow :
 
 IV. 
 
 Accept this homage, for it is as pure 
 As that which Seraphs offer to their God ! 
 All else may pass : but this shall aye, endure 
 Till he, whom look or word of thine had awed, 
 Shall be forgotten — buried in the sod ; 
 But the deep feeling thrilling in me now 
 Shall live beyond me, and perchance record 
 Its memories of thee ; nay — blame not thou — 
 It is thy fame, not mine, I proudly thus avow ! 
 
 V. 
 
 And, as in happiest hours, when thou and I 
 Were, even as one ; while thou, apart enshrined. 
 Didst lend me something of thy purity ; 
 So be for ever with this verse entwined. 
 Astarte's name inseparably joined: 
 And this ffail record be the monument 
 To that all unforgotten past consigned, 
 O'er which shall eyes and hearts approving bent 
 Applaud this tribute given — so rude — so impotent !
 
 VI. 
 
 Life is a fleeting moment, snatched — and given 
 Again to Yesterday's eternity ! 
 But I could smile at fame, the phantom heaven 
 Of my enthusiast boyhood, so that I 
 Might near thee live, and, dearer, near thee die : 
 So in my failing grasp thy hand might be : 
 Thine the last form to meet my closing eye ; 
 So I might feel my Spirit could not flee 
 Away — its life, and love, existing still in thee !
 
 CANTO I.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Apennines : Florence. Apostrophe to Italy ; illustrious men 
 bom, or residents at Florence. The Piazza Gran'Duca, Perseus: Cosmo. 
 The Duomo and the Campanile. The Tribune : the Venus. Niobe : 
 the Mercury : Genius of Death : Plato. Love and Psyche : The Dan- 
 cing Fawn : The Medusa : St. John of Raffaelle. The Day and Night, 
 Santa Croce : Galileo : Michael Angelo : Dante : A Vision of the Dead. 
 
 Fiesole : Apostrophe to Nature : to the Air. The Vale of Arno, and 
 Florence in the distance. Farewell to Youth : remembrances of its 
 joys and sorrows. Ascent to Vallambrosa • moral influences of Nature on 
 the soul: on Liberty. Wild and sublime Scenery of Vallambrosa : analo- 
 gies ; remembrances of Milton : Eulogy on that Great Poet. Farewell 
 to Vallambrosa ; The Adriatic : Apostrophe to England, recalling its na- 
 tional glories : Conclusion.
 
 ITALY. 
 
 I. 
 
 If thou wert aught, Time-hallowed phantom, Muse ! 
 Save the creation of immortal mind, 
 Bere, throned apart, thy temple would'st thou choose : 
 Oh ! never on Paniassus' heights enshrined, 
 'Mid Ida's woods, or Delphic shades reclined, 
 Was a sublimer, worthier Altar thine 
 Than where I stand, companion of the Wind, 
 Cloud-folded on the stormy Apennine ! — 
 Than where I feel thee linked with Nature's life and 
 mine. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE APENNINES. 
 
 II. 
 
 Else, wherefore, Vision of the SoiJ ! wert thou 
 Embodied ever from mankind apart. 
 Throned on the mountain's heaven-encircled brow ? 
 Save that the Poet felt thou wert and art 
 From Nature's forms created by the heart : 
 The crag, the cloud, the spirit-stirring Air ! 
 All elements that kindred Power impart; 
 Thou, who her gentler communings would'st share, 
 The vale, or brooklet seek, and thou shalt find her there ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Stand — for unseen beneath a world lies shrouded : 
 An upper and a nether heaven ; behold 
 Above — the boundless azure spreads unclouded : 
 Beneath — the mists voluminous enrolled 
 In wave-like ridges, fold enwrapped o'er fold : 
 Now, broken, feathering up the mountain's side 
 In billowy wi'eaths of gusty vapoiu: rolled ; 
 Now, through its yawning gorges spreading wide, 
 Like smoke whose eddying palls those rocky cauldrons 
 hide;
 
 THE APENNINES. 5 
 
 IV. 
 
 Upwards from their all -fathom less chasms seething 
 
 As from the Abyss of Hell ! lo, dimly seen, 
 
 Hung round their sides the blasted pines stretch 
 
 wreathing 
 Their arms with a forlorn and witch-hke mien ; 
 Above — beneath — the Quiet how serene ! 
 The Motion and the Silence ! the bright Sun 
 Casting o'er yon cloud-waves its dazzling sheen ; 
 A solemn Sea ! still lluctuatmg on, 
 As heaved the waves o'er earth ere yet from Chaos won. 
 
 V. 
 
 Lo, Life's true isthmus, thou who standest here, 
 Rising between the two eternities ; 
 The infinite of yonder azure sphere : 
 The floating Ocean of the Cloud that lies 
 Beneath thee, and the world o'ercanopies : 
 Thou, the sole link between that earth and heaven ; 
 How thy grand isolation magnifies 
 Thy spirit to the mighty Vision given ! 
 Away, each lowlier thought, each carlhlier memory 
 driven.
 
 6 THE APENNINES. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Hark— on the air the Goatherd's simple bell ! 
 Oh ! how that Voice of Silence hath a charm, 
 Awakening, with its more than magic spell. 
 All those affectionate memories that warm 
 The heart, which chilled by distance, peril, storm, 
 Bounds to the past, and welcomes hope and home ! 
 How those fond words can ill itself disarm, 
 Where'er the way-worn wanderer may roam ; 
 Or scorched on desert sands, or rocked on Ocean's foam. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Lo, the Wind entering yon cloudy Ocean, 
 Hath shook its dewy folds, and now, ascending 
 The broken mists, with an uncertain motion, 
 Unveils their depths, with their blue shadows blending 
 "Wliat now appear like trees — now, towers impending, 
 Based on their evanescent banks below : 
 Till, step by step, thy loftier throne descending. 
 Dark Apennine ! those shapes aerial grow 
 Palpably fixed : — till rising, shadowed by thy brow,
 
 FLORENCE. 7 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Athens of Italy ! — I gaze on thee 
 From Miniato's cypress-covered steep ; 
 Florence ! beneath me spread, how drowsily 
 Thou liest 'midst thy rich olive groves in sleep : 
 Round thy grey towers the veil -like vapours sweep, 
 Making thy beauty indistinct, more fair : 
 Hark ! sounds of life their equal measm'e keep: 
 The deep-toned bell throws music on the air : 
 The pulse of one vast heart throbs audibly upwards 
 there ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Thou, who dost love thy hum an -kind, who feelest 
 
 Thou art in bonds of brotherhood allied. 
 
 When from the crowd to solitude thou stealest, 
 
 Waste not thy passion by the mountain-side. 
 
 Go — gaze upon a City in its pride ! 
 
 Then shalt thou prove thine own humanity : 
 
 He, the Immortal, who for mortals died, 
 
 Here first felt human tears — here, heaved the sigh, 
 
 As man with all his failings lived before his eye.
 
 8 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 X. 
 
 Hark — how the hum of men in distance heard, 
 Makes the live silence felt along the air ! 
 Yet all of Chaos' elements are stirred 
 In the fierce soul of man contending there : 
 What passions agitate, what feelings wear 
 His frame away before its time, which end 
 In deeds, whose fruits are ashes and despair : 
 In thoughts, which through a shoreless future tend : 
 In dust, that mocks the will which woidd with fate 
 contend, 
 
 XT. 
 
 Frail plaything of the hour ! yet there he toils 
 For life, as if the feverish dream could last ; 
 And, though the weight of truth on him recoils, 
 His pride still rallies when the fit is past : 
 The metamorphoses of life fled fast. 
 And dream-like, — youth and age — he stands alone. 
 And Wisdom now her rays might on him cast ; 
 But slave to sense and habit he is gi'own : 
 His soid's once ardent hopes are withered, dead, or 
 flown. -^
 
 FLORENCE. 9 
 
 XII. 
 
 thou loved land which still art Paradise ! . 
 Thou that embodiest all the Poets dream ! 
 Thou, that art bathed, as in a fount, by skies 
 
 Of Heaven's own tincture ; where the golden gleam 
 Of sunlight gilds thy every flower and stream, 
 Bright as the rays which call them into birth ! 
 Where the corn, vine, and olive, laughing, teem : 
 Where the broad rivers roll in voiceful mirth : 
 And where the Titan- Alp girds thee from common earth. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 1 gaze on yonder azm'e, the intense 
 
 And boundless mirror of the Almighty's throne ; 
 Pm'e as the eyes of holiest Innocence, 
 When opening on the heaven which is her own. 
 Beneath — what prodigality is shown. 
 Where waste is rank luxuriance that dies 
 Over its heaped proflision ; where the zone 
 Of Love unbound embraces earth and skies ; 
 O'er which the sweet South sheds its breath of eloquent 
 sighs.
 
 10 FLORENCE, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Thou azure-eyed and laughing Italy ! 
 
 Nature hath stamped a magic in thy smile : 
 
 The Syren sweetness living in thine 63^6, 
 
 Could all but Barbarism's heart beguile ; 
 
 No marvel, conquerors owned, at last, thy wile ; 
 
 Oh ! had they paused in their first wrath one hour. 
 
 Thou hadst prevailed, and quench'd thy ruin's pile ; 
 
 Mind o'er brute passion had assumed its power : 
 
 And beauty, spared by time, had been thy priceless 
 dower. 
 
 XV. 
 Away the weak lament which tor thee mourns ! 
 All ill is fleeting — Good alone stands fast: 
 First freedom, fame, then luxury returns. 
 Decline and fall, but liberty at last ; 
 Thy chains shall be to earth forgotten cast : 
 Thy Beauty, which has been thy curse, shall then 
 Become the sweet Avenger of the past : 
 Nations whom thou hast humanised to men. 
 
 Shall raise thee from the dust, and own thy powers 
 again.
 
 FLORENCE. 1 1 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Enter yon sti'eet of palaces and towers : 
 Here Circe calls the wanderer to stay, 
 And Pleasure laughs away the flying hours : 
 Florence ! thy ducal race have passed away, 
 But they have left behind them that bright ray 
 Of immortality which gilds the name 
 Of those scarce less than tyrants in then- day: 
 Thy Medicis shall still our reverence claim : 
 To Art they reared a shrine, and gave themselves to fame. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Parent or nurse of mightiest minds wert thou ! 
 Souls formed above the common herd to soar : 
 Here Dante, entering Hell with prophet brow, 
 Left Hope, the seraph, sighing at its door ! 
 Here Galileo's spirit fi'om earth's shore, 
 Spread itself o'er the isled infinity, 
 Pilgi'im to heavenly worlds unfound before ; 
 Here Milton from " the top of Ficsole," 
 Or, while the Vallambrosian shades embowered li'om 
 high.
 
 12 THE PIAZZA gran' DUCA. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Or, while by thee, eternal Amo ! straying. 
 Felt that dim prescience of power, that thirst 
 Of Fame, which from that horn* knows no allaying ; 
 Thy myrtles bloom as when he plucked them first : 
 Still like a giant from its fetters burst. 
 The Duomo soars ; and close, as from it riven. 
 That fairy tower within its shadow nursed I 
 Still the heart, answering, owns those " gates of hea- 
 ven;" 
 And yonder princely shrine to Art's bright triad given. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Forum of Florence ! Sculpture's rays which shed 
 Light o'er old Athens, here in marble glow : 
 There, Neptune towers — his Tritons round him spread : 
 Here, rears Alcides o'er his fallen foe 
 His giant height — suspending yet the blow ; 
 There, stands triumphant Perseus ; in his hand 
 The head just severed from the trunk below : 
 StiU those wide-glaring eyes in death expand ; 
 Still writhes that shrunken form upon the bloody sand.
 
 COSMO. 13 
 
 XX. 
 
 A very masteiiiiece of bronzed life ; — 
 And near, the Sabine rape : the Roman bears 
 Aloft, from him who vanquished yields the strife, 
 Woman — best, noblest prize for him who dares ! 
 In vain the semblance of remorse she wears^ 
 Valour ne'er sued to Beauty and in vain ! 
 Turn, where yon champion on his war-horse rears ; 
 'Tis Cosmo, he who fixed his Country's chain, 
 Twined with the laurels plucked upon Sienna's Plain. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And this is life — the tyrant who would hide 
 Deeds to which shrinking nature gives no name, 
 Crowned by false fortune, is by death allied 
 With those who share eternity of fame ; 
 Than he, the meanest slave hath worthier claim ; 
 But Time, at last, is just : yon grey Tower stands 
 Sole record of his now forgotten shame ; 
 His house and tomb have passed to strangers' hands ; 
 Enter Art's shrine — the Goddess ruling there, commands.
 
 14 THE VENUS. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Idol of all nations, time, and clime, 
 Whose worship shall endm-e for ever ! Love, 
 Raising from self each sordid thought sublime : 
 Awakening, yea, creating soul, to prove 
 Its immortality, that vainly strove 
 To pour forth in expression the deep feeling, 
 Whose inspiration kindled fi'om above, 
 Embodied forth that form divine, revealing 
 
 All the full heart hath dreamed within its depths con- 
 cealing. 
 
 XXIII. 
 So stands the Venus, living, breathing there ! 
 Grace, like the light, irradiates her head. 
 Casting a very halo on the air : 
 Wliile, on the gazing eye and heart, is shed 
 That sense of adoration which is fed 
 When language faints to tell the load we feel ; 
 How love and purity, with wings outspread, 
 O'ershade that brow which calls on us to kneel ; 
 
 How does that neck, as once, the immortal Power re- 
 veal !
 
 THE VENUS. 15 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 And in her Form, so femininely bending, 
 So delicate and yet so dignified, 
 The woman and the goddess are contending ; 
 The innocence with its repellent pride ! 
 All beauties in that shape beatified. 
 Swelling the whole, make music to the eye. 
 The music of expression ! till allied 
 Our hearts by her pervading harmony, 
 We feel the power of love Life's ruling destiny. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 If thou hast ever fondly, deeply loved, 
 If thy own being was forgot in this 
 Abstraction of all self, which thou hast proved. 
 Whose unrepaid devotion was its bliss ; 
 Whose aching want itself was happiness, 
 Thou hast beheld that form — she is the same 
 To which thou, falling prostrate, would'st confess 
 Thy hopes, thy ardent thoughts, thy wasting flame. 
 All the vast power of Love which doth the mighty tame.
 
 16 THE NIOBE. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But where art thou, Prometheus of the past? 
 Thou who hast bound the ftiture to thy shrine ? 
 Thy hand is in the dust of ages cast : 
 Yet should'st not thou our common lot repine, 
 Thou, who didst body a form more divine 
 Than e'er shaped Nature in her happiest mood ; 
 Wrapt in her life, we cease to think of thine : 
 But this is ever man's ingratitude. 
 The giver is forgot, when still is grasped the good. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Niobe — the majesty of woe ! 
 Awing the mind to veneration ; how 
 Her grief-struck form succumbs beneath the blow ! 
 Yet does that noblest attitude avow 
 The mother unforgotteu still ! her brow 
 Is raised to heaven beseechingly in vain ; 
 Her hand still guards her youngest hope, which now 
 Her arm with passionate fondness would retain. 
 But — ere the robe enfolds — her latest love is slain.
 
 I'HE NIOBE. — THE MERCURY. 17 
 
 XXVIIT. 
 
 And there she stands hi ruin ! she would weep, 
 But feeling, hope, yea, memory are flown ; 
 Despair itself is hushed : the stroke, too deep, 
 Hath hurled her reason headlong from its throne : 
 Ah ! better were it had she madness known ; 
 But still she lives, retaining consciousness ; 
 Look how she stands imploringly in stone ! 
 Her child still grasping in her wild caress, 
 The passions speaking still that tell ye her distress. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Behold light Hermes — messenger of heaven, 
 On the supporting breath of the wild Wind — 
 Balanced — ere feather-like through ether driven ! 
 How in that slight form breathes immortal mind, 
 Grace, speed of thought, and freedom unconfined ! 
 His arm thrown up, he points, and with a smile, 
 To his own heav'n — Jove's mandate is consigned ; 
 Not ev'n Calypso's charms the god beguile ; 
 One bound — he leaves afar Ogygia's azure isle ! 
 
 c
 
 IS THE GENIUS OF DEATH. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Lo, that lone Statue ! feel ye not its breath ? 
 The breath of Love, and yet it is not he : 
 For his head droops, his eyes are cast beneath : 
 His torch of joy sinks quenched beside his knee : 
 Thoughts of the past, and of futurity. 
 Darken upon his brow ; his spirit yearns 
 For that which he again shall never see ; 
 It is the Genius of Death who mourns : 
 The Beautiful is gone — alas, and ne'er returns ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 No gaunt and grinning mockery of life, 
 Is he — no Skeleton to fright away 
 All those fond thoughts with which the heart is rife. 
 Those hallowing memories which know no decay, 
 But, like affectionate spirits, tend the clay. 
 Until the soul that cherished them is fled : 
 "Who is he with those downcast eyeballs, say ? 
 'Tis Love himself — not Death — who now doth tread 
 Upon the desert earth — all, all he loved is dead !
 
 THE GENIUS OF DEATH. 19 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 He weeps — and wherefore ? Life but takes again 
 Tlie youtli, the strength, the beauty which it gave ; 
 Why mourn the chainless spirit freed its den .? 
 Is it that we to be immortal crave, 
 To be unchanged ? and that he cannot save 
 All that he loved, which, first, must undergo 
 The purgatory of the loathsome grave .? 
 The wish to be undying makes us so ! 
 But, ere the pure lire mount, the dross must sink below. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 What is this Death — this Terror of the Mind r 
 This Shadow made substantial by our Fear, 
 Felt, though unseen, the step of Life behind ! 
 For ever distant, yet for ever near ; 
 Mocked by our sleep, whose pillow is the bier 
 From whence we waken to pursue again 
 The hopes that, phantom-like, elude us here ; 
 Till tired, at last, we own our efforts vain. 
 Content to rest in peace beneath his leaden reign. 
 
 c -2
 
 20 THE GKNIUS OF DEATH, 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Angel of Death ! how beautiful art thou ! 
 The solemn beauty thine that Night doth wear 
 When the Stars lighten o'er her clouded brow : 
 They paint the terrible who do not dare 
 To watch thee stedfastly ; thy features bear 
 The marble stillness of eternal rest ! 
 All passions met, repose in slumber there : 
 All hopes, loves, hatreds, hidden or confessed. 
 Forgotten— are forgot upon thy infinite breast ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 To the grief-stricken, thou, so all unmoved, 
 Art the sole Comforter ; 'tis thou alone 
 Joinest the lover with the dust he loved : 
 To him who hath immortal longings, none. 
 Save thou, can'st show what he would look upon ; 
 The Dead — the immortal — and the infinite. 
 Where time and life are swallowed in the One ! 
 The Realm of Shadows — the waste Void of Night, 
 Where the soul rests, or speeds its everlasting flight.
 
 PLATO. 21 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Kings, heroes, seers — the mighty of the Earth, 
 How have their sumless millions fled to thee ! 
 From whom Life draws its momentary birth ; 
 If they claim not their immortality, 
 Be ours their nothingness I oh, not to be, 
 Were better than survive that glorious band ! 
 But if, to shame the accursed Sadducee, 
 Be ours, beyond the grave, a blessed strand, 
 'Tis thou who guid'st us. Death, with thy protecting 
 hand ! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 Thou Star above the night of ages shed, 
 Divinest Plato ! do I meet thine eye ? 
 Oh, how my spirit upon thine hath fed 
 Thou Seer of my young heart's idolatry ! 
 Until a Holier was sent from high. 
 Thou stood' st on earth man nearest the divine ; 
 Sole Mind that soared to triad Deity ! 
 Truth held within thy breast her chosen shrine : 
 Let sceptics doubt the soul, thou prov'st immortal 
 thine.
 
 22 LOVE AND PSYCHE. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 How Contemplation, on her seraph wings 
 Alighted, sits on thy all lordly brow, 
 That tablet of profound imaginings ! 
 Yet doth thy face a gentleness avow, 
 And in their wisdom who so meek as thou ? 
 For Truth, unsphcred by thee from heaven, began 
 Her task, by teaching thee thyself to know ; 
 There liv'st thou still the semblance of the man, 
 Still guide and light to us through Life's too fleeting 
 span. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 With arms entwined, their souls met in their eyes. 
 Into one being circumfused, one heart, 
 Stand Love and Psyche, pure as their own skies; 
 She seeks not yet to draw the veil apart : 
 The child of innocence, she knows not art: 
 Oh ! could the immortal soul thus happy rest, 
 Nor seek to plunge into itself the dart ! 
 What else is knowledge ? — how might it be blest, 
 Its paradise, this earth, by all it loves, caressed !
 
 THE DANCING FAWN. — THE MEDL'SA. '23 
 
 XL. 
 
 The Dancing Fawn — he cannot hide his joy, 
 The pulses of delight within him bounding ! 
 His foot pressed lightly on that music-toy, 
 Now soft, now full, the answering cymbal rounding ; 
 How is his rapture at each note redounding ! 
 His arms are tossed in motion, like the tree, 
 When the Wind through its joyous boughs is sound- 
 ing! 
 His face, his eyes brimful, o'erflow with glee. 
 His is the very Ufe of rapture's ecstacy ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Cast in a low dark cavern on the ground. 
 The severed head of the Medusa lies ! 
 Not dead— but life is gushing from the wound ; 
 In their sunk sockets roll her dying eyes : 
 And from her pallid lips, half opened, rise 
 Like pestilential damps, her steaming breath, 
 Wrung from her last expiring agonies ! 
 Her pale brow^ wears the livid hues of death : 
 Her snakes, their folds uncoiling, writhe in rage be- 
 neath ;
 
 24 T'lr, ST. .;o,iN OF raffaelli:. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 And on each other madly now would wreak 
 Their malice, like their vengeance, impotent: 
 Some lap their parent's blood, or vainly seek 
 To turn on her the furies in them pent ; 
 Bats, and obscure birds, waiting their descent, 
 Flit o'er, till motionless is stretched their prey ; 
 Till that embodied curse its life hath spent ! 
 Like fiends that on the heart their fangs essay, 
 Which its own dealt remorse in life thus gnaws away ! 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Lo — girt with Mountain solitudes, the Stream 
 Dashed at his feet, the leopard's-skin his dress. 
 Roused from his rock by an inspiring dream — 
 The embodied " Voice within the Wilderness !" 
 How those intense, full -opened eyes express 
 The troubled joy that mingles with his fears ! 
 His parting lips the mighty truths confess : 
 The startled mind his thrilling warning hears, 
 " Prepare— make straight the way— a God— a God 
 appears !"
 
 THK DAY AND NIGHT. 25 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 And in that fonn is beautifully moulded 
 The beauty of Religion unconcealed : 
 And the eternity of truth unfolded, 
 In his enduring Boyhood is revealed ; 
 Who would not thus, thou glorious Spirit ! healed 
 From mortal sin, prove, standing there, as thou, 
 The grandeur of thy innocence, than wield 
 Powers before which the banded world should bow ; 
 Crowns which, compared with thine, were dross upon 
 the brow ! 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Yet pass not, watching by Lorenzo's tomb, 
 Thy Day and Night, sublimest Angelo ! 
 Eldest of Powers, ye almost see the gloom 
 Of crowning darkness round her forehead gi'ovv : 
 She sleeps, and must not be awaked ! — but lo ! 
 The Titan Day his robe aside hath hurled. 
 On his supporting arm uprising slow ; 
 Beneath his eyes clouds part like banners furled. 
 While, frowning, he looks down upon the prostrate 
 world !
 
 20 SANTA CROCE. — GALILEO. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Altar of human dust ! whose memories 
 Shall be immortal when thyself art not, 
 Even to thy name the answering heart replies, 
 Grey Santa Croce ! last but unforgot: 
 Far above all, to thee my soul hath brought 
 The veneration which thy shrine inspires ; 
 Mecca of Italy ! by pilgrims sought ; 
 Thou guardian of the ashes of Life's fires, 
 The guiding Lights of earth as are yon starry choirs. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 Behold the tomb where Galileo's spirit 
 Found that repose in life to him denied : 
 Nature gave, as his birth-right, to inherit 
 The starry infinite ; — how human pride 
 Hears from that tomb an awful voice and guide ! 
 A little dust is all that now remains 
 Of mind which with eternity allied ; 
 Hate galled him living with her bigot chains, 
 The crown of thorns was his, the sages, patriots gains.
 
 GALILEO. — MICHAEL ANGELO. 27 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 His life was persecution to its close : 
 He, atheist stamped, whose name the sceptic awed! 
 Left blind, but patient 'midst a host of foes : 
 And when he died, refused a common sod 
 Where he might lay his bones in : he, who trod 
 From star to star within his realm of heaven, 
 While his wrapt soul held converse with his God ! 
 Outcast from man by bigot-hatred driven, 
 By his meek suffering soul his great reward was given. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Happier than Angelo, whose dust lies near ; 
 He whom the triad Arts bequeathed their dower : 
 Well might the Sage sigh, gazing on thy bier, 
 " Count no man happy till his latest hour !" 
 Thou wert caressed, revered, upheld by Power, 
 And if light Fortune frowned, she made thy foes 
 Succumb to thee like weeds beneath the tower : 
 Yet wert thou happy ? did'st thou find repose ? 
 Oh, who in life's young dawn dares prophesy its close ?
 
 28 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lonely, a wreck in age, thou didst shed tears, 
 
 Yea, even with tears thy foes thou didst deplore ; 
 
 All gone — friends, rivals of thy youthful years : 
 
 The very restlessness they caused thee, bore 
 
 The elements of thy existence o'er 
 
 All opposition, until thou didst win 
 
 Fame's deathless wreath, and Time could give no 
 
 more ; 
 Then did thy weariness of life begin ; 
 Till thou didst strike Death's gate, praying to let thee in. 
 
 LI. 
 This is the moral of the lilie of him 
 Whom, rising o'er the rest, the world assail ; 
 Sung o'er each martyr's grave the requiem : 
 Yet though Truth points for us her thousandth tale. 
 Yet never did the dull told saw avail ; 
 Wlierefore ? because life's trials are untried : 
 Youth's ardoiir, like its self-love, first must fail, 
 Which mocks at grey experience for his guide, 
 Till ends, as aye, the race of vanity or pride.
 
 DANTE. -^9 
 
 LIL 
 
 Behold that Mausoleum so endeared 
 To Florence, offering of remorse too late, 
 Colossal Altar place of marble ! reared 
 O'er dust not there : the Muse laments his fate. 
 Bent o'er his tomb ; but, with a mien elate, 
 Fame proudly points where, seated up on high, 
 Sits Dante throned in more than kingly state ! 
 Visions of heaven and hell in his wrapt eye ; 
 The glory of the south, the Bard of Italy. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 The martyr of his fame, hate drove him forth 
 From Florence, her, for whom his love surpassed 
 The love of woman ! Exiled upon earth, 
 He fomid no rest ; the arkless wanderer cast 
 From his loved home : he watched till hope was past, 
 Then his heart broke ; no more with fate he strove : 
 But for his requiem pealed Fame's trumpet blast ; 
 His Song revealed hell, paradise above ; 
 Till Florence begged his bones, as he, her slighted love.
 
 •30 DANTE. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 And there he sits enthroned above his ura, 
 His thoughtful head upon his hand depressed ; 
 How in that furrowed brow, high, proud, and stem, 
 And in those sunken cheeks, and lips compressed, 
 Is the eternal history expressed, 
 Of mind, which, raised above mankind, drew down 
 The storms that robbed it from that hour of rest; 
 The inward strife more wasting of its own. 
 Life's sacrifices pledged to wear Fame's airy crown. 
 
 LV. 
 
 I pause still — never upon human face 
 Is the sad record told so well as there ! 
 Grief much, yet care hath ploughed a deeper trace : 
 Genius, its sinking languor and despair. 
 While the worn frame its wastings must repair : 
 What bore thee up ? save that thou knew'st from time 
 Thou wert of immortality the heir ; 
 That thy high thoughts should live in deathless 
 rhyme : 
 Thy visions and thy woes — the earthly and sublime.
 
 LEGENDS OF FLORENCE. 31 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Florence ! in thy stern, grey Etruscan streets, 
 Where the o'ershadowing cornice hides the ray 
 Of the fierce sun that scarce an entrance meets, 
 Full many a Legend doth its flight delay. 
 As loth to leave the faith of Yesterday ! 
 Of those dark middle ages, when men sought, 
 By other means than holy, to essay 
 What mysteries beyond the grave are wrought ; 
 Behold a record left, with fearful meaning fraught.
 
 ^ Virion of tfie i9catr* 
 
 The striking and impressive story on which this Poem is founded, was 
 communicated to me by Carlo Liverati, a distinguished Artist of Florence. 
 
 The Mazzichis were not brothers, as represented in the text, but fellow 
 students, whose mutual studies, however, ended only with tlieir lives. 
 They should be, and, I believe, they are, remembered among the charac- 
 ters of the genera.1 history of their time ; as they were the restorers of the 
 Platonic Philosophj% and the chief overthrowers of the doctrines of 
 Aristotle, vv'hich, until their day, enjoyed the ascendency in the Schools 
 of Florence. The Tower in which they prosecuted their studies is still 
 shown ; and the fact, or its assumption, actually recorded, is of that class 
 which, since the creation of the world, has continued to divide the senti- 
 ments of mankind. 
 
 I. 
 
 A record of the living, and an answer from the Dead ! 
 The Mantle raised, between the realms of Light and 
 
 Darkness spread ; 
 The Voice heard of a living Soul that rose beyond the 
 
 pale; 
 While rushing to its final home, its doom of bliss or 
 
 bale.
 
 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 33 
 
 II. 
 
 There were two brothers of one blood iu friendship's 
 
 bonds allied, 
 As if one common thread of life their hearts united 
 
 tied ; 
 The blossoms of their youth had grown upon one stalk 
 
 entwined ; 
 The pride of lovely Florence they — the blessing of 
 
 mankind. 
 
 III. 
 
 For they had waked again divine philosophy to 
 life, 
 
 Not words or discords harsh, with weak humanity at 
 strife ; 
 
 But Truth descended visibly upon them from her 
 sphere. 
 
 When they drew the Soul of Plato from his starry man- 
 sions here. 
 
 D
 
 34 A VISION OF THE DKAD. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The immortality of man, the hope, the trust, the 
 
 love, 
 The proof in Nature's pages read, the faith inspired 
 
 above ; 
 Such heavenly hopes, apart from men, within their tower 
 
 they found ; 
 Such truths they taught, and far and wide, spread 
 
 throu"h the world around. 
 
 But thought, the vital flame that wastes the oil of life 
 
 away. 
 Failed in the elder hope, his body sunk in slow 
 
 decay ; 
 Life faintly shone within his eyes, but mind still rallied 
 
 there. 
 Faint as the lamp's last flickering ray ere melted into 
 
 air !
 
 A VISION OF THK DEAD. 35 
 
 VI. 
 
 It was the midnight hour, and all was still ; the City 
 
 slept ; 
 His brother knelt beside his couch, and silent watching 
 
 kept : 
 The lamp a sickly gleam threw round, then settled pale 
 
 and wan 
 Upon the wasted form and featui'es of that dj'ing 
 
 man ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 'Twas then the Mourner pressed his brother's failing- 
 hand, and spoke, 
 
 And started — as his voice the more than deathlike still- 
 ness broke : 
 
 " My brother ! on the verge of life and death thou 
 standest now, 
 
 " If thou dost hear my latest prayer, by word or sign 
 
 avow ! 
 
 d2
 
 36 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 *' Thou dost ! — then in the name of that great God I 
 
 call on thee ; 
 " Before whose Judgment-seat thy soul or soon or late 
 
 shall be : 
 " I charge thee — if thou canst — come back — and Death's 
 
 great secret tell : 
 " Is Soul immortal, as we trust, and is there Heaven 
 
 and Hell ?" 
 
 IX. 
 
 He spake no more, but crossed his brow — his brother's 
 
 soul had fled : 
 Perchance he had not heard him on the confines of the 
 
 dead: 
 But in his grasp he faintly felt his failing hand 
 
 reply, 
 On him was turned the last dim light that flashed forth 
 
 from his eye !
 
 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 37 
 
 X. 
 
 The bell of midnight tolled forth as he uttered his last 
 
 word ; 
 And the Minster organ's distant hymn along the street 
 
 was heard ; 
 It seemed an omen of the good, as if the dead had 
 
 flown 
 To heaven upon the melody of that low dying 
 
 tone ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 His dust reposed in sanctity ; he, pilgrim in his 
 
 course, 
 The lonely journey of his life pursued with failing 
 
 force ; 
 And nightly prayed he that his brother's soul in peace 
 
 might rest : 
 That he might share his love again in mansions of the 
 
 blest !
 
 •3ft A VISION OF THE DBIAD. 
 
 XII. 
 
 It was the night of Hallow-mas, the hour, when by his 
 
 side 
 A twelvemonth since upon that lowly bed his brother 
 
 died : 
 He opened, ere he turned to rest, the casement, and 
 
 looked down 
 Where Night her robe of sleep and silence cast o'er that 
 
 fair town. 
 
 xni. 
 
 O ! but it is a lovely sight to see fair Florence 
 sleep ! 
 
 To watch the Moon, her tower and bridge in silver soft- 
 ness steep ; 
 
 The domes like shrouded giants rise, the broader mant- 
 ling ray 
 
 Flooding the streets with hght as bright, but lovelier far 
 than day !
 
 A VISION OF THE DEAD. .'ii) 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The very houses drowsily seemed nodding in that 
 
 gleam ; 
 As clear as their own shadows in the Arno's glassy 
 
 stream : 
 No sound was heard between the city walls and distant 
 
 hill: 
 The hands of human life were stopped — the pulse of 
 
 Time stood still ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Uberto looked upon the scene, and while he blest it, 
 felt 
 
 His bosom, long estranged from earth, with human feel- 
 ings melt ; 
 
 Ah ! could he less ? the body of mankind lay panting 
 deep : 
 
 The mighty heart of thousands, like an iniimt's, was 
 asleep !
 
 40 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A tranip — a tramp of horse ! — a shout, an earthquake 
 
 shock resounds ! 
 The rattling clang of" iron hoofs along the pavement 
 
 bounds ! 
 For life — for life ! a steed athwart the city gates hath 
 
 sped, 
 And rushes down the silent streets with noise to wake 
 
 the dead ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 He threw the casement back, and looked out — wrapped 
 in sheeted flame, 
 
 Full down the moonlight avenue a horse and horseman 
 came ! 
 
 One boimd — the open space is cleared — the next, be- 
 neath the tower, 
 
 A moment reined, that charger oxMicd his sable rider's 
 power.
 
 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 41 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 It was his brother ! — well that changed and withering 
 face he knew : 
 
 His eyes shot fire — above his head the grave-cloth 
 wildly flew ! 
 
 " There is — there is — there is!" he cried, and threw 
 his arm on high ; 
 
 He may not stay — for, meteor-like, his steed is rush- 
 ing by ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 One frantic eftort more he made to check his headlong 
 
 path, 
 The stones in fiery sparkles flew beneath his hoofs of 
 
 wrath ! 
 One moment— for his brother called— away ! the sands 
 
 are run, 
 Like lightning he is borne away — his fated task is 
 
 done. 
 
 D 5
 
 42 A VISION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The truth was told, the Voice was heaixl, the mortal oath 
 was sealed : 
 
 But where was he, who heard that voice, who saw the 
 Dead revealed ? 
 
 Who ever looked beyond the grave and lived ? who 
 ever saw 
 
 The light again, to tell he dared transgress great Na- 
 ture's law ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 His record, and confession left, inspired by high com- 
 mand. 
 
 Told that it was a warning traced by life's expiring 
 hand : 
 
 His corpse was found beside the casement laid ; his 
 soul was flown 
 
 To seek the brother of his love, and share his doom un- 
 known !
 
 FIESOLE. 43 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Lo the Cyclopean walls of Fiesole ! 
 
 Ruins on which three thousand years have gazed ! 
 
 What are Rome, Greece's olden date to ye ? 
 
 Whose towers, it may be, earthquake shocks have 
 
 rased, 
 Then, when these hills in fires volcanic blazed: 
 Empires have flourished, fall'n, and, where rose high 
 Their domes, like yon young Florence, sheep have 
 
 grazed ; 
 And then the Stranger comes with pedant eye, 
 Sighs his vain moral there, then — lightly passes by ! 
 
 Lvni. 
 
 O Natiu-e ! mighty mother of us all : 
 Yea, more — sole soother, softener of the heart ! 
 When 'scaped the oppression of the City's thrall. 
 How dost thou. Spirit-like, thy peace impart, 
 Thy own pure calm, eternal as thou art ! 
 What holier, wiser thoughts thou dost restore, 
 AVhile from our breasts thou drawest forth the dart 
 Of griefs, whose memories in the crowd flowed o'er ; 
 Which, lulled to rest by thee, we marvel that ue bore.
 
 44 TO NATURE. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Thou glorious Image of Divinity ! 
 How our soul's pristine innocence we see 
 Reflected in the face of thy pure sky : 
 Our mortal history in each leaf and tree : 
 Our birth, strength, wane, and fall : and the decree 
 Gently yet sadly told us, our sands run, 
 Ho»v soon we must again repose on thee ! 
 How we should sport each moment in the sun : 
 Light insects of the hour, ere dream-like life be done I 
 
 LX. 
 
 How the Air breathes on me its life unseen ! 
 
 But we love only that which we behold : 
 Earth and the Hosts of Heaven adored have been : 
 Ages, like shadows from the earth, have rolled ; 
 Yet is our gratitude to thee untold, 
 Divinest Air ! life's sole inspirer thou : 
 Thou, that thyself art Space, — and dost enfold 
 As with a mantle the Almighty's broAv : 
 Thou Uncreate with God — thou all eternal Now !
 
 THE AIR. 45 
 
 LXI. 
 
 First, holiest Element, ethereal Air ! 
 Infinite Ocean ! that, like feathery sprav. 
 Isles, which are Worlds, dost on thy bosom bear ; 
 Wasting their rock-ribbed sides in slow decay, 
 Or sweeping them with whirlwind strength away ! 
 Thou, whose Voice calls life sleeping into birth. 
 Soft as the sighs of infants when they pray ! 
 Thou that giv'st health, strength, joy, all that is worth 
 Existence, while we creep along thy nourished earth. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Yet though invisible, we own thy power ; 
 While we bless thee in our unconsciousness ; 
 Art thou not with us from our natal hour ? 
 Breath'st thou not on us in love's first caress ? 
 Yea, like a Spirit, descending, thou dost bless. 
 And wing our mounting souls with thee on high 
 To feel the love we yearn but to express : 
 'Reft of thee for a moment, and we die ; 
 -Thou breath which wak'st the bud— yet fill'st infinity
 
 46 THE AIR. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Thou blessed Air! thou givest welcoming 
 To the wan sickly mavtyr of decline, 
 Who, drinking thy sweet breath, renews the spring 
 Of his lost youth, yea, draws his life from thine ; 
 O thou restorer, deemed of old divine ! 
 Thou that dost shed the dews from thy pure breast ; 
 Thou that giv'st health to flowerets when they pine 
 In sun-burnt solitudes ; immortal guest ! 
 Thou com'st to infinite life — expected — welcomed — 
 blest. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 The agitations of our Life's brief span, 
 Strife where alike the fool, sage, dreamer, join: 
 The tempest's rage, and wilder wrath of man ; 
 The hope, the curse, the prayer, the captives pine. 
 How all are lost on the horizon line 
 Of thy illimitable deserts ! — there, 
 Where every atom is a starry shrine ! 
 Fountain and Deep ! ere time — life — motion — were. 
 Thou wert — alone with God — O thou eternal Air !
 
 VALE OF ARNO. 47 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Yet one last glance at that abounding Vale 
 Ere left behind for ever ; lo, it spreads 
 Through azure distance where the eye doth fail ; 
 And yon sweet Arno ! how it, lingering, weds 
 Itself to Florence ! through yon olived meads 
 Once how it flowed up like a stream of gold, 
 Wafting the Eastern wealth between its beds ; 
 Oh, when barbarian hordes o'er Europe rolled, 
 What peace, what wealth, did'st thou, all envied 
 Florence ! hold. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Lo — a soft haze, fair Anio's silvery breath, 
 Rising, doth make yon stately fabrics seem 
 Like exhalations from its depths beneath ! 
 As unsubstantial in the golden gleam 
 Of the aerial distance ! while the beam 
 Of the Sun sleeping in the AVest declined. 
 Sheds o'er its breast the calm of peace supreme : 
 Onward those parting streams reluctant wind, 
 As if they mounied sweet Florence left, for aye, behind !
 
 48 THE ARNO. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 How Nature's landscape charts our human Life ! 
 Our birth, our grovrth, our vigour, and decay ; 
 But most, the River, in its mazy strife, 
 Reflects to us the trackless Yesterday ! 
 Those paths through scenes like visions passed away, 
 Unheeded while they passed, but mourned when fled ; 
 The hours that loitered with us, where are they ? 
 Joined with eternity, and with them sped 
 Our spring of youth's bright years, like leaves of Autumn 
 shed ! 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Farewell — farewell — for ev er, oh ! farewell, 
 The long past dream, the Memory of Youth ! 
 Morning of Life ! that drew its roseate spell 
 From the pure unis of Nature and of Truth ; 
 Hueing all objects, of delight or ruth, 
 With manifest glory ; borrowed not fi"om earth, 
 Nor from yon glorious Sun — ah no ! — its growth 
 Sunlike, from forth our heart of hearts had birth, 
 That love which poured o'er all its own exhaustless 
 v\'orth : —
 
 DEPARTED YOUTH. 49 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Fountain of ever gushing feelings ! flowing 
 All freshly from its source, the Infinite ; 
 On every look, word, smile, its life bestowing ; 
 Innocent as its hope, which chill, nor blight 
 Has damped, nor seared ; existence is delight : 
 Self has not numbed the heart with its cold bond ; 
 Nor Time too rudely marked his parting flight. 
 Stealing on flowers ! stern Circumstance's wand 
 Has not yet broken hopes which looked not life be- 
 yond. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 And the slow, sure Years have not yet borne on 
 The erring Soul still farther from that Light 
 From heaven, within whose radiance it shone ; 
 Ere called on to descend from its pm-e height 
 To our terrene, our chaos of dull night ; 
 Whose gleams are Meteors that lead astray ; 
 Still doth it keep its Maker held in sight ! 
 It hath not yet sunk wearied by the way ; 
 Succumbed to guilt, nor owned resistless passion's 
 sway. 
 
 E
 
 50 DEPARTED YOUTH. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Oh ! not the loss of mind, nor strength, nor years, 
 Nor hopes, nor friends ill valued in the grave, 
 Wring the Soul's bitterest, most remorsefril tears ; 
 No, 'tis to feel, yet impotent to save, 
 Decaying, sinking down, like a spent wave. 
 The abounding love, e'erwhile omnipotent 
 To heal the sufferings it bore, or gave ; 
 This is to bear om* living punishment : 
 This is to feel despair — this — this is to repent ! 
 
 LXXII. 
 Oh, could I feel once more as then I felt ! 
 That this same being's youth I could recal, 
 Gone as the Sympathy which in me dwelt, 
 That, flower-like, threw o'er life its coronal ! 
 That with the sky and airs held festival ; 
 And to the setting Sun a worshipper, 
 Pom'ed forth its love, as man before the fall ; 
 That hailed the vestal lamp, meek Evening's star. 
 Beaming, as if its radiant spark had been from far,
 
 REMEMBRANCES. 51 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 A watching Eye — a holy emanation 
 Of Being more ethereal ; glorious time, 
 So lasting, yet so fleeting ! when Creation 
 Lives in each glance, when earth is in its prime, 
 Which the heart, blessing, feels not life nor time : 
 Pure Interval ! when the free soul dares rise 
 To deeds ennobling, and to thoughts sublime ; 
 When the man gieatly on himself relies. 
 Bound to his fellow-man by Nature's eai'liest ties. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 Yet were there human sympathies entwined 
 With thine, all deathless : one flits ever near, 
 A Vision in its purity enshrined, 
 Even as she stood in life, that sister dear, 
 A Spirit ever watching by me here ! 
 And then another came, who only erred 
 In loving far too deeply, in its sear 
 Though Summer leaf, him whose whole heart was 
 poured, 
 Though restlessly, to her whom, aye, he still adored. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 EEMEMBRANCES. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 But — T forget ! — a man, I have but proved 
 A human lot, which coldly unconfessed, 
 I should have borne within and bled unmoved ; 
 TJiou wilt not frowTi who boldest in thy breast 
 Ghosts of departed joys ! there, let them rest : 
 Oasis in the Desert ! oracle, 
 Whose heavenly revelations tnith attest, 
 While they thy origin immortal tell, 
 Shrine of departed Youth — yet once again — farewell ! 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 On — on ! — still upward toils the steep ascent : 
 The rugged Apennines the road surround ; 
 How coldly on their nameless wastes are bent 
 The eyes of him who goes a pilgrim bound, 
 Dark Vallombrosa ! to thy hallowed ground, 
 Hallowed by Poesy's immortal line ; 
 So can Mind stamp its impresses profound 
 On Nature ; while it gathers from her shrine 
 Its inspirations, strength, and energies divine.
 
 ASCENT TO VALLOMHROSA. 53 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 For this is the mind's appetite that grows 
 
 With what it feeds on ; all else pass aw^ay 
 
 In dull satiety, of heaviest woes 
 
 The least which we can bear ; but here decay 
 
 Itself is beautiful, and wears a ray 
 
 Of deeper glory, changing but the form 
 
 Of Life which glows for ever as to-day ; 
 
 Thou, whose cold worn-out bosom nought can warm, 
 
 Pause, and while gazing here, even thee it shall trans- 
 form. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 For oh ! what after joys can rival those, 
 When the Soul, raised above its mortal thrall, 
 Pours forth its gratitude which then o'erflows ; 
 The love uniting with the eternal All ? 
 And when those hours are past, we can recal 
 Departed feelings which to heaven allied, 
 For memory then is virtue ; if we fall 
 From our resolves, she still is by om* side ; 
 
 And teaches self-control, and softens human pride.
 
 54 INFLUENCES OF NATURE. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 As, while I gazing stand, yon Mountain's fonn, 
 With its cragged brow, is folded from my eye 
 Behind the mists of the approaching Storm, 
 Which, in its shroud-like veils, rolls sweeping by. 
 Though hidden, yet unseen it still is nigh. 
 Fixed as the heaven to which it points the guide, 
 So, in primeval naked ma-jesty. 
 Stands Virtue : sensual mists her form may hide, 
 But she, unchanged the same, for ever doth abide ! 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 And Freedom ! — thou, the boast of man, the word 
 That thrills his heart ; in triumph, hope, or pride. 
 His vows to thee eternally preferred, 
 In whose great cause is life and death defied, 
 Vision by his o\^ti passion deified ! 
 On whose red shrine, with human victims fraught, 
 Millions, hewn down, exultingly have died ! 
 From whence thy deathless inspirations caught. 
 Thou, who so much of good, of ill, to man hast taught ?
 
 ON MAN. 55 
 
 LXXXL 
 
 From thee, eternal Nature ! from the hill 
 Hm'ling the Tempest from its sides — the woods, 
 Crushed by the avalanche, yet rooted still ; 
 From the wild Cataract's all chainless floods ; 
 From the free Desert's boundless solitudes ; 
 From warring Waves, amid whose strife thou art ; 
 From Thunder-Clouds, beneath whose mantle broods 
 The dagger-flashing Lightning ! — these impart 
 Thy shows of mighty truths, recorded by the heart. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Till the hour comes when man's long pent-up wrath 
 Bursts wildly forth remorselessly as they, 
 Death in his hands, and ruin in his path ! 
 Ah ! blame him not if ruthlessly he slay ; 
 Yea, wade in blood : for, in that penal day. 
 Is wreaked the hoarded hate of dateless time : 
 He doth but Nature's mighty voice obey ; 
 His hands are red with slaughter — not with crime, 
 The Priest of Freedom he, in sacrifice sublime !
 
 56 INFLUENCES OF NATURE. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 So learn we truths ; one here o'er all attest ; 
 Art naiTows, labour weakens, laws control, 
 Life's dull, cold, saws weigh, lead-like, on the breast, 
 'Tis mighty Nature swells the human soul 
 To feel, to soar, to mingle with the Whole, 
 Infinite as herself: the eye, what bound 
 Hath its all limitless faculty ? what goal, 
 Save in the sense's weakness ? yon profound 
 Azure, what depth or height the spirit had not found ? 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 And for its forms of majesty, and power, 
 Lo, how these archetypes of grandem" rose ! 
 These rock-ribbed Mountains, in Creation's hour. 
 Cast from Earth's womb, by the convulsive throes 
 Of fire, ah, water, that knew no repose ; 
 Still warring on, as when the solid world 
 Heaved like the Ocean when the tempest grows ; 
 When life was anarchy in chaos hurled, 
 Ere yet the rain-bowed Peace her banner had unfurled.
 
 INFLUENCES OF NATURE. 57 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 In their full tides arrested as tliey rolled, 
 Fixed in their fluctuation by one word, 
 The Mountain Altars reared by God behold, 
 Sphered in his heaven of heavens ! then. Nature heard, 
 And the pure snows, her firstling gifts, prefeiTed; 
 The Clouds her frankincense, her priests the Woods, 
 That, circling round, those shrines for ever gird ; 
 Her choral-hymn the Winds and rushing Floods, 
 Sole Voices raised in these eternal solitudes ! 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Doubt'st thou her inspirations ? lo, yon peaks 
 Titanic, burying their spears in heaven ! 
 As if they dared the thunder, when it wreaks 
 Its heaviest vengeance ; look — all headlong driven, 
 Yon Waters hurled o'er precipices riven ; 
 Hark, to their roar in yon black fathomless dell ! 
 The ravings of the tortured unforgiven ; 
 Doth not thy mind their types already tell ? 
 Behold the Powersopposed— the war of Heaven and Hell !
 
 58 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Lo ! round the Mountain's scathed sides, like a wall, 
 Pines, lightning-blasted, wear such forms as wore 
 The Angels of the damned ! while, like a pall, 
 The up-seething mists rise, shrouding white and hoar, 
 Shapes that lie buried, crushed for evermore, 
 Writhmg beneath, and covering their bier 
 Thick as the weeds on Ocean's surf-heaped shore ; 
 This is the Vale of Shade thou should'st revere, 
 This was the Prophet's shrine — thy pilgrimage ends here. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Oh ! while these Autumn leaves are round me lying, 
 While thy " Etrurian shades o'erarched" ensphere ; 
 While the Wind seems thy Voice to mine replying. 
 On thee I call ! I sought thee. Prophet, here. 
 And I have found thee ; thou wilt not appear 
 Athwart the bourne mipassed since time began, 
 But I woiAd feel thy mighty Spirit near: 
 Here — where this crag no foot has dared to scan, 
 Here do I call thee, thou who walked on earth with man !
 
 VALLOMBROSA 59 
 
 TO JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Mightiest of Poets ! from a boy, my heart 
 Turned to thee ; yea, of thee became a part, 
 As of the Earth I worshipped, and though I 
 Then darkly comprehended thee, yet now, 
 By thought, and imaging the forms which thou 
 Hast brought before my Vision, and that are, 
 By dwelling on them, made familiar. 
 Thy Mind's sublimest heights I can descry. 
 The Harp of Heav en was given thee to strike 
 The chords of Melody ; thy Voice was like 
 The Deep that calleth unto Deep ; thy Spirit 
 Saw Past and Future ; yea, and did inherit 
 Both, — for it was itself Infinity ! 
 Thou stoodest like some Mountain on the earth, 
 Apart and hidden ; deep Clouds rolled between 
 Thee and tlie forms beneath, which were unseen, 
 Veiled from thy ken ; but inner rays were given 
 Piu-er than fi-om the Morning-gates have birth ! 
 Thy head was sphered in the serene above. 
 And, while in visions rapt of God and love.
 
 60 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 Irradiated with His light from heaven ! 
 Oil ! if I sought to approach thee, be 't forgiven ; 
 For thou wert not of earth, a Projohet sent 
 To turn the age from sins on which it leant. 
 Thou struck'st the Rock of Poesy, which heard ; 
 And the deep Waters, bursting at thy word. 
 Pure, heavenly emanation ! full and free. 
 Told that they came from God— though called by thee ! 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 Minster of Vallombrosa ! not those halls 
 
 Where the worn traveller is hailed with smiles 
 
 Of placid ignorance, that namerecals ; 
 
 But thou thyself, that art, midst these defiles. 
 
 Nature's own Minster ! who, thy arching aisles, 
 
 Dark Vallombrosa ! hath in silence trod. 
 
 And seen thy rock-reared shrines, where the Cloud 
 
 piles 
 Its fiankincen&e, and heard the Winds abroad 
 Swell up their choral hyum, nor felt tliec built by God?
 
 VALLOMBROSA. CI 
 
 xc. 
 
 How reverentially are left behind 
 The precincts of thy solemn Solitude ! 
 Again to Nature and to peace consigned, 
 Until a newer footstep shall intrude, 
 To wile, in thoughtfiil or fantastic mood. 
 Those hours away that never shall return 
 In such inspiring scenes to be renewed ; 
 We part — from thy grey heights mine eye did yearn 
 To the blue Adriatic, from the rays that biun, 
 
 XCI. 
 
 Making life here a solitude ; — away ! 
 The sail gleams o'er yon far-off wave beneath ; 
 Let us enjoy the sea-breeze free as they ; 
 Borne on, we list not where, so from the heath 
 Scorched by the heats of Summer's fiery breath, 
 Where Natiue wears the hue of Autumn sear ; 
 Where the beams, scathing, dart the stroke of death, 
 Wlicrc the night's rising dews make earth a bier 
 To him who dares repose in feverish slumbers here.
 
 62 THE ADRIATIC. 
 
 XCIl. 
 
 Thou glorious Adriatic ! do I gaze 
 On thee, at last, thou dream of youth ! how springs 
 Again the memory of childhood's days, 
 When hope outstripped the heart's imaginings : 
 How the sail wafts me with its outstretched wings, 
 Over thy azure waters ! while the foam 
 O'er the white deck its feathering eddy flings : 
 Free as the bounding sea-bird on we roam : 
 But whither tends her course — what port shall be 
 our home ? 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 Home — Father-Land ! what music in the sound ! 
 How, like a spell, it doth, at once, awake 
 The memories, England ! of thy sacred ground ; 
 O thou loved Isle ! round whom the wild waves 
 
 break 
 Vainly as foes their wrath would on thee wreak ; 
 Thou first in arts and arms ! from whose rock -shrine. 
 Wisdom, that doth to after ages speak. 
 Goes forth to humanise, exalt, refine ; 
 
 Till listening States forget their gi*eatness came from 
 thine !
 
 TO ENGLAND. 63 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 Oh I have been where Mountains hide their heads 
 In the far Clouds ! where torrents rave beneath : 
 Where the wild Avalanche its ruin spreads : 
 Where the sweet South comes like a spirit's breath, 
 Caught from the doors of heaven ; and, where the 
 
 heath, 
 Even in its rankness, flowered like Paradise ! 
 But then, as when before the gates of Death, 
 Thou still wert ever present to my eyes. 
 The charmsof other lands, their hills, seas, glorious skies. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Endeared thee but the more ! even now I see 
 That grass-grown area, those mouldering walls. 
 Once, seat of a time-honoured Ancestry : 
 Who battled to the last in those Old Halls, 
 For him o'er whom the tear of memory falls ; 
 Martyr of Royalty ! — even now, I prove 
 The sacred thrill that hallowed spot recals ; 
 The patriot-oath, it may be, heard above. 
 To show in such high cause, the same devoted love !
 
 64 TO ENGLAND. 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 Pride of the chainless wave ! that owns no thrall : 
 Scorning Earth's narrow land-mark, thon dost claim 
 For thy broad bonndary, Heaven's sapphire wall ; 
 And for thy bulwark, Freedom's holy name ; 
 Far as the thundering echoes of thy fame, 
 Thy glory hath gone forth : and Nations vow 
 To hate thee from remembrance of their shame ; 
 And despots fear thee ; and the bondsman's brow 
 Is raised to thy bright sun, for thou wilt hear him, thou, 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 Lord of the mighty free ! whose throne doth stand 
 Based on the Rock of ages ! thou hast ^^Teathed 
 The Olive-branch around thy sceptered hand ; 
 And kingdoms, at thy word, their swords have 
 
 sheathed ; 
 And oh ! how god-like thou, who hast bequeathed 
 That Gift which God to man his birth -right gave, 
 His heaven-stamped liberty ! wherever breathed 
 The man in chains, thy arm was stretched to save : 
 Thy eloquence roused the heart, and Slavery found its 
 
 grave !
 
 TO ENGLAND. 65 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Ocean's first isle ! whose circle is the world : 
 What furthest shore hath not thy wealth endowered ? 
 Or Sea beheld thy battle-flag unfurled ? 
 Thy Lion-flag that never yet was lowered, 
 Even when the deadliest of War's thunders showered : 
 When single handed Valour stood to die 
 On the rent deck by giant force o'erpowered ! 
 What Nation hath not heard thy soldiers cry ? 
 His fiery charging shout — whose charge was Victory ! 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 No deathless flowers are thine, no azure skies. 
 No airs, that softening man, enervate more ; 
 Vapour and Cloud for ever o'er thee rise, 
 But sun-like Freedom sits upon thy shore ! 
 What are the Storm's wild thunders as they roar, 
 To those thy bulwai'ks oaken ribs enfold ? 
 And what the aimless Lightnings as they pour, 
 To their Volcanic blaze, when uncontrolled. 
 Before their fiery path have sunken navies rolled ! 
 
 F
 
 66 TO ENGLAND. 
 
 c. 
 
 Call me not truant from my native Land, 
 For still I love her ! though not yet to me 
 Is given the wreath from her according hand, 
 Which others, who have bowed the suppler knee 
 To time and place have won ; but I was free. 
 And proud as thou, my Land ! that gav'st me birth : 
 Oh ! how it trembles w^hile it tui^ns to thee 
 My bosom — glorying that my Father's hearth 
 Stands on thy sacred ground, thou envy of the Earth ! 
 
 END OF CANTO I.
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 F 2
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Sunset on Venice — appearance from the Sea. The Rialto : Records of 
 Venice : reflections. Fall of Venice : St. Mark's Place, and Church : in- 
 terior — Vespers. Venetian Beauty. Titian : his landscapes. Italian 
 Sunsets. Lord Byron : his character. Farewell to Venice — Ravenna ; 
 Stanzas to 
 
 The Pass of Furlo : The Consul Nero. The WaterfaU : The Rubicon, 
 and Caesar's passage — character of Caesar. Thoughts on Fame. Ri- 
 mini — the Past recalled — entrance of Caesar ; remembrances of Rimini. 
 Approach to Thrasimene : stormy sky. Battle of Thrasimene. Temple 
 of Clitumnus. Mountain Scenery : The Falls of Temi : appearance from 
 beneath them..=— Conclusion.
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Sun is setting : leaning o'er the pro^v^, 
 The Ocean's dark blue waves beneath it heaving, 
 What millions have not gazed with musing brow 
 The busy mind a thousand fancies weaving, 
 As aimless, and as vague as that deceiving 
 Emblem of Time in fluctuation past; 
 The mind as mutable : behind it leaving 
 Upon the tide of circumstances cast, 
 Its hopes, fears, joys, and griefs, to sink absorbed, at 
 last.
 
 70 SUNSET ON VENICE. 
 
 II. 
 
 To sink absorbed — nor leave behind one trace 
 Of all the infinite of Thought that springs 
 Heavenward — which sinking, time and life efface: 
 Of all the dreams, the fond imaginings, 
 Hopes, wishes, loves, that for themselves make wings, 
 And rest when shared, or die within the breast, 
 Ere waked like Music from the sleeping strings : 
 Oh ! who can tell the world of love repressed 
 That dies in us, imshared — unknown — and unconfessed. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Sun is setting ; are his last rays steeping 
 Yon wilderness of Clouds that steadfast keep 
 Their station on the blue horizon sleeping ; 
 Breasting the waves, yet blending with the Deep ? 
 While from their braided edges seem to creep 
 Bright points of spires, now, evanescent grown. 
 As the o'ershadowing sea-mists round them sweep ; 
 Away ! — no shadows they, but, nearer shown, 
 Fair Venice seated still upon her Ocean-throne !
 
 VENICE FROM THE SEA. 71 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yea, there she rises on the waters lying ; 
 Her spires and gilded domes reflected shine 
 With the red Sun's last glory o'er them dying ! 
 Reared like some broken, vast, deserted shrine, 
 Over the clear, soft, floating hyaline ! 
 Her Ocean throne, where Power so oft bowed down. 
 Deeming her sun could never know decline j 
 There still she sits ; a queen without her crown ; 
 Robed with the haloing memories of her past renown. 
 
 V. 
 
 Enter— ye glide along as in a dream, 
 When all is sad, mysterious, strange and wild : 
 'Mid streets whose channels are the Ocean's stream ; 
 'Midst marble palaces on each side piled, 
 Looking desertion ! Yet unreconciled 
 To be the sepulchres of greatness fled : 
 Where Silence reigns, but she who is the child 
 Of Desolation ; for ye hear no tread, 
 No shout, no trump to wake this city of the Dead !
 
 72 THE RIALTO. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And the Rialto's Bridge is left behind, 
 Ere the recovered mind can disenthrall 
 The past — and to the present feel resigned ; 
 Ere startled Meditation can recall, 
 Fair Venice, as she filled the interval 
 Of thirteen hundred years ; behold where stands 
 The Bridge where first with Freedom's coronal 
 She bound her brows : when her devoted bands 
 Of patriots pitched their tents upon the shifting sands. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Vainly the Waves roared and the Tempests dashed 
 Round that last stand — no further could they flee ; 
 Vain from the shore the Tyrants' faulchions flashed, 
 They looked to heaven, and felt that they were free ! 
 And to the answering God of Liberty 
 They did devote themselves in that wild horn-, 
 On Freedom's shrine — the boundless, chainless Sea ! 
 Want led to enterprize, to wealth, to power; 
 The Ocean s harvest theirs, the East and West, their 
 dower.
 
 RECORDS OF VENICE. 73 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Daughter of Rome ! ot" thy great Sire, sole heir, 
 Hath not thy records proved thine origin ? 
 The same stern will to suffer and to dare : 
 Thou, who from that heaped sand-bank, didst begin 
 To cope with mightiest empires, and to win 
 Homage from all : thou saw'st their rise and fall ; 
 Roman, Frank, Khalif, Goth, and Saracen ; 
 Byzantium's friend or foe : until thy thrall 
 The East obeyed, and sunk before thy watery wall. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The past — the present, all is here a dream : 
 An unreality : what ? can it be 
 
 That thou didst head the Italian League supreme ? 
 Regenerator thou of Italy ? 
 That kings, and greater, Venice ! knelt to thee, 
 Owning thee sovereign umpire of their fates ? 
 That thou, sole Champion wert of Liberty, 
 Then, when pale Europe shook through all her states : 
 When, conquest-flushed, the Turk first thundered at 
 her gates.
 
 74 VENICE. 
 
 X. 
 
 O relique of gone-by magnificence ! 
 Of a departed glory lingering yet 
 Around thee — hallowing what was so intense, 
 That the mind, dwelling there, doth all forget, 
 Yea, even thy beauty in its vain regTet ! 
 Yet, how thou diest, Venice ! day by day : 
 As fades the twilight of thy suns when set. 
 So thou, declining, but with slow decay, 
 
 Shed'st round a mournful light which hath not passed 
 away ! 
 
 XI. 
 So he who dwells upon thy beautiful, 
 Thy outward form, where but repose is seen ; 
 Where, if of parted passion aught o'er-rule, 
 'Tis in the speaking languor of that mien, 
 Which but implores for peace — for a serene. 
 And calm departure while thy Life ebbs forth, 
 Feels but thy spirit only : what Itatli been, 
 Thy dark and hidden deeds, thy crimes and worth. 
 
 Are known to Him alone who weighs the dust of earth.
 
 VENETIAN HEROISM. 75 
 
 XII. 
 
 Rome of the Ocean ! thou thy Carthage foe 
 Had'st also, and thy Dorian Hannibal : 
 Till haughty Genoa was taught to know, 
 Given as thy right, was Victory's coronal ; 
 That Glory kept for thee her festival ; 
 And who could claim a loftier wreath than thine ? 
 Oh ! long as History is truth's Oracle, 
 Pisani's fame shall brighten in thy line ; 
 Leader of chiefs presiding, star-like, o'er thy shrine. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 For oh ! while Freedom fired thy answering breast, 
 With what heroic virtue was it fraught ! 
 What deeds of heroism shone confessed ! 
 What patriot acts of rival worth were wrought 
 When Fortime frowned ! and oh, how proud thy lot. 
 Then, when first planted in Constantino's hall. 
 Thy winged Lion by thy hand was brought, 
 Was't not enough thou first didst lead o'er all ? 
 That Chivalry herself obeyed thy trumpet-call?
 
 67 FALL OF VENICE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Bear witness, no ! — thou who didst mount on — on — 
 As thou the Sun all eagle-like would'st claim, 
 Aspiring loftier o'er each triumph won ; 
 Cyprus — Lepanto — Troy-like Candia— Fame ! 
 How could'st thou circle with a brighter flame 
 Fair Venice ? then, her glory should have set 
 Ere Fortune's self grew wearied of her name : 
 So from her zenith did she sink, ere yet 
 Applauding nations could her memories forget. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Yet wherefore wert thou crushed at once ? thy shield 
 Braced on, thy hand armed, and thy bulwarks round, 
 By foemen never entered ? — didst thou yield 
 Without one stroke .? thy foe thou didst astound ; 
 Until contempt the soldiers' bosom found 
 For those, who, crouching, dared not wake his ire ! 
 Where was that pride which Genoa could not bound ? 
 Oh ! where that soul of valour, that, like lire, 
 In the Morea blazed for ever to expire }
 
 FALL OF VENICE. 77 
 
 XV- 
 
 Hurled to the dust is now the Freedom lying 
 
 Who once her banners from those towers flung high, 
 
 Rent by the Thunder Storms, but freer flying, 
 
 As wilder grew the Tempests of the Sky ! 
 
 And they the brave, who in their agony, 
 
 Fought — rallied — struggled — triumphed — bled — and 
 
 died. 
 Sleep with it now, forgot like Victory ! 
 Their shouts that rang along those halls of pride, 
 Are in a stillness hushed that ever shall abide ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Till the Arch- Angel's trump shall wake the Dead ! 
 And call, from their all dreamless sleep, the brave. 
 The freemen who like sacritices bled ; 
 Their Altar-place their Country ; and their grave, 
 The heaped up battle-field where laurels wave, 
 Washed by her tears, for ever unforgot ! 
 Until the Oppressor feels that bars nor cave 
 Prison the soul ; the body there may rot. 
 But to live free, or die, is man's heaven-chartered lot. 
 
 F 7
 
 78 ST. mark's place, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Her Adrian-rule, and Sceptre of the Sea, 
 Are torn from lier : her Eastern diadem 
 Is shivered, and a dream of memory : 
 Scorn of the foeman when she bowed to them, 
 Cast to the Austrian as a worthless gem, 
 Even in her worthlessness and fall are .shown 
 The springs that moved her — pause ere ye condemn : 
 Remorseless in her hate to foes alone. 
 Even with a Parent's love she guarded — watched her own. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Yea, all is here romance, grotesque and wild, 
 And mystical, and dream-like ; lo, the Square, 
 Where domes, and spires, and minarets are piled 
 The Ducal Hall's barbaric splendour there ; 
 Yon steeds of bronze that glitter in the air. 
 Bridled, at last ; the Campanile's height, 
 Where starry Galileo did repair ; 
 And yonder triple shrine, that fills the sight 
 With a strange sense of awe, of marvel, yet delight.
 
 ST. mark's place. 79 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Greek — the Goth — the Saracenic, joined : 
 
 Spires reared on Moorish cupolas appear : 
 
 Tlie long-arched front with thousand columns lined ; 
 
 Behold undisciplined by art severe, 
 
 The Poetry of Architecture here ! 
 
 Heaped up, and as a Conqueror's spoils displayed, 
 
 The o'ercrouded wealth of either hemisphere ; 
 
 Enter where mantled in her deepest shade 
 
 Religion hath her own the sanctuary made. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Yet the heaped spoils which round that Altar shine, 
 Seem more the stores that Mammon's den conceals, 
 Gorgeous, yet dark, than Jesus' blessed shrine : 
 But oh, what groups yon casements light reveals 
 As through the shadowy depths beneath it steals ! 
 Shedding its last, rich, dying hues, upon 
 Grey age which there in wrapt devotion kneels : 
 As if it were a ray from God that shone. 
 Sign to the prostrate there of their acceptance won !
 
 80 ST. mark's church. 
 
 XXIT. 
 
 And the deep silence and half stifled breath 
 Of those who pass like shades, as if they feared, 
 To wake the slumbers of the Dead beneath : 
 Or, as they felt, that He, the Eternal, heard 
 Each Voice A\dthin his sanctuary preferred ; 
 Lo, where yon contrite pours on bended knee 
 To the confessional each slow-wrimg word ! 
 The Magdalen of grief ! fair woman, she, 
 More erred against than erring — still her lot to be ! 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 While ever from the deep and dark recess 
 Of yon Apostle-Statued shrine, steal forth 
 Notes, that in distance softening, have less 
 Of human feeling than of heavenly birth : 
 Until all lowlier thoughts of self and earth 
 Are stilled to sleep by that abstracting sound ! — 
 Oh ! in our mortal life are moments worth 
 Ages with earthlier enjoyments crowned; 
 Then, when the soul absorbed the present God hath 
 found.
 
 ST. mark's place. 81 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Yet pass the door — the pageant is forgot ; 
 The Present, from the common mind bereaves 
 Remembrance of the past with warnings fraught : 
 For Memory its impresses receives 
 Faintly, as its reflection the tree weaves 
 Upon the running stream, which, gliding on, 
 No shadow on its changeful bosom leaves ; 
 Life claims its own : the light of grace that shone 
 
 Upon the storm-tossed soul, wanes — darkens — and is 
 gone ! 
 
 XXV. 
 And never yet, fair Venice ! shone the sun 
 Where life did changes, like thine own, avow ! 
 Even on this spot what laurels have been won — 
 Witness of all thy triumphs, when thy brow 
 Was raised as proudly, as 'tis fallen now ! 
 Here, where thou sat'st upon thy jealous throne, 
 The Mart — the Carnival — the Masque, below : 
 With morn, the corpse by those red columns shown, 
 
 Of some pale, headless wretch, his name, life, crime, un- 
 known. 
 
 G
 
 82 ST. mark's place. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But when the Stars pale o'er the dazzling lights 
 Ot the Piazza's arcades, when the sound 
 Of music, dancing, revelry, invites 
 Greek, Turk, or Persian, stretched along the ground 
 When the Tale-teller hath his circle found. 
 Then, with light veil, and flexile step, steals by 
 Venetian Beauty ! earth shows nought around 
 Like the dark heaven of that all-speaking eye, 
 Its passionate records past — its future prophecy ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Oh ! when those palaces of power gone by, 
 Now bearing on their fronts so worn and gi'ey, 
 A fall'n air of insulted majesty ; 
 The history of grandeur and decay: — 
 When in their pride they rose, and the sweet ray 
 Of the Moon glassed them in those waters fair. 
 How then was felt Venetian Beauty's sway ! 
 How glowed her cheek, dark eyes, and raven hair, 
 As, idolized by love, she sighed reclining there ;
 
 VENETIAN BEAUTY. 83 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 By him, the Italian lover, who beneath, 
 From the dark shadows of his gondolier. 
 Poured his soft lay, whose deep and passionate breath 
 Was more than eloquence to lover's ear ! 
 Till all but feeling slumbered, even fear 
 Lulled into rest where nought but love awoke; 
 Ah, well for her, with mom, she did not hear 
 The sullen plunge — the cry suppressed that broke — 
 The Bravo's dagger well had dealt its murderous stroke ! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Yet pass not, gliding through the Ocean streets, 
 Pisani's palace, where a greater dwelt 
 Than he — whose name age after age repeats. 
 As coming and departing Life have felt 
 The Beautiful, whose spells in common melt 
 Man's answering soul ; the casements ciu-tained down 
 Seem as if still the Mourners round him knelt ; 
 And wherefore ? he who died there, hath the crown 
 Imperishably won of his own vast renovvu. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TITIAN. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Titian — the soul of colours ! he, whose spirit 
 Was steeped in his Venetian sunsets, till 
 The feeling of their hues he did inherit ; 
 A portion of his being to instil 
 Their glories in his eyes and heai't, and fill 
 His torch with light from its eternal pyre : 
 Di-eam round Parnassian waters they who will ; 
 Ye, who vAould draw down the Promethean fire, 
 Lo, the true Shrine which doth the kindling soul inspire ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 'Twas this, which poured along his pictures, warms 
 Each shape to life ; 'twas this that bodied forth 
 Those beautiful and all-voluptuous forms, 
 Which, breathing but the passionate love of earth. 
 Prove to the sinking heart their human birth ! 
 Goddess, or Nymph, or, stretched on the gi*een sod, 
 Or in the blue stream plunged in wanton mirth : 
 The form unveiled — the slumber feigned — the god 
 Watching the shape divine by Love himself o'erawed ;
 
 ITALIAN SUNSETS. 85 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 And the loug vales and shadowing Woods behind ! 
 Romantic Italy ! oh, who hath been 
 Imparadised among thy groves reclined, 
 Nor those delicious glimpses caught between ; — 
 Arcadian Landscape ! the thick branches green, 
 Of dim, rich leafiness ! the blue hill far : 
 In the dark covert. Fawn and Satyr seen : 
 And, over all, presiding like a star, 
 Love, hallowing the scene, Joy's prophet haibinger ! 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Italian sunsets ! who e'er gazea on ye. 
 Nor felt your inspirations ? or forgot 
 The stamp impressed of immortality 
 Ye leave on man ; that 'tis his destined lot 
 To be, as ye, undying ? each pm-e thought 
 Is called by ye to being : till the eye 
 Of inmost waking soul beholds ye fraught 
 With Nature's revelations made irom high, 
 And, dwelling on them, feels its home is in the sky.
 
 86 ITALIAN SUNSETS. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Thou, who dost come from shores in vapours shrouded, 
 From the pale watery gleams of Northern skies, 
 Who givest to those twilight hues o'erclouded. 
 Beauty whose presence lives but in thine eyes, 
 Here view the opened Gates of Paradise ! 
 The unfolded heaven that fills yon living West, 
 Steeped in rose-hues whose tints are harmonies , 
 Where Iris kindles to the life confessed : 
 The Poetry of Light, the Elysium of the Blest ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 All-glorious Visions ! hues, each tint a heaven : 
 Immortal emblems of those mansions bright, 
 For vrhich yon pageantries alone are given : 
 Oh ! when men bowed before that Lord of Light, 
 Material god ! upon the mountain s height. 
 Was he an Idol ? and his clouds, the toys, 
 Frail as our hopes to sink in endless night ? 
 Faith which the grave eternally destroys, 
 No deathless life to come to ratify our joys .?
 
 LORn BYRON. 87 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 I gaze on yon grey palace — shall I pass 
 Nor pay a pausing tribute to the One, 
 Its tenant for a troubled hour : who was, 
 And is not ; whose high fame, like yonder sun. 
 Is fixed ; and when the Waves their ot^ti have won. 
 And the place, Venice ! where thou stood'st, forgot, 
 Thou, Byron, still thy deathless course shalt run ! 
 To share with her the same unenvied lot ; 
 Point for the moral sage, for those who knew ye not. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 A Star that in its rising simk : a spirit 
 Whose giant strength, all undeveloped, died ; 
 The glorious faculties it did inherit. 
 Struggling for truth, for ever turned aside 
 By spleen, haste, wrath, or vanity, or pride. 
 Or the last ruling passion of the hour ; 
 In him the Elements met unallied 
 JaiTing in chaos ; weakness, strength, and power. 
 The trifling, the sublime, the mean, by turns, its dower.
 
 88 LORD BYRON. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 In his imaginative realms a god ; 
 
 In life, still fickle, wayward, versatile ; 
 
 A froward child, who ever child-like, trod 
 
 Where fancies led, each toy could so beguile ; 
 
 What marvel Vice could such a mind defile ? 
 
 The sport of impulses, to each the slave ! 
 
 But ye, the passionless, who coldly smile 
 
 When genius sinks into its own made grave, 
 Prove first the heights it soared, the powers that Natiuc 
 gave. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 His height had made him giddy : he, too, proved 
 
 The strength and weakness of our waxen wings: 
 
 Until he cursed the ambition he had lo^ed ; 
 
 Baffled in life, and maddened by the stings 
 
 Of hate, and chief, the ingratitude which wrings, 
 
 He gave, in very recklessness, the rein 
 
 To passion, to those dark imaginings 
 
 Shaped by the active Genius of Pain : 
 The bitterness of soul that seeks relief in vain.
 
 LORD BYRON. 89 
 
 XL. 
 
 Yet nobler far was he than he appeared : 
 Self-condemnation was a luxury 
 With which he fed in bitterness his seared, 
 And desolate made breast ; satiety 
 Sickened at vice whose fruit was apathy, 
 Or moodiest scorn, which revelled, unrepressed, 
 In its deep loathing of hypocrisy : 
 His life was human, but with taunting jest. 
 He loved to mock weak nature's frailties confessed. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Yet how his death struck, knell-like, at each heart, 
 As if it TOOunied for a departed friend ! 
 For his existence had become a part 
 Of his own country : eager to deiend. 
 And proud, even while she blamed him ! for the end 
 Of his quick life in haloing glory set : 
 How did the patriot's prayers his name attend ! 
 How his high song, e'en while it woke regTet, 
 Inspired the answering soul, and dared it to forget !
 
 90 LORD BYRON. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Long as the heart to Nature shall aspire 
 For that communion where no foot intrudes : 
 Long as her grandest, wildest forms inspire, 
 The Mountains — Thunder-storms— and Ocean-Hoods; 
 Long as the mind, in its concentered moods, 
 On life, and thought, and passion loves to dwell ; 
 Or, o'er its own mysterious being broods, 
 So long shall Harold's verse, as with a spell, 
 Knchain the heart — a thrilling and perturbing Oracle ! 
 
 XLIIT. 
 
 Venice, who ever turned from thee nor sighed ? 
 Nor felt, in all thy visible decline, 
 A warning Voice that touched his human pride ? 
 Farewell — thy mournful brow hath saddened mine ; 
 Yet an affectionate feeling I would twine. 
 One memory with thee ere I depart ; 
 Yea, hang one wreath on thy deserted shrine ! 
 Whose leaves shall still be cherished by one heart, 
 Till it becomes like thee, all lifeless as thou art.
 
 91 
 REMEMBER ME, 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 1. 
 
 Remember ine — those words so fond, so fleeting ! 
 How in their mournful music is expressed 
 All the mute pangs with which the heart is beating : 
 All that hath raised — warmed — wrung the human 
 
 breast ; 
 How in that sound is all forgot — forgiven ! 
 The chain is loosed, perchance, it may be riven. 
 And we — for ever parted — save in heaven ; 
 Then — by our earthly loves — Remember me ! 
 
 By that light form in Nymph-like motion bending : 
 By the dark heaven of those all-speaking eyes, 
 Where, on its throne cf light, the soul is blending 
 With the hues drawn from its immortal skies ; 
 By those rich locks thy high-arched forehead braiding, 
 By the fair lily o'er that cheek pervading. 
 By the rose planted on those lips unfading, 
 By that hcart-lhrilling voice — Remember me !
 
 92 REMEMBER ME. 
 
 3. 
 
 And by that past of memories elysiau ! 
 Moments of rapture, hours of achmg pain ; 
 All melted now in one departed Vision, 
 Whose faded hues can never bloom again ! 
 By thy own life and all it holds the dearest, 
 By all thy joys and thoughts, the fondest, nearest. 
 By that dim future which thou hop'st, yet fearest. 
 By thy own hajspiness — Remember me ! 
 
 4. 
 
 Not in that hour when worldly thraldoms vex thee. 
 When habit chills the manners and the heart ; 
 Not in the marble hall where fashion decks thee : 
 Where thou dost smile, and play'st so well thy part, 
 All bosoms, save thine own, thou art deceiving ; — 
 But when the lights are fled, the triflers leaving. 
 When all are gone, the pageant-scene bereaving 
 Of its false splendour, then — Remember me !
 
 REMEMBER ME. 9-3 
 
 5. 
 
 Time may roll on, and distance intervene us ; 
 My spirit feels them not, absorbed in thine, 
 Momitains may rise, and Oceans roll between us. 
 They hide not thoughts and feelings which are mine ! 
 The flower that throws its breath of fragrance o'er thee, 
 The song, the last sung when I stood before thee, 
 Entei'ing thy heart, shall all its vows restore thee. 
 And gently teach thee to — Remember me ! 
 
 6. 
 When through those citron-groves we loved thou 
 
 walkest, 
 'Mid vines that braided like thy tresses grew ; 
 AVhen on the shore with thy own heart thou talkcst, 
 By those deep waters of Italian blue ! 
 When on the west the orange-hues are dying, 
 When o'er thy cheek the Night's faint airs are sighing, 
 Think 'tis wy answering whisper fond replying 
 Thy own thoughts' echo, and — Remember me !
 
 94 REMEMBER ME. 
 
 7. 
 
 And when the Autumn-leaves fall round thee, spreading 
 Their last, rich hues on that enchanted ground ; 
 When Nature's self her very tears seems shedding 
 That even in Paradise must change be found ; 
 Think, that while fade her hues the frailest, sweetest ; 
 While thy flowers droop, the loveliest still the fleetest, 
 While, on each step, decay and change thou meetest, 
 Love lives unchanged, and then — Remember me ! 
 
 8. 
 Then, when the night her stany world imcloses. 
 Those isles of love where Love in vain would flee ; 
 Ere on the couch that fairy form reposes, 
 Breathes the last commune with thy God and thee ; 
 Oh, in that silent hour when thou art kneeling, 
 "When those dark eyes are raised to heaven appealing. 
 Then, let rny name upon thy memory stealing. 
 Rise to thy lips, and thus — Remember me !
 
 THE PASS OP FURLO. 95 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 A long farewell to Venice ! for I see 
 Another Image of departed Power, 
 Ravenna ! while I, passing, gaze on thee : 
 Thou who restored'st Rome's Empire for an hour ; 
 Shade of a Shadow ! yet is thine the dower. 
 That ^^dth a loftier glory thee arrayed ; — 
 Thou hold'st the dust of Dante ! 'neath that tower. 
 His bones, by Florence begged in vain, are laid : 
 His passionate, last appeal, to her as vainly made. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Behold the Pass of Furlo ! Earth up-heaved 
 
 Yon long black range of mountains, rent asunder : 
 
 While through their gorge Metaurus' waters cleaved, 
 
 Now flashing into hght, now bm-ied mider 
 
 Huge fragments hmled from high : its Voice of 
 
 thunder 
 Heard — while on sweeping its resistless way ! 
 Yet not alone claims Nature thy mute wonder : 
 Here was the scene of Rome's last wild essay. 
 Or to sink crushed at once, or rise to sovereign sway.
 
 96 THE CONSUL NEKO. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Who knows not Nero ? he, whose lyre was strung 
 To the red fires, and shrieks of burning Rome? 
 Wlien hath not fame the deeds of monsters svmg ? 
 ^\^lat Light shall now his glorious name relume, 
 Buried for ages in Oblivion's tomb ? 
 The Conqueror of Asdrubal ! whose arm 
 Here fell, like lightning, stamping Carthage' doom : 
 Who, wresting Victory fi*om her, broke the charm 
 Of him whose name filled Rome with ever-waked alarm. 
 
 XLVII. 
 Here — where the flower of Afiic youth were led, 
 Hemmed in, all powerless or to fight or fly, 
 Trampled on yon Stream's ridges where they bled. 
 Its waters, as they glided freshly by, 
 Mocking their raging thirst's last agony ! — 
 No record now remains — save yon grey hill. 
 Where Asdrubal retreated but to die. 
 The Soldier's last, stem duty to fulfil ; 
 Ages have rolled away — the cave — the crag are still !
 
 THE RUBICON. 97 
 
 XL VI 11. 
 
 Yet one eternal sound is ever heard 
 
 In that repose which lives eternally, 
 
 Save by the Tempest's wrath for moments stiiTed : — 
 
 Yon solitary Waterfall ! whose ft'ee 
 
 And sweeping waters make a melody, 
 
 Wilder than Harp to loftiest Ej)ic rhyme : 
 
 How speaks its sad, yet grand monotony ! 
 
 The movement of Existence : — the sublime 
 
 Voice, that doth tell, even here, the march of Life and 
 Time ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 Onward ye pass : there is a rivulet 
 Wells silently ahmg, whose silvery threads, 
 Disparting, scarce their emptied channel wet ; 
 But here they form a river, such as heads 
 The steed, slow wading through its pebbled beds : 
 Its name is a familiar sound with men. 
 By -word for him who, late or early, treads 
 Life's fortunate path — who grasps that moment, when 
 
 The good or ill are offered — ne'er to come again — 
 
 II
 
 98 Cesar's passage 
 
 L 
 
 Which, taken, leads to happiness or fame : 
 But leaves, for aye, in shallows, if withstood : 
 Lo, how yon red banks stamp its waters' name, 
 The Rubicon : — and here, the Rebel stood 
 Whose name is ever linked with that pale flood ; 
 Spoiled child of Rome and Fortune, he, whose will 
 Embodied law : the conqueror unsubdued : 
 The ever-changing Proteus, who could fill 
 All characters— his own, quick, wayward, restless still. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Swayed by each breath ; here CvESAr paused — even 
 
 he ; 
 His Roman Mother stood before her son ! 
 Awing him back to filial piety ; 
 'Twas bu t one brief and burning moment — one — 
 But what a world of Thought was fi-om it won ! 
 Past — present — future — crowded in that span; 
 All he had suffered, felt, proved, purposed, done ; 
 AU that can move and shake the central man 
 To the heart's inmost core, convulsing through him ran ;
 
 OF THE RUBICON. 99 
 
 LII. 
 
 Flashing from that unsettled eye, perturbed, 
 That looked on — but saw not the River's course : 
 Earth seemed herself as if she palpably curbed 
 His passage, while a deep Voice, like a curse. 
 Rose from its waves her mandate to enforce : 
 The fate of Empires on that moment hung, 
 Wliile ebbed in him the last sands of remorse I 
 Strength, faith, and confidence, behind him clung ; 
 Before — his foe's cold smile, pride conquered — and he 
 sprung 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Onward — as springs the Mind when it hath ta'en 
 Its desperate purpose, shaking off all fears, 
 The tossed-off dew-di'ops from the Lion's mane ; 
 The doubt that fevers, the remorse that sears, 
 Which, maddening, finds no sweet relief in tears ! 
 So to escape from pain — be disentwined 
 From Memories of execrated years. 
 Is of itself delight ; no fetters bind 
 Like that protracting doubt, the torture of the mind ! 
 
 II -2
 
 100 CHARACTER OF C/ESAU. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 And oh ! what loves or memories e'er slaked, 
 Country, or fame, or gods, the undying thirst 
 Of feverish Ambition once awaked ? 
 Yet thine was purer : 'twas but to be first : 
 Mankind were never by thy tyranny cursed: 
 Kome loved, and marvelled at thee : and the fear 
 Of thy dread eagles, which, by Victory nursed, 
 " Came, saw, and conquered" — vanished when more 
 near, 
 For thy unbroken faith taught foemen to revere. 
 
 LV. 
 
 But he who mounts himself above mankind, 
 
 Unsympathising Solitude doth seek ; 
 
 Where, from the atmosphere he left behind, 
 
 The bolt, already forged, but waits to break 
 
 On his, the loftiest head, its wrath to wreak : 
 
 Rome still was free: but thy quick spleen, or pride. 
 
 Those forms of usage slighted ; which, if weak, 
 
 By habit, time, and law are sanctified : 
 
 And he, the opposer sinks, who dares their strength 
 deride.
 
 CHARACTER OF CAESAR. 1 01 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Thou wert their sacrifice, the first and last : 
 Tlie throne reared by thee, a less worthy took, 
 Yet fitter — so thy end of life surpassed : 
 He, wiser, turned the sword into a crook : 
 But who on thy bald, laurelled brow could look, 
 Nor fear what heights thy fever would attain ? 
 Hate struck — the blow for Virtue's he mistook : 
 But thou didst leave, on thy own Altar slain, 
 A warning to earth's tyrants— given not in vain. 
 
 LVI I. 
 
 What is this Fame ? this phantom of our youtli, 
 This hope for ever sought ? this wild desire 
 Still unenjoyed ? age changes not the truth. 
 Changing our faith : doth not the Shade insj)ire 
 Past ages— ours — while its Promethean fire 
 Shall light futurity ? is it a dream 
 To which our waking visions so aspire ? — 
 Where are its pledges given to redeem 
 Life's sacrifices offered on its shrine supreme ?
 
 l()-2 FAME. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Look round the Temple of the World ! no form, 
 No deeds which human Nature elevate, 
 Refine and humanise, it did not warm : 
 Born from its Source, whose power doth still create ; 
 What were the past if, circumscribed by Fate, 
 This ray had slumbered ? chaos come again ; 
 A grave for dust with dust to congregate ; 
 No I — it was given to prove the origin 
 Of the immortal soul to more degenerate Men. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 And can the love of praise, the passing breath 
 Of man, which is as nothing in its eye, ^ 
 Suffice that Soul whose yearnings outstrip death ? 
 Which fails the Infinite to satisfy ? 
 Away ! — the fame for which it heaves the sigh, 
 For which it mounts — toils — struggles — is its own ; 
 Seated — but not above humanity, 
 It watches from that solitai'y throne ; 
 And hears the distant shouts — but moves, and acts 
 olo7ie.
 
 FAME. 103 
 
 LX. 
 
 Who, with earth's croAvns and kingdoms at his feet, 
 Was ever satisfied ? who ever dealt 
 Reward that could Ambition's visions meet, 
 Though a world's flatterers at his footstool knelt ? 
 And why ? — the aim, the point on which he dwelt, 
 Is won — earth gives her all — in nothingness ! 
 Then, first, is his immortal nature /<?^^; 
 He strove for grandeur, and found worthlessness ; 
 The greatness was the race, the prize could not be less. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 So Csesar — Nature stamped thee one of those 
 Whose fiery spirits must ascend or die. 
 Conquering or revelling— aught save life's repose ; 
 Thy very crimes attest the dignity 
 Of an immortal nature ; and thy sigh 
 To be the first — to struggle onward still — 
 Its grand but misdirected energy ! 
 For, when thy least wish Fortune did fulfil, 
 What respite gave it thee, thou Man of restless will ?
 
 104 RIMINI. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 And thou, Ariminum ! the first to hail, 
 The immortal rebel on his march — how sprang 
 Thy Citizens fi-om morning slumbers pale. 
 As the shrill trumpets through thy Forum rang ! 
 The wild shouts of the soldiery— the clang 
 Of clashing arms— and, raised above the tide, 
 Caesar himself, forgot the passing pang : 
 His brow inflamed with mingled wrath and pride ; 
 Standing like War let loose, witli Ate by his side ! 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 The passionate harangue — the tears pomed forth, 
 Wrung from the fierce excitement of the hour ! 
 The answering thunder of the soldier's wrath, 
 Whose rage is reason, and whose law is power ! 
 The consciousness of dangers, such as lower 
 O'er him who dares against his countiy rear 
 The Rebel's standard — cursed alike his dower, 
 Failure, or triumph ; rage — despair — and fear — 
 All Man's most demon passions warred in chaos here I
 
 C^SAR AT RIMINI. 105 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 And now, a Northern Wanderer from that Isle, 
 Which the soft Roman shivered but to name, 
 Stands here — while ai'dent thoughts of him beguile 
 Of whom all now is dream-like save his fame ! 
 Oh ! something more than breath is that whose flame 
 In the soul kindles through a thousand years, 
 The electric spark as if from heaven it came : 
 'Tis this immortal hope the spirit cheers 
 To climb Fame's toilsome path, and crush unworthy 
 feai's. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Yes, I have leaned on that grey stone which tells 
 His record to his fellow- soldiers sworn : 
 Dumb Witness ! speaking, more than Oracles, 
 That sternest truth which must not be outworn : 
 Our moment of existence, so o'erbome, 
 And lost in the eternity of time ; 
 What am I, leaning here, who idly mourn. 
 And build the unpremeditated rhyme ? — 
 A straw, to pass away, forgot my name, age, clime.
 
 106 ANTICIPATION. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Yet, wandering, Rimini ! by thy wild shore, 
 In caves where foot of man hath rarely trod, 
 Lulled by the music of the Ocean's roar, 
 And by my very stranger-mind o'eraw ed ; 
 Then, when inspired, as by the Delphic God, 
 The Spirit of Poesy, entering my soul. 
 Bore my Thought, like the infinite Air, abroad, 
 I felt those inspkations of the soul 
 
 Might live, sm'viving death, and change, and time's con- 
 trol. 
 
 LXVII. 
 And in that high faith I will live and die : 
 For it hath been to me a blessed dream ! 
 Recalling me from fitful apathy, 
 And hopelessness, when life a blank did seem, 
 A desert waste ; — with nothing to redeem 
 The wasted, fi'uitless, past, misguided hours ; 
 If false, its own reward was bliss supreme ! 
 The peace, the raptures of uncounted hours : 
 
 Pure loves and joys, which stiewed life's flinty path with 
 flowers !
 
 107 
 
 To 
 
 1. 
 
 It is the midnight hour, and sunk in sleep 
 Are all around me — yet I wake — to thee 
 My heart still breathes its vow so fond, so deep. 
 Love's first — last hurning word — Remember me ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Take — cherish- love these tlowers ! as tenderly 
 As thou dost hold my memory in thy breast : 
 They will be withered ere they meet thine eye, 
 Yet to thy bosom let their leaves be pressed. 
 
 3. 
 
 I gathered them when far away— and thou 
 Will look on them when I am absent still : 
 Such is the Circumstance to which we bow ; 
 Life's various lot, which mocks our human will. 
 
 4. 
 Yet, if weak wishes could avail — nor breathe 
 Themselves away in sighs — I would impart
 
 108 APPROACH TO THRASIMENE. 
 
 The powers of magic to this faded wreath ; 
 A talisman to act upon thy heart : 
 
 5. 
 
 Oh ! I would change them to thy own loved flowers ; 
 And, when thou look'st on them, thy bosom fraught 
 With tenderest memories of parted hours, 
 Then should Ihey say like me — " Forget me not !" 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Behold a Scene of mountain loneliness ! 
 To which the howling Winds lend fitting tongue ; 
 But an exulting sense, a consciousness 
 Of freedom thrills me as I walk along. 
 Until my gratitude pours forth in song. 
 Even for the boon of life ; oh ! what are worth 
 The best joys of the World-corrupted throng, 
 To his, who wrapped in Clouds above the Earth, 
 Pure as the fountain Waters which there draw their 
 birth.
 
 TEMPESTUOUS SKY. 109 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Pours his free spirit to the Elements, 
 
 As free and unconstrained ? the leaves are swivled 
 
 Past, by the Winds ; in red and broken rents, 
 
 The banks are split where torrents have been hurled 
 
 From yon cragged heights round which the clouds 
 
 are curled ; 
 Crushed olives sunk, or writhing on the ground, 
 Spread their pale boughs like tattered banners furled ; 
 A savage Scene ! — but in this rushing sound 
 Of elemental strife my spirit finds rebound. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 For then do we ally ourselves with power 
 
 Congenial, with the mightier Energies 
 
 Of Nature, calling us in that fierce hour 
 
 To prove our spirit's answering sympathies : 
 
 Who ever stood beneath the stormy skies, 
 
 Or heard the wild Winds' voices poured abroad, 
 
 Or watched the Ocean when its foam-flake flies 
 
 To Heaven — nor gazing, freer, prouder trod, 
 Nor looked into his soul, and felt it came from God ?
 
 110 THRASIMENE. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 This flying moment — this brief point of time 
 
 Let me arrest, and fix, ere it be past, 
 
 All which it doth inspire of the sublime ; 
 
 How through yon scathed trunks sweeps the rushing 
 
 blast ! 
 While Autumn leaves in Spring are round mc cast, 
 Still clinging, like grey age, to life ; but, lo, 
 Yon hill-bound lake expands its azure vast ! 
 I stand by its white waves that foam below, 
 Typing the Ocean's wrath when heaves its mane of snow. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 And this was Thrasimene ! — how the name 
 Sends back the sudden life-blood to the heart ! 
 What visions of old battles and of fame. 
 Before the mind's eye into being start; 
 Deeds which their inspirations still impart ; 
 Here fell the Roman's Eagle's wings outspread, 
 Struck down as if from Jove's ethereal dart ; 
 Here Valom- sunk, his blood, like water shed, 
 Dying upon his foes — the Roman never fled !
 
 BATTLE OF THRASIMENE. Ill 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 All fight was vain ; the darkening mists rolled down, 
 Blinding them, trampled on the marshy strand ; 
 While their foes rushed from yon hill's sun-lit crown. 
 Front — flank — and rear — on that devoted band ; 
 Vain was their rally — vainer still their stand ; 
 Yet fi'antic Courage hewed, at last, its way 
 To where yon ridge's triple heights expand. 
 Conquered and conqueror's dust have passed away, 
 
 Still that once blood-dyed stream records the dreadful 
 day. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 Away with themes hke these ! — a softer scene, 
 And gentler heights around me are impending ; 
 Above me swells a bank of living green : 
 Such as the heart dwells on, to Nature lending 
 Its own afl^ections with her beauties blending ; 
 What were her hues unanswered by the heart } 
 The violet's spiritual breath ascending 
 With the delicious airs, would here impai't 
 
 Joy even to the joyless, and extract the dart
 
 112 TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUS. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 From SoiTow's hopeless breast : and, as in Vision, 
 Scenes of our j'outh are pictured on our sleep, 
 So in that Stream, whose quiet is elysian, 
 The olives their reflected shadows keep ; 
 On the rich bank the wild flowers seem to steep 
 Themselves in their own fragrance ! and to woo 
 Memory our youth's closed portals to o'erleap. 
 When life was fresh as here, as bright, and new, 
 When fancy hued the world, and love believed her true ! 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 But lo, how like a silent exhalation, 
 O'er yon gieen bank, Clitumnus rears his shrine ! 
 Is that all delicate Temple the creation 
 Of human hands ? As clasps the elm the vine, 
 So sculptured leaves round those fair columns t\^ine ; 
 The Roman /e/^ the genius of the place. 
 And offered thus his gratitude ; divine 
 Was their dark faith ; yea, an eternal giace 
 Lingers around it, for they left on eai'th no trace,
 
 CLITUMNUS. ]l:j 
 
 LXXVIT. 
 
 Where they embodied not in living forms 
 The Beautiful and Good we see aroimd, 
 How beautifully true ! man's, nature's storms, 
 Have hurled those graceful fabrics to the ground ; 
 A holier faith their shrines and spires have crowned, 
 Yet life shows nothing worthier than to haste, 
 And pour the worship of our hearts profound 
 Above their spoils ; and, o'er the desolate waste, 
 To feel the faith of Nature scarce in us effaced. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Again the Mountains opening gates unfold : 
 Lo — where the shadows darkening o'er her head, 
 Chaos of crags beneath her footstool rolled, 
 Sits Desolation ! and beneath ye spread. 
 The Beautiful is sleeping in her bed ; 
 While, like a paradise, expands behind, 
 The infinite of landscape ; hill and mead. 
 Woods, towers, and streams which through the dis- 
 tance wind. 
 Till lost 'midst azure hills which seem in heaven en- 
 shrined. I
 
 114 THE FALLS OF TERNI. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 The breasting road hewn round the giant hill, 
 With nodding cliff, and precipice o'erhung ; 
 The imminent brink which, gazing o'er, doth thrill : 
 The heart — the pines against the ledges clmig : 
 The muleteer, who, midway down, seems swung 
 On air ! hark — rising on the torrent's roar, 
 His broken song, like witch-notes upward flung ! 
 Oh ! how that sound wakes on a foreign shore. 
 
 Our home, our Father-land whose memories slept be- 
 fore ! 
 
 LXXX. 
 A gorge cleft through the mountain's mighty heart : 
 Is't her volcanic breathings that we hear ? 
 Or pent up mnds, or eailh's spasmodic start ? 
 No ! 'tis the Terni's waters falls are near ! 
 On — on — for in the distance now appear 
 Clouds rising thick as from the abyss of hell ; 
 Wliile louder bursts upon the startled ear 
 The sounds which their eternal conflict tell, 
 
 Loud as o'er distant storms the Thunder's sinking knell.
 
 THE FALLS OF TEKNl. 115 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 JjO ! — wildly hurrying — wreathed in mist and foam, 
 Flashing like sheeted lightning on the sight, 
 Velino rushes from his Mountain home, 
 All beautiful but terrible in might ! 
 One desperate bound from yonder cloud-capped height, 
 And then he falls in thunder from that throne 
 Whence shot he like an Angel of the Light ! 
 High o'er the din and wreck his crown is shown 
 Of rain-bow glories — halo of his greatness flown, 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Still hovering o'er him in his ruin ! there, 
 Writhing in that engulphing chasm he lies, 
 Yet in the very madness of despair. 
 Robed in the hues and light of his lost skies ! 
 Behold in eddying wreaths how o'er him rise 
 The sweat — the smoke — the steam of his wild breath 
 Wrung from the efforts of his agonies : 
 How lend they, darkening 'gainst the mountain 
 heath, 
 A hoiTor to the scene — this strife of life and death ! 
 
 I >
 
 116 THE FALLS OF TERNl. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 Ah ! yet, even on yon very brink of strife, 
 How Beauty in her heavenliest sleep is lying : 
 Talk'st thou of death ? behold the Source of Life ! 
 See, how the flowers their sweetest breath are sighing, 
 Mosses, and leaves, and trees to them replying, 
 Nourished by this eternal cloud, which makes 
 Oasis in the desert ! nought is dying, 
 Or sad in nature : 'tis our spirit takes 
 Its gloom or light from scenes whose feeling it awakes. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Voice of the Desert ! echo of the truth 
 Which every leaf doth answer — fare thee well ! 
 Lo, how like Time in his immortal youth. 
 Thou sweep'st resistless down the craggy dell, 
 Conquering or crushing every obstacle ; 
 Until, like settling age, with brow o'ercast. 
 Thou giidest toward the Deep ; stern Oracle ! 
 Well dost thou show our course of manhood past : 
 Om- race began like thine — be thine our rest at last ! 
 
 END OF CANTO II,
 
 CANTO III.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Campagna. Reflections on the present and the past, Veii— dis- 
 tant view of Rome : thoughts on her enduring influences. Mutability ; 
 on the decline and fall of Empires, and their causes: Trajan. The 
 Present : Portico of St. Peter's, and Church ; impressions from within 
 —the Dome. Sistine Chapel : Creation of Adam and Eve : The Pro- 
 phets : Judith and Holofemes ; The Miserere ; Pantheon : the Capitol ; 
 Roman triumphs. She Wolf : Junius Brutus ; Pompey — his character. 
 Morning on the Palatine : Palace of the Caesars : Apostrophe to the Dead 
 — reflections on the past : the natural immortality of man. The Forimi. 
 Arch of Titus — Changes of religion : Forum by Moonlight — Conclusion.
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 I. 
 
 Lo where the vast Campagna's wilderness 
 Spreads boundless as the space, and, like the Sea, 
 Its low and surging mounds the mind impress 
 With the drear feeling of Infinity ; 
 Yon far-off Apennines like white clouds lie 
 Skirting the horizon with their snow-peaks bare : 
 The breeze came sighing like a Spirit by ; 
 As if companionless it wandered there. 
 Where eaith and human life seemed lifeless as the air.
 
 120 THE CAMPAUXA. 
 
 II. 
 
 A Solitude that weighs upon thy breast ! 
 Kecoiling from the overpowering sense 
 Of loneliness whose quiet is not rest; 
 When the disarmed mind feels without defence : 
 The Sun in the bright azure shone intense, 
 But deeper thoughts absti'act thee from the scene : 
 Thou feel'st the wild and Desert waste immense. 
 Not thus by Nature made ; that this rank green 
 Was once with Cities crowned, where busy life had 
 been. 
 
 III. 
 
 Stamp what thou look'st on in thine inmost soul ! 
 Behold where Borne on her arena ibund 
 No foe, that sinking, owned not her control ; 
 Who rose, Anticus-like, from each rebound, 
 Until Earth's diadem her temples crowned ! 
 She, to whom vanquished kings turned, as to home ; 
 She whose gigantic Shadow stretched around 
 The world ; whose eagles traversed Ocean's foam ; 
 
 Founder, and grave of empires — she — the Almighty 
 Rome !
 
 THE CAMPAGNA. 121 
 
 IV. 
 
 Lo — here and there, a solitary Tower 
 Rises, the record of departed days, 
 The skeletons of disembodied power ; 
 And the wild goat and buffalo now graze 
 Where the up-pointing grassy mound o'erlays 
 The dust of heroes in their earthly rest ; 
 Here the Titanic Aqueduct displays 
 Its lengthened arches spanning o'er the waste : 
 
 Here reeks the sulphurous Stream as onward still ye 
 haste 
 
 V. 
 To the Eternal City, that uprears 
 Its spires within the distance, and huge dome ; 
 That, like a Nation's sepulchre appears, 
 O'ershadowing a Nation's mighty tomb ; 
 Behold — no life dispels the desert's gloom ; 
 Hark ! ye hear not the traveller's distant tread : 
 Grey tombs their mouldering fragments disenhume. 
 And point the moral of their greatness tied ; — 
 
 Fit prelude as ye near tlie City of the Dead !
 
 122 THE CAMPAGNA. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Awake — awake ! thou stancVst on sacred ground ; 
 Is earth not sacred, formed of human bones ? 
 Which blood hath deluged, nor Avenger found, 
 Save in that cold Oblivion which atones. 
 Till the Archangel summons prostrate thrones ! 
 Here — pageants passed, until they swelled the sum 
 Of thrice a hmidred triumphs ; here, the groans 
 Of captives filled the air, drowned in the hum 
 Of millions, vanquished — victors — now, for ever dumb ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Nature ! thy secrets of the Past avow : — 
 Death ! — raise thy yawning portal-gates to tell 
 What is their doom, and where the actors now? 
 Fed they the worm alike, the crushed who fell, 
 And those who triumphed ? those vvho, ill or w^ell, 
 Played on the stage, accursed or caressed ? 
 Ye mightier Dead ! who were the Oracle 
 Of nations, are ye mingled with the rest? 
 The bard, barbarian, sage, together rudely pressed?
 
 THE CAMPAGNA. 123 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Men as unlike in mind as hell to heaven, 
 Blent in one mass to turn to dust again ? 
 No ! — the sublimer spirits to ye given, 
 Essayed not here your mortal race in vain : 
 The fame that bade ye rise above all pain, 
 No luring phantom was, that mocked the embrace, 
 But the gi-eat Spirit of Truth ; which, when the chain 
 That bound to earth was loosened, did efface 
 All earthlier stains ensphered in your immortal place ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Thou all-inscrutable Destiny ! that weighest 
 The dust of nations, thou art not a shade ; 
 For on this spot thy wrath thou still essayest, 
 Yea, Desolation here thy throne hath made : 
 More awful thus with solitude arrayed, 
 Than visibly apparent — thou hast passed ; 
 Lo, how thy Shadow on the ground hath laid ! 
 A blighting spell, a withering curse hath cast 
 The Lightning of thy Presence ; while such power tlioii 
 hast.
 
 124 DISTANT VIEW OF ROME. 
 
 X. 
 
 That Time, nor Death nor Ate here can work 
 A further change ; thou, nought hast left undone ; 
 Beneath yon rank grass Pestilence doth lurk ; 
 Awaiting but the influence of the Sun, 
 To poison him, the wretch who hath begim 
 To plough the earth in furrows faintly traced ; 
 Till, like the seaman who the rock hath won. 
 He sinks exhausted on the sickly waste. 
 
 Eyeing the promised land whose fruits he ne'er shall 
 taste. 
 
 XI. 
 And thou dost rise o'er all this, glorious Rome ! 
 Dream of our youth, whose hope will not depart, 
 Until we die, or see thy sacred home ! 
 Mecca of pilgrimage to every heart 
 Whose feeling is religion ! thou, that art 
 The Nurse of faith, arts, arms ; to whom were given 
 The keys of Heaven, and Hell's avenging dart ; 
 Kings at thy feet have knelt to be forgiven ; 
 
 Sole Mediator thou 'twixt sinful man and Heaven.
 
 SITE OF VEIL 1-25 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thy cause is ours — 'tis freedom ; and we feel 
 For thee, as for oiu'selves, to heal those ills 
 Which time and error can no more conceal ; 
 Thy kingly majesty of language thrills 
 Oiu- hearts from childhood, until it instils 
 In us a worship for thy fallen star ! 
 Oiu spirit thus a duty but fulfils. 
 Paying thee reverent homage, near and far : 
 Thou, who, e'er manhood's growth, hath made us what 
 we are. 
 
 XIII. 
 I leaned against a tower, a ruined wall, 
 That wall was Troy-like Veii ! the bird 
 Sprang from its moss, the lizard rustled, all 
 Were happy, but Time's warning voice I heard : 
 I thought of when the twin-boi'n cities stirred 
 In the same womb, contending for first birth : 
 
 But Fate had stamped the iiTcvocable word : 
 The one to sink forgotten into earth; 
 The other, reared to heaven, to prove fame's, fortune's 
 worth.
 
 1-2C DISTANT VIEW OF KOME. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But where is Rome — that Matron on the ground, 
 O'er her stern brow the dust of ages shed ? 
 Where is earth's Cjbele with turrets cro\\aied ? 
 Still raising haughtily her fallen head, 
 The majesty of ruin round her spread? 
 Where sits that Queen who time and fate defied, 
 Still pointing, on the ground, her glories fled ? 
 Lo, yon far Dome ! she hath but changed her pride. 
 Aspiring now to heaven for that by earth denied. 
 
 XV. 
 
 And dim beside it rises Hadrian's tomb, 
 And the far Sabme hills ; — 'tis Rome ! awake : 
 My spirit let her deathless page illume. 
 Now, while the lights of ages o'er me break ! 
 Pause — on this solemn spot could'st thou partake 
 Feeling of triumph ? vain were such false heat ; 
 Rather the ashes from beneath thee rake : 
 The dust of ages lives beneath thy feet ! 
 The Past is watching thee — 'tis here she holds her scat,
 
 VIEW OF ROME. J 27 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And, like a fallen Angel, beautiful 
 
 Amidst the desolation left alone, 
 
 She mourns the fate which virtue could o'er-rule ; 
 
 An Empu'e, yea, a world in ruin thrown ! 
 
 And in the gazer's soul she pours her own. 
 
 Until, above the vast sepulchral urn. 
 
 He stands like her, almost transfixed in stone : 
 
 While his full gushing feelings vainly yearn 
 
 For life that once throbbed here — which never can re- 
 tm*n ! 
 
 XVII. 
 What arts, spoils, glories, buried lie beneath ! 
 What armies, from the ends of earth, in joy, 
 Fear, hope, or triumph, marched along this heath, 
 To aid, propitiate, gladden, or destroy ! 
 What fires have blazed from that oft-taken Troy ! 
 What horrors raged within ! what here remains ? — 
 A footstep -print, such as the shepherd boy 
 Leaves on the sand 'mid unfrequented plains ; 
 
 Sole trace of life where now unbroken silence reigns.
 
 128 RUINS. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Behold the skeleton — the leliques round 
 Of life and mind which grasped the orbed world ! 
 Where Desolation, sitting on the ground, 
 Her scornful lips in very mockery curled, 
 In rain hath fantastically hurled : 
 Lo — where the living City towers confessed : 
 The cross and keys upon her flag unfurled ; 
 Her power a mockery, her name a jest ; 
 By turns, each tyrant's prey, insulted or caressed. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ""Alas, the fall of empires ! the dark Fate 
 Inscrutable, that calls them into birth, 
 Which nurtures them " in high and palmy state," 
 Its Alpine plants up-reared from vigorous earth. 
 Then, as if having proved them nothing worth, 
 And sown in them the seeds of their decay, 
 That leaves them to their ruins; the crushed hearth. 
 The fallen shrine, to raise, as if in play, 
 Works which the morrow proves frail as those reared 
 to-day.
 
 THE ACCUSATION. 129 
 
 XX. 
 
 Spirits of forty Ages — answer me ! 
 Ye hover round me now, impalpable, 
 'But/elt, as is the o'ershadowing Cloud : to Ye 
 I do appeal as to an Oracle ; — 
 Answer my Invocation : dare to tell 
 IVJio wrought this ruin ? who aroused at last, 
 Avenging Nemesis with fury fell, 
 Your blood-cemented pile of power to cast 
 To dust — to teach once more the Present by the Past ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Who saw, and felt, but spumed the lesson taught 
 By fall of countless empires ? for an hour 
 Of petty rule, who heaped the shrine o'erfraught 
 With human victims to the Moloch Power ? 
 Who made corruption, slavery, vice, the dower 
 Of the gorged herd, still gorging, unsufficed ? 
 Till their own Sybarites they taught to cower, 
 While they, their bauble-crown in auction prized ; 
 Thrown to the wealthier wretch whom even the?/ de- 
 spised ! 
 
 K
 
 130 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 'Twas Ye ! your love of power insatiate, fed 
 Brute ignorance, till, rising, she o'erthrew 
 The Idol which had prostrated her head : 
 And when War loosed his scourge on that weak crew, 
 When, more than man, fire, plague, and famine slew, 
 Who lowered their supple natures till they were 
 So, worm-like, crushed, that their prostration grew 
 A natiu'al homage ; the slave's soulless air, 
 The flattery wrung from fear — the infamous despair ! 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Behold yonr work — accuse nor fate nor God : 
 His sunlike justice shines alike o'er all ! 
 Nations before ye the same path had trod : 
 But ye had godlike spirits to recal 
 How single virtue stays an empire's fall ; 
 Bear witness one, immortal Trajan ! thou. 
 Thou, who didst rear again the old Senate-hall ; 
 And all its pristine dignity avow ; 
 Thou, whose name awed the Dacian in his wilds of 
 snow !
 
 TRAJAN. 131 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Oh ! had Rome followed in thy steps, nor Time 
 Nor War had overthrown her : she had stood 
 As stands thy column, lonely and sublime, 
 Amidst her ruins ! the Barbarian flood 
 Had rolled before her legions unsubdued ; 
 Caesars had still maintained her warlike name, 
 And Cato's virtues had inspired the good : 
 The Forum still had glowed with Tally's flame : 
 The holy shrine revered of past, and present fame. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But Luxury crushed Law : and natural right 
 Became a jest, where all was bought and sold : _ 
 Where Anarchy and misrule reached their height. 
 Nearer, unchecked, the hosts barbarian rolled, 
 Till Rome's majestic walls their march controlled • 
 Where were her legions ev'n the brave might shun ? 
 Pent in their gates like sheep within the fold. 
 Their first faint fight was ended when begun : 
 And the awed Savage, entering, dared not deem her won ! 
 
 K 2
 
 J 'S2 ANTICIPATION. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And from that day, Hun, Goth, and Frank, here sunk 
 The ploughshares of their ruin ; nought recals, 
 Save scattered bones, to mark the mighty trimk ; 
 The Alp checked not — the avalanche's falls 
 Crushed not : nor Tibur staid, nor triple walls ; 
 Rolled in the dust, degraded Italy ! 
 Thou prov'st what men are whom the chain enthrals ; 
 Nations have profited, at last, by thee, 
 Thou hast not called in vain — for soon shall Liberty 
 
 XXVII. 
 Rear o'er Earth metropolitan her shrine ; 
 Then will thy wrongs be unforgot : each State, 
 After its own rise, fondly thinks of thine ; 
 As if it would entwine with thine its fate, 
 For the heart, dwelling on thee, feels elate, 
 And prophesies thy day of triumph, sure 
 As that the Archangel's last trump shall create ; 
 Then, raised from dust, no more shalt thou endure. 
 But stand, like Virtue tried, more high, refined, and pure.
 
 ENTRANCE INTO ROME. 133 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Not as thou art now, vainly grasping keys 
 Of heaven and paradise — ambitious still ! 
 Pandering to passion with indulgent fees, 
 To keep blind slaves subservient to thy will ; 
 Look at thy Desert round thee ! who will till, 
 Cain-like, the earth, which yields him nought but tears ? 
 Who sows what never harvest may fulfil? 
 Tribute, and tax, Want's scanty produce shears. 
 Which Superstition grasps, denouncing deadliest fears. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Yet, ere we enter, gratitude be given 
 To her who made the Nations what they ai'e: 
 She who showed Truth descending from her heaven ! 
 She, who when fallen was her ascendant Star, 
 Sent out her eagles, not as once, wdth war. 
 But with the Olive-branch to bid war cease ; 
 Religion sate in her triumphal car : 
 Before it, Charity — behind it, Peace : 
 The earth beneath its track, one harvest of increase.
 
 134 PORTICO OF ST. PETKR'S. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Oh, be all honour hers ! the mother she, 
 Of saints and heroes ; who, first, earth o'er-ran 
 To conquer, then, be saviour of the free : 
 She found the savage, but she left the man 
 Refined, and softened ; and when her brief span 
 Was past, and the barbarians on her hurled, 
 Crushed to the dust her greatness then began : 
 The Cross of Life, her banner she unfurled ; 
 And raised the hopeless soul, and humanised the world ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Behold the airy Portico expanding 
 Its fourfold columns, circling in a ring 
 Round the enormous Area, and standing 
 Like ordered Titans ranged before their King; 
 So rears Earth's mightiest shrine of worshipping, 
 Her giant front in the profound of heaven ! 
 The Apostle's tomb, for whose great suffering 
 The keys of Hell and Paradise were given ; 
 Enter — lar, far away be earthly memories driven.
 
 ST. Peter's church. 135 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Oh, who hath language when the soul flows o'er, 
 Absorbed in works the singly gi'eat have done ? 
 What marvel, then, the spirit sinks before 
 The minds of ages magnified to one ! 
 Colossal as the world ; and, like the sun, 
 Inspiring him who looks on it, till he 
 Feels his own immortality begun ; 
 Himself a portion of the unity 
 Of Soul, embodying here its ow^n infinity ! 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Even thus the sense is overpowered and reels 
 Before the opening grandeur which appears ; 
 Some gaze m w^onder as each step reveals 
 New marvels — others find relief in tears ; 
 All sink in silence — each nor feels, nor hears. 
 Abstracted in the Spirit of the spot ! 
 The mind, dilated here, itself reveres, 
 And feels its dignity and loftier lot ; 
 Which reconciles to death — to pass — to be forgot :
 
 136 ST. PETERS CHURCH. 
 
 XXXTV. 
 
 For what is single life amidst this pile 
 Wliich must endure for ever ! nothing — ^less 
 Than yon Sun's ray which lights on it awhile, 
 Dying in its own shadow : why depress 
 Om-selves with petty griefs, if we confess, 
 While standing here, the vanity of all ? 
 Oh ! rather let us from each sand compress, 
 Some joy, some hope, some feeling, ere they fall, 
 Which, or in life or death, we may with joy recal. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Away the narrow pedantries of art, 
 Pry not in parts — embrace the mighty Whole ! 
 All vast, gigantic to each lowest part : 
 Yet all one harmony ! concentered Soul 
 Has here poured forth itself without control, 
 To form an Altar worthy of the God ; 
 To mock the flight of ages as they roll ! 
 Oh, if in temples reared from earthly sod 
 Immortal forms have entered — here^ their steps have 
 trod.
 
 THE HIGH ALTAR. 137 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 For a triumphant spirit seems pervading ; 
 
 A joyousness floats round it like the wind : 
 
 All air, all light, and decked in hues unfading ; 
 
 The work found worthy of the end designed. 
 
 As if it were the embodying forth of Mind, 
 
 Prophetic of its future hope and trust, 
 
 Of that bright throne which is in heaven enshrined ; 
 
 "Where kneel the souls made perfect of the Just ; 
 
 Where thou slialt soar when sinks this haughty Dome 
 to dust ! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 The Sun shone down the enormous Area, seeming 
 The hallowing smile of God upon his own 
 All-glorious Altar in the distance gleaming ! 
 While, in long order, giant arches thrown 
 From Alp-like columns, span, as with a zone, 
 O'er naves, revealing on each side, new shrines, 
 Domes, altars, martyrs, saints, in breathing stone : 
 Rainbow hued marbles, where mosaic shines. 
 
 And tombs where prostrate Kings made faith's most 
 contrite signs.
 
 138 THE DOME. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 There — while thou lean'st on that bronze Altar's base. 
 Thy worship shall be thy humility ! 
 Feeling as nothing in the absorbing space, 
 'Midst the vast grandeur that deceives the eye. 
 Which feebly grows to its immensity. 
 Who talks 'mid Nature's mountain Solitudes, 
 Or when he gazes on the starry Sky ? — 
 So here — thy mind absorbed, in silence broods 
 O'er forms embodied forth from its least earthly moods. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Look up — behold the pride, the boast of Rome ! 
 Orbed as the world, and floating, as on air, 
 In dazzling light expands the mighty Dome : 
 MiiTor of Heaven, — but Heaven when she doth wear 
 All galaxied with Stars her flashing hair ! 
 ►Saints, cherubs, prophets, hierarchs are shown 
 Into beatitude ascending there, 
 Where, centering to a point, enshrined alone, 
 The Ineii'able revealed sits on his crowning throne !
 
 SUPERSTITION. 139 
 
 Oh ! how the truth the exulting bosom swells: — 
 How Mind can make the mind immortal here ! 
 Yet, gaze beneath : — what baser spirit dwells 
 In these fanatic slaves, who, kneeling near, 
 Cringe to the dust in superstitious fear : 
 Still, worshippers of wood and stone they kneel, 
 As if the bronze could look, the marble, hear: 
 As if a kiss could wounded conscience heal ; 
 Or wash away the past, or faith or hope reveal. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Idolaters and Slaves ! would ye impart 
 Peace to yourselves, the peace which cannot fade ? 
 That feeling can spring only from the heart ! 
 The oracle which warns ye, unobeyed. 
 Of that immortal temple which God made. 
 Not built by human hands ; cleanse tJuit, nor vain, 
 As now, shall your dull orisons be paid ; 
 Remorse, not penance, shall remove the .stain 
 Of sins that, still indulged, corroding there remain. 
 
 K (>
 
 140 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 The crowds within the Sistine Halls are still r 
 Hark — how the full choir swells sublimely there ! 
 The Saviour sacrificed to human will : 
 The Prophet's lamentations, and despair ; 
 The sweat of blood wrung forth from intense prayer, 
 The immortal with the mortal now at strife, 
 When Angels came from heav'n the cross to bear ; 
 The penance, death, the prize, immortal life; — 
 
 Such are the solemn themes with which those strains 
 are rife ! 
 
 XLHL 
 Behold — the Lights extinguished one by one ; 
 As, in that hour, the Apostles fell from Him, 
 Their Guide — when all was to be lost or won : 
 Look up while peals that awful requiem ! 
 See how yon pictured Prophets in the dim 
 Obscure, frown downwards ; the last Judgment-Day 
 Gleams, life-like, on the walls : ye hear the hymn 
 Of the saved souls, and the voiced trumpet say, — 
 
 " Awake — lo, Earth and Heaven doth, scroll-like, pass 
 away !"
 
 CREATION OF ADAM AND EVE. 141 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Lo — pictured there, the Maker and the world 
 Rolled mto space before hhn like a ball, 
 And Darkness back to furthest Chaos hurled ; 
 There — man arises from the prisoning thrall 
 Of the red earth ; how doth his front recal, 
 And open face full looking on his God, 
 His god-like innocence ! lo — source of all 
 Love, beauty, grace, how, bounding from the sod. 
 The elastic form of Eve, by reverence o'eravved, 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Bends her fair head, and from her God withdraws 
 Her downcast eyes in meek submissive fear; 
 She feels her thrilling life, nor asks the cause, 
 Enough to know that whom she loves is near ! 
 Behold — how round the sculptured roof appear 
 The giant Prophets wrapt in thought profound, 
 Or holiest communings : ye almost hear 
 His revelations, who with glory crowned. 
 Bent o'er the sybil-scrolls his Saviour- King hath found.
 
 142 JTTDITH AND HOLOFERNES, 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Tiim, when apart yon darkly curtained Tent 
 Half-opened, draws, within the searching eye ; 
 A form lies on the couch whose life is spent, 
 Life from its tenement wrenched suddenly : 
 Behold his limbs that reek in their red dye, 
 Bear witness to the murder ; she hath passed 
 Rapidly from within — and yet the eye 
 Of that dark Murderess is backward cast— 
 A wild and hurried glance !— as, it might be, the last 
 
 XLVIL 
 
 Convulsive movement of the wretch had sped. 
 That curled her lips with scorn, for she had given 
 To the pale slave his decollated head ; 
 And shall such deeds be done and pass unshriven ? 
 Shall blood sink unavenged before high heaven ? 
 O Woman ! thou so gentle, so subhme 
 In thy devotedness —when thou art driven 
 By thy absorbing passions into crime. 
 What Law can check thy deeds, what tears absolve or 
 time ?
 
 THE MISERERE. 143 
 
 XLVITL 
 
 The choirs have ceased : in that last dying fall, 
 The Christ expired — the agony is past, 
 And Darkness, curtain-like, hath folded all : 
 Yet one faint light still glimmers to the last, 
 A star amidst the gloom, a meteor cast, 
 Making the hovering Shadows visible ! 
 How Expectation in the heart beats fast. 
 Until its pulses throbs are audible 
 
 In that deep thrilling Silence which doth round ye 
 dwell ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 Peace yet again ! — a shade-like sound grows stealing 
 Onward, like dreams impalpable, or Light 
 When mingling first wdth Darkness, and revealing 
 Its presence felt on the dull ear of Night ; 
 Now it floats upward in aerial flight ; 
 An exhalation fi"om the void beneath, 
 A sound that wanders in its own delight ! 
 Living and dying in its own sweet breath. 
 
 While gently loosening Silence from the embrace of 
 Death !
 
 144 THE MISERERE. 
 
 L. 
 
 Then, like an Angel mourning o'er the dying, 
 Who die in sin, the Miserere rose ! 
 So soft, so low, so deep, those notes are sighing : 
 The passion of the soul when it o'erflows 
 With the full sense of all its guilt and woes, 
 And yearning love, despairing to atone ! 
 So thrills, descending to its dying close, 
 That long, wild, wailing and imploring tone, 
 The agony of prayer before the heavenly throne. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Soul-thrilling notes of speechless tenderness! 
 That open the closed springs of the seai'ed heart ; 
 Making it yearn its follies to confess, 
 And then, a joyous sacrifice, depart 
 To that blest place where never more shall start, 
 Wrmig from its agonies, the gushing tear- ! 
 Ye, armed in the cold panoply of art, 
 But for one moment, pause and listen here ! — 
 The next, ye shall become all which ye then appear.
 
 THE PANTHEON. 145 
 
 LII. 
 Hark — that wild burst of long exulting sounds ! 
 It tells the triumph of the Angelic choir, 
 Whose song of mercy for the saved rebounds ; 
 Then, from the depths, as hopeless to aspire. 
 Voices, like spirits rise, ere they expire : 
 As if, despairing to be heard, they pom'ed 
 Thus sadly forth their strains seraphic fire ' 
 As if one moment's respite they implored, 
 To tell — ere sunk for ever — how they still adored. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 What Temple frowns before me in my path 
 From the new city hastening to the old ? 
 I know thee, awfid shrine ! on whom the wrath 
 Of twenty ages with their storms have rolled : 
 Pantheon ! who unmoved can thee behold ? 
 Grey record of the heroic ages, when 
 The Roman stood thus cast from Nature's moidd ; 
 The age of iron, when her sons were men: 
 Oh, that for one brief hour they could so feel again ! 
 
 L
 
 146 THE PANTHEON. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Virtue's stem impress I behold, though faded. 
 Austerely stamped upon thy naked brow ! 
 The acanthus' leaves are rent away which braided : 
 But never awed thy majesty as now ; 
 How eloquently well doth Time avow 
 Thy Avrongs, inspiring the answering mind 
 Like thy own haughty columns which nor bow 
 To change, nor wreck, in their own strength enshrined. 
 Defying Fortune's storms, to every fate resigned. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Enter its hemisphere encircling round 
 Like the Sky's vault, and opening to the air 
 Its thousand niches once with Statues crowned : 
 Altar of all the gods of heaven ; but where, 
 Bronze, gilding, marbles once refulgent there ? 
 Gone — but it hath a ti'easure to redeem : 
 Here sleeps a Spirit great beyond compare : 
 Raphael — who saw the heaven's unfolding gleam, 
 Then, when transfigured Christ confessed his Sire 
 supreme !
 
 THE PANTHEON. 147 
 
 LVI. 
 
 How the dim image of the Beautiful, 
 Which Time hath darkened, but can not efface, 
 Sits on thy front, and doth the mind o'er-rule, 
 For its imagination cannot trace 
 Save here, where strength, and majesty, and grace, 
 The triad meet : the old heroic time 
 Lives in thee ; ages slumber round thy base ; 
 Amidst the barbarous toys of ev ery clime. 
 Thou stand'st from all apart, stern, simple, and sublime ! 
 
 LVII. 
 
 I stand upon the Capitol, the heart. 
 Palladium — soul of Rome, which fiercer beat 
 When Danger pointed there his deadliest dart ; 
 When the Gaul fired her city at her feet ; 
 Oh ! how she sat upon that rocky seat 
 With an unconquered energy, and hurled 
 Headlong the \vretch who dared her last retreat ! 
 Pure Patriotism then her flag unfurled ; 
 The fortitude was hers which awed the subject world. 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Plow the mind's eye concentrates here its gaze ! 
 The throne from which Rome sent her heroes forth ; 
 The centre-point of Fame's and Fortune's rays : 
 To which her sons turned from the ends of earth ; 
 Conquerors, who held their conquests nothing worth, 
 Till up this haughty steep again they rode, 
 Offering the mighty Mother of their birth 
 The spoils from nations crushed, the glittering load 
 
 Of crowns from monarchs plucked, who, chained, be- 
 hind them trode. 
 
 LIX. 
 The majesty of Rome, the coronal 
 Placed round their heads which fancied glory weaves ; 
 The envied, and the gazed upon by all : 
 Kings in their pageant following, sunk to slaves. 
 Walking upon their subterranean graves, 
 The dungeons of the Mamertine beneath ; 
 The intoxicating sense which memory leaves 
 Of worth and power; the hoarded, withering wreath, 
 
 The life that lives and dies in others' fickle breath ; —
 
 THE SHE-WOLF. 149 
 
 LX. 
 
 Such are the hires which have been, and shall be, 
 Till War be as forgotten as its name, 
 And Earth be one great shrine of liberty : 
 Then shall the only path be found to fame. 
 The only wreath which man shall seek to claim, 
 Unfading, when all else doth fade, and pm'e 
 As from the altar soars the heavenward flame; — 
 Those eloquent words, or deeds, which best secure 
 The happiness of man — sudt fame shall, aye, endure ! 
 
 . LXI. 
 
 She-wolf! thou fitting, savage nurse of Rome ! 
 
 How well thy nature was akin ; thy spring 
 
 Deadly as hers, excited in the foam 
 
 Of her roused wrath that knew no softening ; 
 
 How the contending twins beneath thee cling, 
 
 For milk which, gall-like, from their hearts flowed 
 
 o'er, 
 Until their walls. War's Cain-like offering. 
 From their first rising smoke of incense, bore 
 A curse upon them dyed with fratricidal gore.
 
 150 JUNIUS BRUTUS. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 In front, and bending full on them a look 
 Of triumph, frowns the stern Republican ; 
 The man of stoic nerves, who could not brook 
 That Tyranny should blight the growth begun 
 Of palmy Rome : what deeds may not be done 
 By him who, conquering nature hath not quailed ? 
 Behold the Priest who sacrificed his son 
 To Duty ; filial prayers in vain assailed ; 
 Freedom, the patriot, and love of fame prevailed ! 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Unlike thee, noblest Roman, Pompey ! thou. 
 Heir of that name so oft misused — the great ; 
 The cloud o'ershadows thy deep fmTowed brow. 
 Prophetic ever of our coming fate : 
 Presaging mind, it may be, doth create 
 The ill it dreads, and on it still doth dwell. 
 Till the hour comes which did but antedate 
 The truth — that inmost warning oracle. 
 Which bound the faculties as with a withering spell.
 
 roMPEV. 151 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Statue august ! thy forehead's thoughtful mood 
 The stamp of indecision still doth wear, 
 As if thy efforts of faint will withstood, 
 Thy spirit would succumb to its despair : 
 Bear witness, red Pharsalia ! hadst thou there 
 Fought but as once, the unconquered chief had fled ; 
 How then had Rome, committed to thy care, 
 Rejoiced — how had she crowned that honoured head 
 
 With wreaths, like rays from heaven, undying round it 
 spread ! 
 
 LXV. 
 But thy misgiving mind itself betrayed : 
 Flight followed, and the assassin's felon stroke : 
 Upon the shore thy headless corse was laid: 
 But from thy ashes Nemesis awoke, 
 And, as from thee, upon thy conqueror broke. 
 While, Jove-like, there, thou stood'st o'er him on high ; 
 In vain his face, while falling, he would cloak : 
 Thy Form still darkened on his dying eye, 
 
 He saw thee, giant-Statue, look upon him die !
 
 152 MORNING. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 A bright, blue, glorious Morning! oh, how throng 
 
 All gladsome impulses beneath a sky 
 Whose face is purity, whose breath is song ! 
 Ruins, grey reliques, asked, appealingly, 
 My heart, not vainly, for the accorded sigh ! 
 But oh, such hours as these are blessings given 
 That call forth our full gratitude, and I 
 Went on my way rejoicing : all was driven 
 
 Away, that, cloud-like, lowered between me and yon 
 heaven. 
 
 LXVII. 
 For Days like these are stepping-stones, each tending 
 Heavenward, that raise us from our life supine : 
 Sky, airs, and flowers, within the heart are blending, 
 Their natural home ; received as in a shrine, 
 Whose hallowing presence makes it more divine : 
 Wliat marvel, then, thus purified, we feel 
 The Purifier on his temple shine ? 
 The peace, the silent joy within it steal ; 
 
 The hope, the love, the trust, which words can ne'er 
 reveal.
 
 ON THE PALATINE. 153 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 And this was the hill Palatine ! arrayed 
 
 In undecaying memories ; that stage 
 
 Where Rome's great drama through its scenes was 
 
 played ; 
 Heroes the actors, and the applauding age 
 The audience, mirrored in the historic page ; 
 Condemned or praised for virtue or for crime 
 Based on opinion ; what are then the sage, 
 The patriot's labours ? what their deeds sublime, 
 
 Left to the shifting hands of change, and chance, and 
 time ? 
 
 LXTX. 
 Here the clay shed of Romulus was reared ; 
 Here, in one night, Publicola o'erthrew 
 His palace — wherefore ? its proud height appeared 
 The shadow of fall'n Power to renew : 
 How filial then, and all-confiding grew 
 The ties between the matron and her son, 
 Rome, and the patriot Roman ! well they knew 
 Her jealousy, and honoiu-ed ; she had won 
 
 Their awe, and love, they fell her greatness was begun.
 
 154 MEMORIES OF THE PALATINE. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Fame left the hill with Caesar : Folly came, 
 And reared her golden palace ; that fond toy 
 Of Nero, boast of servile Rome and shame, 
 Where wild caprice for ever found employ, 
 For tyrants' whims, in gratifying cloy ; 
 But Fortune, wearied, turned at last, away : — 
 Then rushed the Goth and Vandal to destroy ; 
 Fire, sword, and earthquake bore relentless sway. 
 While Ruin toiled to heap this mountain of decay. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Men are we, and we feel humanity ; 
 And, in despite the moral, the mind dwells 
 On these grey wrecks with a complacent eye ; 
 A sense of dignity within us swells, 
 Yea, pride ; their tale man's common greatness tells ; 
 Yet is the feeling softened by the spot ; 
 Oh ! doth it not speak more than oracles. 
 The rise and fall of man, of empire's lot. 
 His records, ever thus, crushed, buried, and forgot !
 
 ITS RUINS. 155 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 The Drama now is over like a dream, 
 
 Related, or remembered — such the Past, 
 
 Whose deeds are leaves borne down Time's changing 
 
 stream, 
 Which still flows on, and shall for ever last : 
 The Stage is now one desolation vast : 
 The bones of the Titanic Skeleton, 
 In mouldering fragments wildly round ye cast, 
 Attest its grand proportions when it won 
 The wonder of the earth, this Palace of the Sun ! 
 
 LXXITI. 
 
 Now, delicately Nature's hand renews 
 The abandoned ruin which she gently weds. 
 Softening the sadder memory which subdues : 
 How bright o'er yon grey arch its golden tlireads 
 The Acacia throws ! even as pure childhood spreads 
 Its iDlayful locks above the brow of Age : 
 Ah ! thus is youth ; nor time, nor change it dreads : 
 Its bomiding hope is dimmed by no presage. 
 Life, love, and joy alone, its blessed horns engage !
 
 156 INVOCATION. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 Spirit — that hoverest o'er this desolation, 
 And shed'st o'er all thy sanctifying breath, 
 Soul of the Past ! whose power recals creation ; 
 Who, in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 Speak'st, and the dry bones leap to life beneath ; 
 Who, on Time's isthmus standing, join'st the sea 
 Of two eternities ; who twin'st the wreath 
 Around the dead of immortality ; 
 Treasurer of deathless souls — divinest Memory ! 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Come sit with me upon this mossy stone : 
 And, as yon Forum's wreck I contemplate. 
 The bards, the sages, heroes, patriot's throne. 
 Rear thou the ruins in their ancient state ! 
 Awake to life— thou can'st — the good and great; 
 Until I see them walk before my eyes : 
 Till Cato fires me with his patriot heat ; 
 Until I see, with awe, great Tully rise. 
 Pouring his passion forth which thrilled like prophecies
 
 TO THE DEAD. 157 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Immortal Spirits ! animating still 
 Our mortal beings with your words, oh ! what, 
 What are ye now ? where is that stoic will 
 That, with a brow sedate, rose o'er your lot. 
 And triumphed, wherefore ? — to be unforgot ; 
 But was this all ? stern Cato ! didst thou die. 
 For this, great Tully ! was thy mind o'erwrought ? 
 Thy ardent spirit could this satisfy ? 
 The limit of thy hopes man's immortality ? 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Had ye no nobler goal or aim than this ? 
 This, and the self-reward of your great hearts ? 
 For this, did ye abandon happiness. 
 Baring your breasts, defencelessly, to darts. 
 Where Duty scarce sufficing balm imparts. 
 Till, fainting thus, ye sank before your time ? 
 No ! — on Earth's stage when played your mortal parts, 
 Ye looked beyond shouts, annals, stone, or rhyme, 
 For some immortal place to prove your souls sublime.
 
 158 THOUGHTS ON THE PALATINE. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Smile not upon me, Sadducee ! I stand 
 
 A ruin among ruins : I see rise 
 
 Grey wrecks left lonely on the desert sand : 
 
 The very toys of those whose mental eyes 
 
 Looked for eternity beyond the skies ; 
 
 These, their reared playthings, to amuse the crowd ; 
 
 See, how survive the things they could despise ! 
 
 Where are their ruins, where their dust? — what shroud 
 Holds them dispersed abroad, in wind, flower, wave, or 
 cloud ? 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 They ai'e a part of Nature's loveliness, 
 
 The feeling and the love which wakes our own. 
 
 When, while in blessing her, ourselves we bless ; 
 
 But whither hath the mind immortal flown 
 
 When hurled by Death exulting from its throne ? 
 
 Did that sink torpid in the dull cold sod ? 
 
 That which so proudly soared from dust alone ! 
 
 Which in Fame's, Virtue's path aspiring trod : 
 Which pierced the heaven of heavens, and found the 
 nameless God.
 
 INVOCATION. 1 59 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Ineffable of name — thou All in All ! 
 Power omnipresent ! thou, whose chiefest shrine 
 Is in our heart of hearts, where we recal 
 Too darkly. Thee — but feel its life is thine ; 
 Thou, in whose eye, stars dim as sand-grains shine, 
 To whom earth's base is stubble ; here I raise 
 Myself in thought, while lowly I incline ; — 
 The skeleton fragments of departed days 
 Lie mouldering at my feet — but in thy heaven I gaze ; 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 Till my mind dwelling on immortal things. 
 Assumes their nature, and with vision clear, 
 Looking beyond its vain imaginings, 
 Holds commune with the Spirit breathing here, 
 With awe and reverence unallied to fear ; 
 Doubt ye its influence ? ye feel it not ; 
 Unseen, perchance unfelt, but ever near ; 
 Which breathes severe religion round the spot, 
 And ratifies the hope the aspiring spirit sought.
 
 160 REFLECTIONS. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Attest vvith me, truths felt since time began, 
 By hope, faith, reason, love, and nature told : 
 The heaven-stamped immortality of man ! 
 Change, and decay, and ruin I behold ; 
 But the clear page within me I unfold, 
 And read the inspirations of my heart ! 
 There, the same characters for ever hold. 
 The yearnings which have still been poured apart ; 
 The hope, the faith in thee " Our Father !" as thou art. 
 
 LXXXTII. 
 
 What ? shall the blossom of the mind upreared. 
 And with such infinite toil — developing 
 Its plastic energies, be, flower-like, seared, 
 Withering in age, or dying in its spring. 
 Whose growth transcended Hope's imagining? 
 Shall the hived wealth of ages with it die ? 
 Did it for this aside its fetters fling. 
 And fondly dream of immortality ? 
 Of prophecies, and faith that bound it to the sky ? —
 
 ON THE PALATINE. 161 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Shall the lights that o'er ages shed their ray 
 Be quenched in darkness ? shall the cup of bliss, 
 Reared to the untasting lips, be dashed away ? 
 Shall the world's millions who have lived in this 
 Sole hope, fond faith, a future happiness. 
 Be mocked by dreams ? Were they, indeed, but given 
 To make life's infinite of ills seem less ? 
 Shall disease end thus — chains, and ties be riven ? 
 All buried in the grave — for ever shut from Heaven ? 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Yet once again — shall those we loved the dearest, 
 The fondest, best, return to us no more ? 
 Those hovering spirits that are ever nearest 
 In dreams, when, waking, oiu- full eyes gush o'er : 
 When they departed for the untrodden shore, 
 Was their farewell to us eternal ? — No ! 
 Why yearn we towai'd each star, or why deplore 
 What we shall never see ? save that we know 
 Love there will re-unite the hearts that loved below ' 
 
 M
 
 ]62 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 With flowers gathered from the Baths of Caracalla. 
 
 1. 
 
 These Violets gathered from the grass 
 Which mantles Caracalla's Halls, 
 
 Receive from me ; and though, alas ! 
 Their fading hue but death recals ; 
 
 2. 
 
 Yet, plucked by one as frail as they, 
 
 With azure smiles this truth they give :- 
 
 " Blooming like us amid decay, 
 " Enjoy the moment that you live. 
 
 3. 
 
 " Beneath lie buried deep in earth, 
 " And mingled with the dust of ages, 
 
 " The fairest forms that e'er had birth — 
 " The warriors, lovers, bards, and sages
 
 THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. 163 
 
 4. 
 
 " But when these glorious Halls arose, 
 
 " With gold, and gems, and marbles crowned 
 
 " When god-like Statues from repose 
 " Seemed starting into life around ; 
 
 5. 
 
 " Think ye their votaries dreamed the hour 
 " Would come, when, like a fallen star, 
 
 " Rome's monuments of Titan power 
 " Should stand the Skeletons they are ? 
 
 6. 
 '' Ah no ! they left — do thou the same — 
 
 " The Future to itself, and Past : 
 " They revelled round Life's brightest flame, 
 " Because — they knew it could not last !" 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE ROMAN FORUM. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Ts this wreck all that now remains of thee, 
 Thou once all-glorious forum ? this the place 
 Whose name was inspiration ? Can it be 
 This tree-scathed solitude is all the trace 
 Where Temples crowded for rejected space ? 
 Looking, while to yon azure heaven they soared, 
 As if eternity were in their base ; 
 Where heroes, demagogues, and patriots poured 
 Their eloquent passion forth, and flattered, or implored, 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 As the lure held to them by Fame from far, 
 Raised noble emulation, or could lower 
 The mind to aught, so it o'erleaped the bar 
 Which held it from the phantom of the hour ; 
 Moloch of Idols, thou remorseless Power ! 
 To whom is offered human sacrifice. 
 When shalt thou cease thy victims to devour ? 
 When shall thy Altar, ne'er again to rise. 
 Be crushed — oh ! when shall man assert his liberties ?
 
 ITS DESOLATION. 165 
 
 LXXXVITI. 
 
 Thy strength is in opinion, and thy throne 
 Is raised on fear : thy thunder-bolts are wrought 
 By man to wreak on fellow men alone ; 
 So is his cunning in the meshes caught, 
 Planned by brute ignorance, its aim forgot : 
 What spell can melt the giant into air ? 
 The fire, the spirit of Promethean thought ! 
 Justice — whose equal scales doth tnith declare ; 
 And Freedom, ever ready for the right to dare. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 How hath Destruction sunk his ploughshare round f 
 How the waste wilderness of ruins blent 
 With the raised earth, hath made its covering ground 
 Their grave, and everlasting Monument ! 
 But the Sea hath its ebbing tide when spent. 
 And leaves, as here, unsightly tracks behind : 
 Lo, o'er the sands, yon columns grey and rent ! 
 Those broken limbs where Beauty once combined. 
 And majesty and grace ; all that concentered mind
 
 166 THOUGHTS IN THE FORUM. 
 
 xc. 
 
 Of man can body forth which it hath learned 
 From mightier elements, and which are now 
 Again inEarth's receptacle inurned : 
 Temples and domes from her foundations grow, 
 Like flowers ; and men, light insects, quaff below 
 Enjoyment there, as light and fi'ail as they ! 
 And passing as the winds that come and go : 
 These but endure a while a longer day, 
 Till crushed, or worn by time, — they turn alike to clay. 
 
 XCI. 
 Here the Past sits, a substance, not a shade : 
 Her throne, the palpable wrecks which round apjsear : 
 We feel her breath the very air pervade ; 
 The consciousness of her existence neai* : 
 And in the silence audibly ye hear 
 The throbbing pulse of Mutability ! 
 The Present sits by with a frown severe ; 
 While, as the shadows of the future lie 
 Beneath their feet, they watch the tide of life roll by.
 
 THOUGHTS IN THE FORUM. 167 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Infinite passions, good and evil, blended, 
 That on this spot humanity assailed ! — 
 Shades of the mighty Dead ! who here contended 
 As on a stage, and triumphed, stood or failed, 
 As virtue, vice, or patriot-love prevailed ; — 
 Departed Ages that have passed, since those 
 Grey columns stood ! — what fruits have ye entailed ? 
 Where are ye ? — where the Futme shall repose, 
 In that dark grave of earth where all life's pageants 
 close. 
 
 XCIII. 
 And could ye, ardent Spirits ! rise again 
 To play your parts upon our little scene, 
 No more would ye be demigods, but men ; 
 How humanised and softened had ye been 
 Now, when the man refined hath found within 
 Infinite feelings which themselves renew, 
 AiTaying Life's most arid wastes with green ; 
 ^Vhen nobler ends than life man holds in view ; 
 And when domestic home gives joys yo never knew !
 
 168 TEMPLES IN THE FORUM. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 A solitude within the Forum's heart ! 
 Where Meditation may repose ; alas, 
 What here can her profoundest thought impart ? 
 That he who moralises, thus must pass 
 Like those beneath ; but this chaotic mass 
 Who shall divide, or portion, or restore ? 
 Thou, to whose eye yon withering blade of grass 
 Is mystery — cease their records to explore. 
 Death's secrets none may read till time shall be no 
 more. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Yon arch — is't Jove's or Fortune's ? on that sod 
 Was the stern war-denouncing Rostrum piled, 
 Where Tully stood like a descended God ? 
 Where did the Roman sacrifice his child, 
 That flower whose virgin soul was undefiled ! 
 Where stood spare Brutus when his friend he slew. 
 That glorious martyr of ambition wild ? 
 Behold the arch of Titus ! 'tis the clew 
 Found for the mind's repose, which searches not anew.
 
 ARCH OF TITUS. 169 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 Lo, the gi-eat record of the man who left 
 A greater — he who never lost a day ! 
 Though worn that arch, its front, and tablet cleft, 
 Well read'st thou the great moral of decay, 
 How empires, as religions, pass away. 
 Replaced by others ; until they, waxed old, 
 Fall— and, in falling, show their feet of clay: 
 Think ye that when his tale the Hebrew told 
 Of Slavery there, he deemed his sons should e'er be- 
 hold 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 The hour when those mocked symbols of his faith 
 Would crown the shrines which now are desolate, 
 And live immortally above their death ? 
 When Jove should yield to Jesus, and when Fate 
 Should be a word to raise the smile sedate ; 
 And when the many gods should bow to One ? 
 Lo — there the Victors on the vanquished wait ! 
 The secrets of their faith revealed in stone, 
 For every tongue to scorn, to gibe, while passing on.
 
 170 MOONLIGHT ON THE FORUM. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 The spumed— the crushed into the dust— have risen; 
 The slaves are conquerors, and the cross of wood 
 Is reared o'er marble — what can truth imprison ? 
 On those proud columns once where heroes stood, 
 Stand Martyrs ; men who poured forth their own blood 
 For that first cause of all they deemed divine ; 
 So Time rolls on ! — all in their turn subdued, 
 Yield, and bow down to one eternal shrine; 
 Light Mutability — life's very name is thine ! 
 
 XCIX. 
 Away vain musings ! ended as began : 
 Aimless and hopeless, save to teach us more 
 To make our moment happy while we can : 
 And while my eyes are turned to thee, bright shore 
 Of Light ! methinks, while I thy shrine adore, 
 Thou sheddest quiet fi-om thine argent mn ! 
 TUl, like thy beams, my spirit, flowing o'er 
 With softness and affectionate hojje, doth yearn 
 To make confession there, as if thou could'st return.
 
 MOONLIGHT ON THE FORUM. 171 
 
 c. 
 
 Thou rolling Moon ! my thoughls to me again : 
 Yet wert thou not hung there as well to be 
 A Lamp, as a confessional for men ? 
 Where, in the quiet of the night, to thee, 
 Spirits should steal from mankind silently, 
 To poiu- those secrets heard by God alone : 
 Oh, thou dost soften doubt to certainty ! 
 Who ever gazed on thee, nor felt his own 
 Mysterious alliance with thy world unknown ? 
 
 CI. 
 
 Yet it may be, thou, too, hast scenes to show 
 Like these Titanic heaps around me piled : 
 It may be, hidden that pure front below, 
 Thou show'st a Chaos honible and wild ; 
 Perchance, a den of passion more defiled 
 Than ours, with no redeeming light from God ! 
 Or, thou might'st be Creation's youngest child : 
 Thine atmosphere a heaven ; and thy sod 
 The unpolluted cloud where Gods alone have trod !
 
 172 MOONLIGHT ON THE FORUM. 
 
 ClI. 
 
 Thou hast no state, or fall'n or raised, bright Orb ! 
 Which accords not with life and human feeling: 
 We, whom in turns the god and brute absorb : 
 Lo — ^how o'er yon Arena thou art stealing 
 With hallowing light, or, my own mind appealing 
 To thee, invests thee with its gentler tone : 
 As if thy ministering beams were healmg, 
 By filling up, with beauty of thine own, 
 Rents, which in day's broad eye too nakedly are 
 shown.
 
 CANTO IV.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Colosseum — some apology for its cruelties •, the causes. Reflec- 
 tions on our own instability. Description of the Ampitheatre. The Past 
 recalled — the dying Gladiator. Modern superstitions. Moonlight on the 
 Colosseum ; the twilight considered as more analogous to the Ruin. 
 Rienzi ; his character ; his failure in himself— a warning example to after 
 patriots. Monuments in the "Vatican— thoughts on our claims to immor- 
 tality. The Apollo : The Antinous : Group of the Laocoon — supposed 
 design of the Sculptors in the last. The Fighting Gladiator. Guido's 
 Aurora. The Moses of Michael Angelo — description. Reflections 
 on the influence of Sculpture on the mind. 
 
 Return to Nature : Grotto of Egeria — its beautiful allegory. Tuscu- 
 lum : description of Cicero's villa. Man creates for himself an immor- 
 tality whilst here. Distant view of the Mediterranean, and remembrance 
 of Virgil. Effects on mankind of mind, when well directed : its curse, 
 when misapplied. Greatness of the acts of Cicero. Horace — picture of 
 himself and farm ; moral reflections, which should ever inspire gladness, 
 rather than depression. Character of the Poet : his integrity : and un- 
 shaken confidence in his own fame. Pliny's noble apostrophe. Tivoli : 
 Temple of the Sibyl. Hadrian's villa ; such retreats prove the charac- 
 ter : there, his vanity displayed ; Arcadian scenery around it. Lake 
 Albano : beauty of old allegories — the truth veiled beneath them. Last 
 view of Rome from the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Latialis — Con- 
 clusion.
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 I. 
 
 Arena of the uni'ecorded brave ! 
 
 Whose blood poured here like water on thy sand ; 
 
 Hold of the despot, refuge of the slave, 
 
 Den, where the assassin made his latest stand ; 
 
 Altar where hermits their devotion fanned ; 
 
 Red scaffold, where the glorious Martyr died, 
 
 Where sped the joust — where danced the motley 
 
 band ; 
 Stage, ever changing ! that art still the guide 
 Of pilgrims drawn from far, who here have smiled or 
 sighed,
 
 17G THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 II. 
 
 Pouring the thoughts or fancies of the hour, 
 Great Colosseum ! at thy mighty shrine ; 
 Earth's bosom, cumbered with the wrecks of power, 
 Shows nought beneath the sky to match with thine : 
 Earthquakes have heaved — frost rent — Time-worn 
 
 each line 
 Of thy majestic fabric ; but the eye 
 Of fancy nothing grander can combine 
 Than thy sublime, but shattered symmetry, 
 
 Thou wonder, pride, and awe of him who passeth by ! 
 
 III. 
 Hark — the still, slumberous Air is musical 
 With the sweet carolling of birds, which seem 
 Here to have made their happy festival : 
 How do those notes and these wild flowers redeem 
 The place from aught save haunt for peace supreme ! 
 If blood hath gushed forth here from man and beast. 
 If Cain-like men have gloated o'er the steam 
 Of human victims, as a welcome feast, 
 
 Ages have cleansed the stain, the unnatural strife hath 
 ceased.
 
 THOUGHTS IN THE COLOSSEUM. 177 
 
 IV. 
 
 Gently be they pronounced on ! if they thought 
 Blindly, their deeds flowed from a darkened source, 
 They practised but the lessons they were taught ; 
 Their creed was wrong, and lust, and lawless force : 
 Their gods were brutes, as fierce, with less remorse 
 Than man when most imbruted : such were given 
 By Superstition as her last resource. 
 To bind the chains by reason only riven ; 
 
 Flattering man's grosser sense transferring Vice to 
 Heaven. 
 
 V. 
 What hope, what thought, had they beyond the hour ? 
 Wealth sapped their feeble virtue to its roots. 
 And their heart's rankest weeds were fed by Power, 
 Cnishing in their first growth those early shoots 
 Which ask for culture ere they yield their fruits, 
 Crowning the man as with a coronal : 
 Pause then — thy censure thy own heart confutes : 
 Thy own felt weakness o'er their dust recal : 
 
 To err is human still, the common lot of all. 
 
 N
 
 178 THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The white flowers at my feet rise from a ground 
 Whose dust was human — they bloom not the less : 
 Where are the millions here who crowded rovmd ? 
 They gazed on thee, sweet Moon ! but did not bless 
 Thy light, from which they drew no gentleness : 
 The fight — the hunt — the galley's crashing prow, 
 Such were their morning hopes of happiness : 
 For which they waited with as feverish brow, 
 As for some worthless aim our hearts are beating now. 
 
 VII. 
 
 They were — they are not — Memory gives them birth : 
 The Life of Ages breathes in us alone ! 
 Immortalised by us who, changed to earth. 
 Shall, with their dust, remain alike unknown : 
 The future rests in darkness round it thrown. 
 Past, when arrived; like the unwelcomed wind, 
 Life has no present : time enjoyed is flown : 
 A moment — with that past for ever joined, 
 What eye shall see us more, what step again shall find ?
 
 THE COLOSSEUM. 179 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The wise begin their lives in questionings, 
 To end in silence ; for no oracle 
 Responds to their intense imaginings : 
 They turn to earth, and in the lowest dell 
 Feel there the simplest flower its moral tell. 
 Deep as the fall of empires : that, enshrined, 
 Infinity within each particle. 
 
 Mocks their vain thought ; the struggle is resigned, 
 Andfaith confides inhope, its trust to Heaven consigned. 
 
 IX. 
 
 So let the circle of our days roll on. 
 Eternal, still revolving without end : 
 Nature's pure joys rewarding when we' are gone. 
 As we had never been. Lo, how extend. 
 Tier above tier, those benches, which ascend 
 In shattered circles ; where the Roman sate. 
 While on his nod, or voice, or finger's bend, 
 The gladiator read remorseless fate. 
 Whose life or death could thus on one slight motion 
 wait ! 
 
 N 2
 
 ISO THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 X. 
 
 Along its broken edges, on the sky 
 So softly, clearly, delicately traced, 
 The bird, all feather-like, alights on high. 
 Where human foot shall never more be based : 
 Grass mantles the Arena, 'mid defaced 
 And broken columns, freshly, wildly spread ; 
 And through those hollow windows, once so graced 
 With glittering eyes, faint stars their twinklings shed. 
 As if they smiled within those sockets of the dead ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 So stretches that Titanic skeleton ! 
 Its shattered and enormous circle rent. 
 And yawning open, arch, and covering gone ; 
 As the huge Crater's sides hang imminent 
 Round the Volcano, whose last flames are spent ; 
 Whose somads shall never more to heaven aspire, 
 So frowns that stern and desolate Monument ! 
 A stage in ruin ; an exhausted pyre. 
 The actors past to dust — for ever quenched the fire !
 
 THE PAST RECALLED. 181 
 
 XII. 
 
 Oh ! what can Memory not create ? Even death 
 Is mocked by shadows fi'om the grave that rise, 
 Inspired by her with forms and Hving breath ; 
 The heart's affections are the eternal ties 
 That join the past and future ; which allies 
 With its own life, existence unforgot: 
 How, with a thought, fond Fancy backward flies, 
 And quickens into Hfe the Past ! — this spot 
 
 Behold all teeming now with populous thousands 
 fraught. 
 
 XIII. 
 Hark ! — 'tis the hush of men — the stifled hum : 
 As when, for moments, armies hold their breath 
 Suspended, for the signal-word to come. 
 That shall hurl myriads from their life to death : 
 Lo ! — in the seats around — above — beneath — 
 A sea of heads : a coil of human life 
 Circles as with a vast and varied wreath, 
 Each stone, and living column, each door, rife 
 
 With struggle, stand, or rush — the moment's eager strife.
 
 182 THE DYING GLADIATOR, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The lower tier — lo, how are thronging there, 
 The wealth of Rome in one full living tide ! 
 There fills the Emperor his golden chair : 
 Knights, Consuls, Senators, on either side : 
 Above, sits Roman beauty in her pride ! 
 Crowning the topmost tier, plebeians crowd. 
 Looking down there, as from the Mountain's side. 
 Into the vale ! — while, o'er them, like a cloud. 
 Spreads the Velaria's sail, an ever-shadowing shroud. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The roar is hushed — a deathlike stillness reigns ; 
 Some sight unused arrests the common mind : 
 Though drmik with blood, their rage awhile refrains ; 
 O'er breathless thousands ye might hear the Wind 
 Wave to and fr*o, the sail o'er them inclined ! 
 Look on the Arena ! — one stands there alone, 
 His foe beneath his foot in death reclined : 
 In his proud form the Grecian mould is shown ; 
 Such Phidias' hand liad stamped eternally in stone.
 
 THE DYING GLADIATOR. 183 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Conqueror in forty fights, he stood confessed 
 Achilles of the Arena : till men grew 
 Tired of his fortune ; gone was their first zest 
 Of fierce excitement which no longer drew 
 Their eyes, nor palled amazement could renew : 
 Stretched at his feet the barbarous Briton lies. 
 Not unavenged; — ere his fierce spirit flew. 
 He saw the red blood from his conqueror rise, 
 And hate's last triumph gleamed in his ferocious eyes ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Fixed like a Statue there the Grecian stood. 
 The blood is oozing darkly fi'om his side ! 
 But, with a gesture proud and unsubdued. 
 He looked as if he life and death defied : 
 There might ye trace a higher, worthier pride ; 
 A mind unstooped to its degrading trade ; 
 Hero by natme stamped, by fate denied ! 
 They saw not, the far crowd, the scorn displayed 
 On those curled haughty lips, liom which each moment 
 fade
 
 Ig 
 
 184 THE DYING GLADIATOR. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The hues of life, and strength, and passion, leaving 
 His glazed eye fixed — the damp sweat on his brow : 
 The stooping form, his blood each limb bereaving 
 Of its laxed strength — the Arena's swimming now — 
 His arms are smik — one last wdld effort — no ! 
 He falls ! — and never more shall rise again : 
 Then, unrestrained, burst forth above, below. 
 The shouts of those who wore the forms of men. 
 The roar of human brutes that shakes their echoing 
 den ! 
 
 XTX. 
 
 His dirge and epitaph : 'tis still once more : 
 All forward bend to catch his parting groan ; 
 For well they know none trod that stage before 
 Like him who stood unrivalled and alone ; 
 He leans upon his shield : one arm is thrown 
 Behind — one stays him resting on his knee ; 
 His head droops, but, beneath his eyebrows grown 
 Contracted, his glazed eyeballs ye may see 
 Watching that tide of life which ebbs forth silently !
 
 THE DYING GLADIATOR. 185 
 
 XX. 
 
 Ay, he \s feeling the approach of death ! 
 The chill — the fainting sickness — but his mind 
 Is busy, though thick heaves his choking breath : 
 Alas ! no eye shall bend o'er him reclined, 
 No pious hands shall dig Jiis gi-ave, nor wind 
 His wreath, and consecrate with tears each flower ! 
 Hurled to the dogs, his body who shall find ? 
 The pageant — sport — and ruffian of the hour, 
 Dragged from his lovely clhne, and slaved to biiita 
 power. 
 
 XXL 
 All rushed before him — shall they see the tears 
 Which his heart, bursting, would pour forth ? sliall 
 
 they 
 Know that last, bitterest agony that sears. 
 When Memory lightens o'er the past her ray .? 
 Scenes, which a moment more shall pass away 
 Like him — for ever ! — no — he lifts his head : 
 The light of life that made a moment's play 
 In his dim sunken eyes, waned — darkened — fled : 
 His arms give way beneath — 'tis over — he is dead !
 
 186 THE PRESENT. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Vision is departed — the clear dream 
 
 Of a reality doth disappear ; 
 
 Lo — where yon red- cross meets the moonlight's 
 
 gleam ! 
 The spunge, the crown of thorns, the blood-stained 
 
 spear : 
 The scroll, that whosoe'er but kisses here, 
 Shall be absolved the crimes of many days ! 
 See, how the crouching eagerness of fear 
 The secret of its sensual life betrays ; 
 Prostration, fawning, false, that sickens e'en the gaze ! 
 
 XXIII. 
 But what hath aught of an unquiet feeling 
 To do with such a blessed scene as this ? 
 Where memory sits among these shadows, stealing, 
 Like them, o'er gleams of pailed happiness : 
 Ah ! never yet did that pale Light impress 
 With joy, but more of sadness mingled there ! 
 There is within its silver radiance less 
 Of earthly than of heavenly ; cold, yet fair, 
 The ghost of life and warmtli, spiritualised to air !
 
 MOONLIGHT ON THE COLOSSEUM. 187 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 It seems a type of that elysian shore 
 Beyond the sable flood ; ethereal plams, 
 Where the wild strife of passion conies no more : 
 Where a majestic stillness ever reigns ; 
 Where thought and memory, born, as here, from pains 
 Ennobling, bid us meaner things forget, 
 Cleansing the spirit from its earthlier stains ; 
 Too calm for joy — too soothing for regret, 
 A world where all is still, but where life's sun is set. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And there it lies, full flooding that pale ground 
 With a wan glimmer, and a ghastly light ; 
 While the gigantic circle yawns around. 
 Vast, silent, savage ! through which, twinkling bright, 
 Shine the eyed Stars ; and, strange and solemn sight. 
 The illimitable Heaven frowns blackly o'er ! 
 Ye who would see it robed in Beauty's light, 
 View not that pile by moonlight silvered o'er, 
 But when departing Day leaves there one glory more.
 
 188 MOONLIGHT ON THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 For with that ruin and the dying Day, 
 There is a sympathy which man can feel ; 
 The red hght mellows with its grand decay ! 
 Hallowing the wounds which it would not conceal : 
 What harmonising tints around it steal, 
 Hues which are Nature's feelings for the past : 
 Doth she not ever such with Time reveal ? 
 And o'er the wreck her nameless magic cast, 
 Religion of the spot that doth grey faiths outlast. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 And the rich Paradise within though faded ! 
 The many-coloured flowers, all blushing now 
 With the last hues and dews of evening braided, 
 The mosses, and the tufting grass which gi-ow 
 Fantastically round each arches brow, 
 FiUing each wreck with motion ; the bird's song, 
 Maldng a festival above, below : 
 Oh, when the Twilight fades those walls along, 
 Pay'st thou not homage there, thou dost that ruin wrong !
 
 COLA RIENZI. 189 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 I stand before the dwelling of a man 
 Who proved, ere, meteor-like, his spirit fled, 
 The' electric fire that still through Freedom ran ; 
 That, with shame's burning ashes o'er her spread, 
 Voiceless and motionless — she was not dead ; 
 A resurrection to eternity 
 Awaits her yet ; to raise her buried head, 
 Cola Rienzi ! was reserved for thee : 
 To enthrone her midst the Nations was not yet to be. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Here, like a fallen Angel, midst the wreck 
 Of some departed world, thou stood'st, while those 
 All eloquent words which waited at thy beck. 
 Like spirits, to inflame and madden, rose 
 Those deep-laid thoughts whose rest is not repose ; 
 The skeleton fragments of Rome's giant power 
 Lay round ; thy passion magnified her foes ; 
 The Roman woke ! 'twas freedom's proffered dowers. 
 Her very rising crushed the tyrants of the hour !
 
 190 COLA RIENZI. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " Oh, let majestic Rome stand where she stood, 
 " No longer prostrate to her tyrant's scorn ! 
 " Her robes of mourning and of widowhood 
 " Cast off — be now the bridal garment worn; 
 " Let Freedom's diadem her brow adora ; 
 " The Sceptre in her hand of Justice, while, 
 " Like a fair bride rejoicing, onward borne, 
 " She meets her bridegroom with that prescient smile 
 <' Of joy, which doth the present, and the past, beguile." 
 
 XXXL 
 
 Thy prayer was granted : then, her princeliest word 
 Claimed fealty from those to whom her name 
 Had been a mockery ; they, astoimded, heard ; 
 And deemed awhile revived her patriot flame, 
 Her Power imited which the world should tame ; 
 Wliere was thy mind, which, if all equal, then 
 Had centered in itself the rays of Fame ? 
 Who failed? — thyself: toys filled those moments, 
 when 
 The Roman world — all — all had been revived again.
 
 COLA RIENZr. 191 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Patriot, sage, poet, orator, each part 
 Was thine, nought wanting ; but the unattained, 
 The greatest was behind — the Hero's heart ! 
 Dazzled and giddy wert thou, thy height gained, 
 With flattery whispering that the Tribune reigned ; 
 Foes mocked ; and patriots saw their hberty 
 By crime, and vanity, and folly stained ; 
 Failure, flight, cowardice, apostacy, 
 Proved what thou wert, too late, frail martyr of the free ! 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 But in thy fall a moral taught sublime 
 Was left — a warning what to seek or shun 
 By patriots through all ages and all time : 
 Freedom by valoiu- must be held as won ; 
 No sheltered flower to blossom in the sim, 
 But a tossed vessel reeling to the blast : 
 Though the wild waves in mountains o'er her run, 
 Though the red Lightnings rend her crashing mast, 
 Fixed must the Helmsman stand who steers her home 
 at last !
 
 192 THE VATICAN. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Again the world, the busy hum of man : 
 But here the crowd the fl}ang hours prolong 
 Through marble chambers of the Vatican : 
 How many worthless themes are given to song ; 
 Perchance the best unheard ! the unheeding throng 
 Pm'sue the beaten track, nor look behind : 
 Else in these storied corridors along. 
 How many a tender memory is enshrined : 
 
 How many a thought profound to soothe the musing 
 mind ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 The tablets placed by Love above the dead, 
 Reft from a thousand graves around, appear : 
 Appeahng to an age imknown to shed 
 Above them still the sympathetic tear, 
 Whose dust a thousand years has left its bier ! 
 Methinks the Writing on Belshazzar's Hall 
 Spoke not more true than these grey records here : 
 Man, in his ashes, striving to recal 
 
 His past humanities — what was — what shall be, all.
 
 THE APOLLO. 193 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Bequeathing, thus, a testament, a will, 
 Which touches more the heart than mines of gold, 
 That, even from dust, doth silently fulfil 
 A duty ! making those who dare behold, 
 Sadder and wiser ; everywhere is told 
 The heaven-pledged truth that death shall all restore, 
 Still to existence cling the young and old : 
 The good, the evil, dread to near that shore 
 Where an immortal life awaits them evermore. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Glorious and godlike incarnation ! — Light 
 Embodied in the human form : a god 
 Confronted visibly to human sight, 
 As if upon the clouds of heaven he trod : 
 We stand and gaze on his revealment awed : 
 His parted lips a smile of triumjih wear ; 
 A glory from his brow is flashed abroad ! 
 It is the light's last halo lingering there. 
 Then when he shook the Day from his ambrosial hair ! 
 
 o
 
 194 TflE APOLLO. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Python — the evil — gasps beneath him slain ; 
 But he, the embodied Beautiful and Good, 
 Unruffled stands ; as if all strife were vain 
 Matched with divinity ; his foe subdued 
 He gazes on no more ; his haughtier mood 
 Hath passed away, and his all-radiant eyes 
 Are looking in eternity ! the brood 
 Of Typhon crushed, his spirit homeward flies, 
 For his reward must come from those immortal skies. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But in that form august, yet beautilid, 
 Born to command and awe all hearts below, 
 How doth its majesty the mind o'er-rule ! 
 How o'er his neck the radiant tresses flow, 
 Massing themselves above that sunlike brow ! 
 Round his raised arm his airy mantle twined, 
 Falls feathering downward like a wreath of snow 
 On his bared breast, where strength and grace en- 
 shrined. 
 Brace each elastic nerve instinct with living mind.
 
 THE APOLLO. 195 
 
 XL. 
 
 Such Nature never stamped, nor form, nor face. 
 Hero, nor god of old heroic time ! 
 Beauty, and might, and majesty, and grace. 
 Are met — concentered in that form sublime. 
 That mocks alike art, eloquence, or rhyme : 
 And there, his arm and foot half-forward thrown. 
 He stands, ere soaring to his heavenly clime ; 
 So light, so free his airy gestm-e shown. 
 Ye start, at last, to find the Vision fixed in stone. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 A Vision of reality : we gaze 
 Awed, dazzled, and we tm-n away in vain, 
 Our beings filled with godhead and its rays : 
 A restlessness which we would not restrain, 
 Urges us back once more to own his reign ; 
 A human form ! — but man, as when he trod 
 In naked majesty on Eden's plain ; 
 Wlien armed with fearless innocence, unawed, 
 He stood erect to heaven, and looked upon his God ! 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE ANTINOUS. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Yet, ere we part, pause gently on a form. 
 Model of human beauty in repose ! 
 The very hue of life lies on it warm : 
 How round that soft and delicate forehead flows 
 The clustering locks which all its beauty shows ; 
 Yet o'er those features in their pensive grace 
 Her softest shadow melancholy throws : 
 Ev'n curled Antinous could not hide the trace 
 Of the mind's beauty dimmed by sensual passions base. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Thus, o'er that brow there breathes a deep expres- 
 sion 
 Of sadness, like some Angel of the Light, 
 That mourns in secret grief the dark ti'ansgression 
 Which hurled the spirit from its heavenly height ; 
 Yet lacked the strength within, the moral might 
 To fix it there for ever ! oh, if well 
 Thou saidst, divinest Sage ! that in as bright 
 A shrine as its own form the soul should dwell, 
 From what a lofty height superb Antinous fell !
 
 THE LAOCOON. 197 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Behold the test of human agony ! 
 
 What man unaided in himself may bear ; 
 The wiithing group of the Laocoon see ; 
 Passion — will — hope — power — all are warring there : 
 Pangs by fear unconceived his vitals tear ; 
 But, in its tortured citadel, the Mind 
 Sublimely sits contending with despair ! 
 The eve recoils before the snakes entwined ; 
 While to our heart of hearts his sufferings are consigned. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 His head leans back in languor, and his brow 
 Is ploughed by pain in furrows : his raised eyes 
 Strained, and rolled back in their white orbs, avow 
 His inward and unspoken agonies ! 
 His parted lips gasp on for life in sighs, 
 But to endure — to conquer in a strife 
 Whose racking moments are eternities ; 
 His arms, thrown upwards, show each sinew rife 
 With fixed and maddening effort — 'tis for death or life !
 
 198 THE LAOCOON. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Not for his own, for self is all forgot 
 Even on his rack of agony : ye see, 
 And feel, he struggles to avert their lot. 
 Twins of their mother clinging round his knee I 
 In their last agonies convulsively 
 Calling their sire and heaven alike in vain ; 
 In him the Spirit of Humanity 
 Embodied sits, contending against pain, 
 Writhing within the bonds of Fate's relentless chain. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Scarce hath the Poet of the Marble hidden 
 Truth, 'neath this symbol of immortal skill : 
 How its high moral swells the heart unbidden ! — 
 The Image of indomitable Will 
 Warring against a mightier Influence still : 
 Of Virtue, rising over agony, 
 Yea, ev'n humanity, so it fulfil 
 Its loftier aim ; and meet its destiny 
 AVith a contending mind, and an unshaken eye !
 
 THE FIGHTING GLADIATOR. 199 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Pride hath not stoicised his heart : he is 
 A man, no Titan, nor with heaven contends : 
 He, too, doth teach man's sufferings to be less : 
 To' oppose that evil destiny which blends 
 Itself with human nature, and impends 
 Alike o'er all ; what then is our defence ? 
 Endurance — but which yields not, nor defends ; 
 Forming its own concentered recompense, 
 
 Though hope's last light were fled, though faith were 
 banished hence. 
 
 XLIX. 
 Behold the fighting Gladiator stand : 
 Head, arm, and foot, and body forward thrown ; 
 How doth that sinewy frame its strength expand ! 
 Mind, feeling, consciousness, and memory shown 
 Centered in one absorbing thought alone. 
 Defence — with daring ! — in that brow, ye read. 
 And the fierce eye, intensely fixed in stone, 
 The purpose of some spirit-stirring deed. 
 
 Whose stern, resolved gesture tells it shall succeed !
 
 200 GUI do's aurora. 
 
 L. 
 
 How beautiful is Courage ! how sublime 
 To see one man, by Nature armed, stand forth 
 Opposed to himdreds ! — such claims every clime, 
 And age — for Valour hath a common birth ; 
 Lo, how his nerves are his linked mail, that girth 
 The naked trunk ; his shield, his heart, that grows 
 Greater as Danger magnifies its worth ! 
 His arms, his weapons : stretched to meet the blows. 
 The brunt, the storm of War on their unstooping boughs ! 
 
 LI. 
 
 Fling back the Orient-gates ! behold awaking 
 Aurora beautiful from tranced sleep : 
 While with her roseate fingers she is shaking 
 Mom from her starry hair ! the young Hours keep 
 Watch o'er her car, and round its pathway sweep 
 Roses, while scattering onward as they flee, 
 Rays of bright Hght like foam upon the Deep ; 
 DowTiward they wheel in dance and revelry, 
 Waking on Earth's grey hills the choirs of melody.
 
 thp: MOSES. 201 
 
 LII. 
 
 She is arrayed in glory ! round her head, 
 
 Iris her diadem etliereal flings, 
 
 Her bow, o'er which the Sun's bright rays are shed, 
 
 Who, with all-radiant eyes, the treasure brings 
 
 For his immortal daughter ! — up she springs : 
 
 Her car is loosed, her banner is unftuled : 
 
 Life wakes from death-like sleep. Time plumes his 
 
 wings : 
 Night's shadows backward to their caves are hurled, 
 Beht)ld — a day — a day is given to the world ! 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Apart from all — in loneliness sublime, 
 Even as he lived : a solitary Sun 
 That shone amid the ancient night of time, 
 To guide a Nation's pilgrimage begim : 
 Hope of their path : their light and safety won 
 From Truth — the pillar of Fire : lo, him alone 
 On Sinai's Mount who looked upon the One ! 
 His form colossal as his spirit shown, 
 Sits the great Hebrew-Seer upon his marble throne.
 
 202 THE MOSES. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 He holds the Law : that law — stamped scorching- 
 given 
 In earthquake, thunder, and in flame ! his brow 
 Is radiant with the glory caught from heaven : 
 As, when confronting God, he dared to show 
 His human fears, nor boundless faith avow : 
 He is half-risen, and fi-owning down, surveys 
 The apostate people faithless then as now : 
 In vice imbruted, awed beneath his gaze. 
 Sunk in idolatry to very beasts that graze. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Statue of more than kingly majesty ! 
 Form of the antique time ! thou dost reveal 
 The power and greatness of an age gone by : 
 Who can behold thy solemn front, nor feel 
 The awe, the reverential fear, and weal 
 Of old religion ! faith as great as thine, 
 Or his, on whom the Eternal set his seal. 
 And he was not ; his body made divine 
 Ere yet the soul had parted from its mortal shrine.
 
 INFLUENCES OF SCULPTURE. 203 
 
 LVI. 
 
 The Mind, beholding thee, becomes antique, 
 Austere, and unadorned, and full of power ; 
 Till lesser forms diminished seem, and weak : 
 The soul assumes thy strength for its own dower. 
 And upward looks to thee as to a tower, 
 Dread Image of sublimed humanity ! 
 What are the vain regrets of our brief hour ? 
 Dare ive repine ? ev'n thou wert doomed to die, 
 
 Then, when God's promised land just reached thy lov- 
 ing eye. 
 
 LVII. 
 Synod of gods and heroes ! symbols, ye. 
 Of strength, of beauty, and divine repose, 
 And of our state of immortality ; 
 Of that quiescent, blessed mood, that owes 
 No tax to earthlier passion and its woes : 
 Above desire, or envy, hope, or fear : 
 Our aim, though ever hopeless, to compose 
 Our spirits thus in mortal durance here. 
 
 Subject to all the storms that vex oiu nether sphere.
 
 204 INFLUENCES 01" SCULPTURE. 
 
 LVIII. 
 How, in the tranquil and sublime expression 
 Humanity hath stamped upon your brows, 
 The heart grows softened, till it breathes confession 
 In silence, or in language which avows 
 Its feeling with the Beauty where it bows ! 
 The very atmosphere doth here impress 
 Tranquillity, which from your presence grows : 
 A quiet whose repose is happiness, 
 Caught from the life around, so mute, and passionless. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Handmaid of Truth, even thus is Art divine, 
 
 The daughter of Religion : so she stood 
 
 When first she reared from earth her heavenward 
 
 shrine ; 
 Embodying into human shape the good. 
 Where the full heart could pour its gratitude ; 
 Type of the Perfect emanated forth 
 From its own heavenly nature ; to be wooed, 
 Yea, worshipped : for, though fashioned from the earth, 
 It imaged forth the God, and proved man's godlike 
 birth.
 
 RETURN TO NATURE. 205 
 
 LX. 
 
 And beautiflilly Art hath bodied forth, 
 Nursed in her own ideal world apart, 
 This Perfect which exists not upon earth : 
 But whose bright form from man will not depart, 
 Angel of that dark world, the human heart ! 
 There sleeps its image folded o'er its shrine, 
 Till, Pallas-like, its full proportions start 
 Embodied into life, and prove the mine, 
 The faculties of Thought, as boundless, as divine. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 But the o'erwrought mind, wearied, asks for rest : 
 Its hour of ecstasy hath briefest date. 
 And when the fit is over, how confessed 
 Is om' vitality : the sinking weight. 
 We felt not, raised erewhile to an elate, 
 And feverish excitement, whose false strain 
 Embraced those forms which tasked life to create. 
 In moments ; till relaxed the effort vain. 
 Recoiling nature proves our impotence again.
 
 206 GROTTO OF EGERIA. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 We turn aside for rest, and where, oh, where, 
 Find we a comforter and friend, whose healing 
 Soft, social silence we so well could bear, 
 That harmonises with our every feeling 
 Like thee, our nurse, great matron. Nature ! stealing 
 Forgotten griefs away : thou dost reward 
 All hearts that tiu'n to thee : thou hast revealing 
 For each, and all : sage, conqueror, and bard : 
 By him who calls on thee, thy still small Voice is heard. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 And, could we choose a spot, this vale elysian 
 Methinks must bound our wishes ; but there dwells 
 Within its sanctuary a deathless Vision : 
 A tale to which the bosom fondly swells, 
 Believing in it more than oracles ; 
 Look at yon grot beneath its bank of earth ! 
 Haunt where Tradition leaves its brightest spells : 
 A Spirit dwelt within of heavenly birth. 
 To whom the kingly Numa knelt, and proved her worth ;
 
 GROTTO OF EGEIUA. "207 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Gathering from her those inspirations poured 
 Pure from her lips as yonder welHng stream, 
 At whose turf-altar gi'ateful E-ome adored : 
 Who would disturb, or turn from such a dream 
 On whose clear glass the soul of Truth doth beam ? 
 There met the lovers, when no footstep rude 
 Profaned their haunts, or broke their peace supreme ; 
 Thou, who might'st even now be won if wooed, 
 Sacred Egeria, hear ! thy name was Solitude ! 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Inspfring then, as now : the arch is broken. 
 Thy weed-heaped shrine is fallen to decay : 
 Thy oracles are silent — they have spoken : 
 Two thousand years have fled like Yesterday ! 
 All but tlie name of Rome hath passed away. 
 Yet still exists the moral of thy tale, 
 Founded on Truth eternal as the Day ! 
 Nature and Truth are one ; all powers may fail, 
 The Stars may quit their spheres, but these shall aye 
 prevail.
 
 208 TUSCULUM. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Egerian solitude ! the spell still lingers, 
 
 That chains us to this spot — 'tis Beauty ; here, 
 
 How delicately twined are her sweet fingers 
 
 With the wild flowers whose spring-time is the year : 
 
 Rome in the deep blue distance doth appear : 
 
 And the far murmur of her life is borne 
 
 Faintly, as once, to Numa's musing ear ! 
 
 Creating, it may be, the same outworn 
 
 Thoughts, which o'er human life despond, rejoice, and 
 mourn. 
 
 LXVII. 
 Such be not here indulged : too quiet, this, 
 For aught but tenderest memories ; visions fraught 
 With forms of past or coming happiness ; 
 Turn gently hence, and be it unforgot, 
 When passed, but leave thy blessing on the spot ! 
 For yonder, as of old, a Spirit dwells, 
 Whose influence, lingering here, thou, too, hast 
 
 caught ; 
 Pass gently : — and ascend the wooded dells, 
 
 O'er which Frescati throned her ancient greatness tells.
 
 TUSCULUM. 'iOy 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 The Tusculum of Cicero ! the name 
 To him endeared, and unto us entwined 
 With all his plaints, and vanity, and fame ; 
 There where to peacefiil solitude resigned. 
 He bodied forth those thoughts, to Time consigned, 
 On life, and on eternity ; and planned 
 That eloquence of over-mastering mind, 
 What aweless Catiline dared not withstand, 
 Struck down, at once, as if from Jove's resistless hand ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Ascend the hill : the olive-groves are spreading 
 Their pale boughs round thee ; and the ilex throws 
 Its depths of shade : on violets thou art treading ; 
 How their rich fragrance 'neath thy footstep grows ! 
 The very lap of Nature overflows 
 With their o'erheaped profiision ; lo, the crest 
 Of the crowned hill, beside which in repose, 
 The Grotto's rise full opening to the west : 
 There where the sage indulged his meditative rest. 
 
 p
 
 •210 RUINS OF THE VILLA. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 And while the Sun, like a material god, 
 His crown of latest glories on him threw, 
 Ere sinking down in yonder azure road : 
 Perchance, while gazing, he sighed vainly too, 
 Even thus his youth departed to renew ; 
 That nought his earthly memories might efface : 
 It may be, thus absorbed, thoughts worthier grew : 
 He felt he left behind no fading trace : 
 Installed by Fame for ever in his " pride of place." 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 And down the gradual bank, ye trace remains 
 Of his small garden, now with ruins crowned : 
 How, from that spot, the eye commanding reigns, 
 O'er all the boundless Landscape ! the hills round 
 Shelving towards yon depth of plain profound, 
 Where, in the distance, like a coiling snake. 
 Its glittering scales to the bright Sun unwound. 
 The Tibur's streams their thread-like mazes make 
 To the horizon line, where spreads its azure lake,
 
 REFLECTIONS. -211 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 The dark MediteiTanean ! with its bays 
 
 Opening to meet his tributary stream : 
 
 Oh, the rewarding rapture of that gaze, 
 
 When years of hope long past — like moments seem, 
 
 Making the realised no more a dream ! 
 
 There sped .^neas from the Tyrrhene Sea : 
 
 There Alba's Mount reflects the sun's last gleam ; 
 
 Natiure's chart spreads beneath eternally, 
 Which Maro's spirit hallowed, while he blessed like 
 thee. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 This is to multiply among mankind 
 
 A life undying : no faint spark, to be 
 
 In darkness smothered, but a flame enshrined. 
 
 To warm, to animate humanity ! 
 
 To open every generous sympathy 
 
 That draws man nearer to his fellow-men 
 
 By ties of virtue and of liberty ; 
 
 Inspiring, softening his heart, which then 
 Beholds its native worth reflected back again, 
 
 p 2
 
 212 CICERO. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 And purified in the clear glass of Truth, 
 And Poesy, till time he would redeem, 
 Learning to reverence himself in youth, 
 Ere taught by age ; is fame Hke this, a gleam 
 To fade ? oh ! rather ask, doth it not seem 
 All we can hope of future happiness. 
 Even in fancy's most abstracted dream ? 
 Is it not, living here, mankind to bless? 
 Even, as a god unseen, to make life's evils less ! 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Lives there who hath the gift and dares abuse ? 
 Dares feed his heaven-lit torch with light from hell ? 
 His powers in very wantonness misuse ? 
 Better for him that he for ever dwell 
 Among the damned — no ! be his ciu"se, the spell 
 To witness — doomed to walk awhile on earth — 
 The pangs of those, the innocent, who fell 
 Into his snares, yet feel how little worth 
 His efforts weighed against the Good's eternal birth.
 
 CICERO. 213 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Not such wert thou, sweet Tully ! the sublime 
 And awful forms of Nature entering here, 
 Built up thy soul ; the softness of the clime 
 Tempered from stoic firmness too austere : 
 Silence and grandeur taught thee to revere 
 Thyself; while, borne on Contemplation's wings, 
 Thy soul ascending sought a higher sphere : 
 The rabble's praise or curse, the open stings 
 Of hate or spleen, and chief, the ingratitude which wrings 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 The patriot's noble heart, were here unfelt ; 
 Saviour of Rome ! what motive's stem control 
 Urged thee fiom this sweet haunt where quiet dwelt ? 
 What passion swayed ? — to hear the thunder-roll 
 Of the lewd rabble's shouts ? to see the whole 
 Senate obsequious rise beneath thy nod ? 
 No — 'twas to gain the applause of thy great soul !. 
 The rule of Duty held by thee miawed, 
 Made thy retreat the sanctuary of a god!
 
 214 riCERO's ACTIONS. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Thou gav'st Rome Freedom — thy great task was done : 
 The shouts which would have hailed with the same 
 
 tone, 
 Tyrant or freeman, broke not moments won 
 For commmiing — the joy of being alone : 
 What wealth could for their sacrifice atone ? 
 The peace, the rapturous thrill of thy full breast ; 
 The mind reposing, king-hke, on its throne ! 
 Conscious of all its innate worth expressed ; 
 
 Virtue's self-given crown that makes Fame's wreath a 
 jest. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 What were thy high thoughts gazing on thy home, 
 The Eternal City rearing her far brow .? — 
 That thy all-matchless eloquence saved Rome 
 From fire and sword ; yea, from the very plough 
 Razing the gi'ound where once she stood — as now ! 
 How much of life was crowded in thy span I — 
 All that bards, sages, in their dreams avow, 
 Thou wcrt !— oh, well, ere thy first race was ran, 
 
 Great Nature taught thee here that Ihou wcrt still a man !
 
 HORACE, 215 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Leave not too hastily the scenes above; 
 A gentler spmt here hath sanctihed 
 Nature with yearning and affectionate love ; 
 There, where the lengthened range of hills divide, 
 Fronting the sun -rise and his set, each side ; 
 There, where the cornels on the hawthorn bloom, 
 With his own verse immortally allied, 
 There — could'st thou. Earth, the treasure disinhume, 
 Stood the low decent cot where Horace built his tomb. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 Methinks I see it now: — the pine-tree bending 
 
 O'er its thatched roof, where vine-leaves trelliced 
 
 clung ; 
 Behind, his oak-wood darker shadows lending : 
 His browsing goats along the herbage ilung : 
 Through his low fronting garden glides along 
 That sun-lit stream from thee, Bandusia! won : 
 As fresh and as inspiring as his song ; 
 Revivifying all it toucheth on, 
 And calling life from flowers whose sweet brcalli nigh 
 
 was gone.
 
 216 HIS SABINE FARM. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 And now my mind's eye gently pictures forth 
 That bard of lowly statme by his door ; 
 His cheerful eye instinct with honest worth, 
 With silvered locks ere middle age be o'er : 
 His brow relaxed, where moral thought no more 
 Gently contends with his humanity ; 
 For, ye may see, reclined that stream before, 
 Its bubbling voices and the open sky 
 Have entered in his soul, have filled his heart and eye ! 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 While mirrored there as in a glass of truth, 
 Visions of life's reflected memories show 
 The feverish scenes and follies of his youth ; 
 Drawing that human sigh we all bestow 
 On parted cbeams of happiness below : 
 And then came o'er him all the consciousness 
 Of contrast : the mind's quiet that doth grow 
 From passion satiate with its own excess ; 
 That leaves, at last, its votaries leisure to confess ;
 
 REFLECTIONS. 2 1 7 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 To muse upon the past ; life's early hope, 
 Its aim, and failme, and despair, when found 
 How weak om- strength with passion's host to cope ; 
 Shall not these fetters be, at last, unbound, 
 That chain our soul, still baffled, to the ground ? 
 No — for unproved were then our mortal part : 
 The softened moral, and the thought profound, 
 The vain remorse, the darkest memories start 
 From the deep tideless calm of him of sated heart ! 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Yet not of sorrow — he who life hath proved, 
 Feels luxury in tears that flow within. 
 Leaving the brow unwrinkled and mimoved : 
 And thou wert happy ; living, thou didst win 
 Thy fame : the quiet spot, in which begin 
 And end our hopes, was thine ; and though thy breast 
 Poured forth its gratitude in this soft scene. 
 Yet was not half thy happiness confessed ; 
 All the heart's finest chords die with us unexpressed !
 
 218 MEMOKIES OF HORACE. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Thy house is not thy tomb : the very place 
 On which it stood is not ; for earth is fraught 
 With change, and doth, like Time, her forms efface : 
 Thou couldst not die ! thy life, which is thy Thought, 
 Is self-existent, and with ours is wrought, 
 Transfused through mind for ever ; what is death ? — 
 To suik into the earth and be forgot ; 
 To leave behind no trace ; to hang no wreath 
 Above our grave to tell who lived — loved — felt — beneath. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Nay, be such phantasies forgiven ! yet who 
 Can think of thee, nor feel, that, like a charm, 
 Thy name, sweet Horace ! doth those thoughts renew. 
 And feelings which again our bosom warm, 
 And of austerer moods of mind disarm : 
 Who hath not sighed, in youth or age, to flee 
 To the fond covert of thy Sabine farm ? 
 To share thy pride, thy manly dignity, 
 The freeman's fearless spirit, aye, avowed by thee !
 
 HIS FAME. 219 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Poet of human nature ! to all ages 
 Thou speakest, to all tongues, to every clime : 
 Thy varying lay the heart excites, assuages: 
 Gentle, sad, wayward, trifling, or sublime, 
 Well didst thou match thy fame against all time, 
 For thou had'st that within to answer back 
 The life of ages dwelling on thy rhyme : 
 The hope, the gi'ief, the prayer, the jealous rack, — 
 All thy own feelings share who walk our human track. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 Who felt the nothingness of human life, 
 Profoundly as thyself? for thou had'st tried 
 All — both the solitude and social strife ; 
 Who hath so gently probed our weaker pride } 
 Or given us moral armour to abide 
 The strokes of fortune ? who so well hath shown 
 The wisdom to enjoy life's eventide, 
 Gratefully, while the hour is yet our own, 
 Ere life and time, the shades, from us, like thee, be 
 flown }
 
 220 TIVOLI. 
 
 XC. 
 
 " How much of time is lost in petty stiife 
 *' With trifles ; here, unmoved by hope or fear, 
 " I commune with myself; true, genuine life ! 
 " Grateful and honourable rest ; more dear 
 *' Than noblest offices ; thou Nurse severe 
 " Of solemn thought, who dost all thought sustain, 
 " How hast thou. Solitude ! inspired me here : 
 " Thou bid'st me idly not of life complain, 
 " But stamp upon the age my impress, not in vain." 
 
 XCI. 
 
 And where breathes Nature truer Oracles 
 Than in thy depths, romantic Tivoli ! 
 Here, where the Spirit of past ages dwells, 
 Lulled by the Waters' Voice of prophecy ! 
 Endiademed with craggy majesty. 
 And plumed with woods that shed a horror romid ; 
 From the profoundest chasm lift up thine eye ! 
 Lo — o'er yon far off points extremest bound. 
 Abrupt, hung imminent against the blue profound,
 
 THE TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL. '2'2\ 
 
 XCII. 
 
 The Sibyl's temple stands, the earthly link 
 That draws ye from those sunken depths to heaven, 
 Based on the precipice's airy brink ! 
 The Arno rushes downward headlong driven 
 O'er the crushed rocks in its wild pathway riven, 
 Chaos of Waters ! — but ye heed them not ; 
 In vain the flowers to catch thine eye have striven, 
 Or the wild terrors of the Syren's Grot : 
 Eye, sense, and soul absorbed, are fixed upon the spot, 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 Where that wTecked Image of the Beautifiil 
 Yet sits within its undecaying shrine ! 
 Looking an eloquence which doth o'er-rule 
 The heart far more than language, though divine 
 Were he who spake ; how swells the flowing line 
 Of light and delicate proportion there ! 
 How the grey tints, while mellowing, refine : 
 Giving a speaking sadness to its air, 
 A venerable grace ! which now appears more fair.
 
 223 THE TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 More touching, than when in its youthful prime 
 It claimed, and won from rival shrines the prize : 
 Oh ! what a magic lends the touch cf Time ! 
 How the o'erflowing feelings sympathise 
 With what we are, or shall be, while our eyes 
 Turn to the forms of beauty which have been ! 
 We clothe the ^^Teck with our humanities. 
 Until decay itself no more is seen, 
 Hued by the loving heart with an eternal green. 
 
 XCV. 
 
 And, while the resting eye dwells there, the mind 
 Calls up the spirits of the mighty dead. 
 Who once beside those pediments reclined ; 
 Screened from the sun by the long shadows spread 
 From their Corinthian columns ; they are fled 
 With countless ages : still eternal seem 
 Those capitals, yon fall of waters sped ; 
 Alas, for man ! for there, in power supreme, 
 Augustus gazed, as thou, upon yon riishing stream ;
 
 Hadrian's villa. 223 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 And Virgil — Horace — sate by either side ; 
 While their perfumed Mecaenas wiled in gay 
 And social talk the hours as now they glide ; 
 Sporting the jest, perchance, in careless play, 
 Which others made whose life was yesterday ! 
 Alas, for him who feels the sweet belief 
 To be remembered ever ! — turn away : 
 Be not this haunt profaned with idle grief, 
 But learned the lessons taught us in life's span so brief 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 Or, would'st thou choose a spot where gentler Nature 
 Awes not as here, but woos thee in her guise 
 Of Syren beauty ; where her every feature 
 Breathes speaking tenderness, and where her sighs 
 Fill the live air with vocal melodies, 
 And the rapt bosom with that love profound 
 Which joins the Universe in holy ties ; 
 Turn, where beside yon low hill's mural mound, 
 The wrecks of Hadrian's villa beautify the ground.
 
 224 THOUGHTS IN HADRIAN's VILLA. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Retreat of tired ambition satiate; 
 The world's dull stage or left in hate, or scorn 
 Of the crowd's senseless clamours, that await 
 Victor or vanquished, which on either fawn ; 
 When the far distant goal to which are borne 
 Ambition's aching eyes, at last, is gained. 
 For what ? — to pause for rest — to see the dawn 
 Of truth first break : nerves shattered — strength o'er- 
 strained. 
 
 Such the rewards which wait Power's worthless prize 
 attained. 
 
 XCIX. 
 And in that nook, howe'er concealed, be sure 
 The natural bias of the heart is known: 
 The pride, or vanities that still endure ; 
 Or the mind's first simplicity is shown, 
 Ere called to ripen rankly on a throne 
 Passions and crimes that else had been untaught : 
 So rises then the cell, or hall of stone, 
 True emblem of the inner mind, each brought 
 
 To mate with solitude, to court, or fly from thought.
 
 Hadrian's villa. 225 
 
 C. 
 
 But Hadrian's vanity this spot endeared : 
 
 A city in one villa stood enshrined : 
 
 All objects of all foreign climes upreared, 
 
 In one vast labyrinth confusedly joined ; 
 
 The theatre — arena — bath — combined ; 
 
 Lo — through yon nan'ow vale the Peneus ran, 
 
 Taught through Thessalian Tempe's woods to wind ! 
 
 Even Nature here was travestied by man ; 
 Art racked — invention toiled — to crowd life's narrow 
 span. 
 
 CI. 
 
 Lo — in this Hall, where sophists met, and spent 
 
 In aimless disputation the long hours, 
 
 A race, as frail as they and impotent. 
 
 Teaching far deeper lessons — those sweet flowers ! 
 
 Than e'er were culled in Academic bowers ; 
 
 Oh ! who can reach their moral } who can look 
 
 On them, nor feel their purity o'erpowers ? 
 
 Who reads not in their hues, as in a book, 
 How He, their Maker, these the glorious chaplet took, 
 
 Q
 
 '2*26 Hadrian's villa. 
 
 CIl. 
 
 AiTaying the fair-haired Earth with them, to be 
 A shrine of peace : in their brief life to prove 
 Man's birth, and death, and immortality ; 
 And therefore hath that hand Almighty wove 
 In braided wreaths the stariy hosts above : 
 Oh, then for ever be man's blessing given 
 To those mute harbingers of hope and love ! 
 Those witnesses, that, crushed to earth and riven, 
 For ever spring from dust, and turn their eyes to heaven ! 
 
 cm. 
 
 Haunt of the Earth, where Paradise once more 
 To the eye opens its refulgent ray. 
 The last rich gleam from Eden's closing door ! — 
 How more than all enshrined by phantasy 
 Of bowers in star-lit glades of Arcady, 
 Haunt of heroic fonns and gods of old ; 
 How more than opened o'er yon Western Sky, 
 Where the red clouds are round their day-god rolled. 
 Doth this Hesperian garden to the eye unfold
 
 Hadrian's villa. -227 
 
 CIV. 
 
 A visible gloiy, fi'om the blossoms spread 
 Tangling around ye ! where the violet's breath 
 Is with the acacias, almonds, myrtles, shed : 
 There are no ruins, nought to tell of death. 
 For Nature, robed in one eternal wreath, 
 With her sweet fingers gently veils decay ! 
 Cresting with flowers each wreck, and, mossed be- 
 neath. 
 Her greenest mantle : oh ! at close of day. 
 Or when the solemn Moon sheds down her heavenly ray, 
 
 CV. 
 
 What haunt more lovely, holy, could be found 
 For meditation, for the dead to rise. 
 And tell the secrets of their sleep profound ! 
 Till, palpably confessed before the eyes, 
 Antinous rose, and Hadrian, in their ties 
 Of life united still : but sadly now 
 Musing o'er human mutabilities ! 
 While the Moon, lightening o'er each solemn brow. 
 Showed well the better thoughts their downcast eyes avow. 
 
 Q 2
 
 •228 LAKE ALBANO. 
 
 CVI. 
 
 Farewell ! — that word which speaks mortality : 
 Teaching, too soon, the truths we would not learn. 
 Life's changeful scenes and stern reality : 
 
 What are we ? travellers each moment borne 
 On — on — while to the flying past we yearn ! 
 Farewell — the word hath a prophetic tone 
 That almost sighs the promise of return ! 
 The echo of a joy, whose sound, ere flown. 
 Seemed as it mocked our hopes to fix one hour our own. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 But lo, emerging from the depths of shade 
 Of wildly tangling woods that round us rise, 
 The draperies of Nature unarrayed 
 In rude magnificence — Albano lies ! 
 Her lake of beauty opening to the skies : 
 Bosomed in crags, which, darkening mid-air. 
 Reveal nought but the azure of her eyes. 
 Overshadowed by the acacia's golden hair ! 
 A blessing to tlie eye that lovingly dwells there !
 
 LAKE ALBANO. 220 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 The mirror of Diana of old time : 
 
 The glass in which that virgin face she viewed, 
 
 Wliose beauty mocks, as now, the poet's rhyme ; 
 
 Lo, still the precincts of her sacred wood, 
 
 Where, save her starry Nymphs, none dared intrude ; 
 
 There, while they sped the chase in flying joy, 
 
 She, throned above in peerless solitude, 
 
 Charmed in his sleep the' enthusiast Shepherd-boy 
 
 Or woke those thoughts perturbed, that like fell hounds 
 destroy. 
 
 CIX. 
 Pm-e, beautiful belief ! the heart refining 
 From its more gross and dark idolatries ; 
 To every shape of Nature, forms assigning ; 
 Beings that linked it closer with the skies ; 
 When each dim nook were godhead's sanctuaries ! 
 All emanating, tending from the One ; 
 When the swift shadow grew to Fancy's eyes, 
 The Oread ! — when, deep shadowed from the sun, 
 
 The Naid spread around her \eil of waters dun !
 
 230 BEAUTY OF OLD TRADITION. 
 
 ex. 
 
 Then was each Fount the Altar of a god, 
 More holy felt and spiritual still ! 
 And man traced there his image as he trod 
 In youth — ere turned aside by human will ; 
 When the Wood's shadows gratefully could fill 
 His heart, even as a blessing ! so confessed 
 In the libations poured forth to fulfil 
 Due reverence to the Powers who watched the feast ; 
 To Nature, gratitude — to men, his love increased, 
 
 CXI. 
 
 They live no more, those idols of the heart ! 
 Created by the Spirit of our Thought, 
 Innately feeling its immortal pait ; 
 Thus peopling Vacancy with beings wrought 
 From its own heavenly essence, from the o'erfraught 
 Ideal beautiful with which it strove : 
 The Intermediates with the Unforgot ; 
 Companions where to pour its flowing love, 
 Proving its source liom Him whose name it is above.
 
 THE ALBAN MOUNT. 231 
 
 CXII. 
 
 They live no more, those beings of the mind ! 
 But are we better with our wisdom won ? 
 Lives not the Eternal Father still enshrined 
 In Nature, now, as when the world begun ? 
 How cold, how lifeless all illusion gone, 
 Were her pure shrine unpeopled by the heart, 
 Nor warmed by love and faith as by the sun ! 
 What were our world if they from it depart ? — 
 A wilderness, where Death for ever points his dart. 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 Farewell ! — where better could the word be spoken 
 Than from these wrecks of Jove's deserted sluine ? 
 I look from Alba's Mount 'mid columns broken. 
 Over a rolling landscape made divine 
 By God : and after, by the immortal line 
 Of him, inspired with prophecy of old ! 
 Lo — far beneath, his Tibur's waters shine ! 
 Ardea, Lavinium, Laurentum rolled 
 Their troops along those banks, which still thou may'st 
 behold.
 
 232 FAREVVELL TO KOME. 
 
 CXIV. 
 
 Even as he — in vision, in the dream 
 Of that creation in which all, or less, 
 Or more, exist : that light which sheds its gleam 
 O'er desert hearts all else companionless ! 
 Farewell, thou Rome ! where better could we bless 
 Thee, than where here thy Alban-Mother grey 
 Watches thy tomb in yon far wilderness ! 
 Matron and son alike have passed away. 
 But left their fame entwined for ever — as to-day. 
 
 END OF CANTO IV.
 
 CANTO V.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Morning over Naples— gradual effects of the growing light on the city 
 and the shore. Influences of the beauty of its locality on the mind. Bay 
 of Naples — Isle of Capri. Apostrophe to Parthenope, still the presiding 
 spirit of the spot— Mai du Pays. The beauty of Nature is here seen 
 in its fullest development. Vesuvius : Herculaneum. The Ascent — the 
 desolation ; the Cone, and the heights — the Record. 
 
 The river Sarno and Pompeii : first appearance — its silence. Forum — 
 its ruin, but beautiful situation. Temples of Venus, Jove, and Isis. The 
 Tragic and Comic Theatres : reflections therein — the willow. Street of 
 Tombs — the sepulchre ; thoughts on funereal offerings. The House of 
 Diomed — description : the last hour recalled : the terrors and the flight. 
 The Priest — the Slave — and the Roman Sentinel. Retreat of the Family 
 of Diomed : their despair and death. Thoughts on the ruins of empires 
 — Conclusion.
 
 CANTO V. 
 
 1. 
 
 It is the morn — the ever-blessed morn ! 
 The Fomitains of Existence are poured forth, 
 Life's renovating streams for ever borne, 
 Inspiring gladness to the ends of earth ; 
 Lo — Naples, she so restless in her mirth, 
 Nor sees nor hears the beauty o'er her shed : 
 She sleeps, as sleeps an infant at its birth ! 
 The Elements, her handmaids, softly tread. 
 While ministering round her wave-encircled bed.
 
 236 MORNING ON NAPLES. 
 
 II. 
 
 For, like a blue-eyed Spirit, the Sky above 
 Bends from its throne the blushing earth to meet : 
 And the Air sighs o'er her its breath of love ; 
 While the deep Sea makes music at her feet, 
 A song for ever low, for ever sweet : 
 And o'er her brow are hues to Iris given, 
 Caught from yon Sun that steals on her retreat ! 
 While gently still his pausing wheels are driven, 
 Watching her sleep beneath the holy vault of heaven ! 
 
 III. 
 
 The Bay's encircling arms with fond embrace 
 Guard her while sitting on the enchanted shore : 
 The Sea is mirroring her lovely face : 
 The Ampitheatre of Hills that soar 
 Behind her, looking as if tints they wore 
 Of heaven, mantle vines around her breast, 
 In Bacchanal profusion shadowing o'er ! 
 Orange, rose, citron, by the winds caressed. 
 Waft fragrance, as if borne Irom mansions of the blest.
 
 BAY OF NAPLES. 237 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thou Paradise of exiles! oh, thou Land, 
 Whose very air oblivion brings to those 
 Who would forget the past ! thy hills expand 
 Around, and girdling, from the world enclose : 
 The very odour wafted from the rose 
 Gives balm to wounded spirits, and a healing- 
 Softness, and peace, which is itself repose; 
 From the blue sky above is shed a feeling 
 Upon the tranced sense like softest music stealing ! 
 
 V. 
 
 But lo, yon empyrean spread beneath, 
 That marvel of the earth, fair Naples' bay ! 
 Those Waters floating like heaven's azure breath : 
 And laving shores and towns, where to delay 
 All occupation, basked in the sun's ray. 
 While listening to their di'eamy melody, 
 Are life's sole ends — what worthier have they ? 
 Is it not better thus, than vainly sigh 
 For their Day's sun eclipsed, heart-wakening liberty ?
 
 238 ISLE OF CAPRI. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And azure Capri lies in the deep Sea, 
 Rent from her parent mountains, all alone ; 
 Like some bright Image of futurity, 
 Hued by our fondest fancies, and the throne 
 Where from the world young hope and love are flown ; 
 So meets the eye that spirit-haunted isle ! 
 Alas, the present only is our own ; 
 Yet the heart still is soothed by its own wile, 
 And loves its dream of joy, that flatters to beguile. 
 
 VII. 
 
 thou Parthenope ! no rainbow Vision : 
 
 1 see thee an embodied Form divine, 
 The haunting Spirit of this land elysian : 
 
 Lo, 'midst yon mountains thou hast reared thy 
 
 shrine ; 
 There, leaning 'gainst the oak, thou dost recline, 
 Around thy brows the purple tendrils clung. 
 Pressed in thy hand the rich cup's mantling wine ; 
 A wildei-ness of sweets above thee hung ; 
 Beneath thy feet the flowers in wild profusion flung.
 
 PARTHENOPE. 239 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And oh ! that form so delicately moulded, 
 
 So flowmg, flexile, goddess-like, and fair, 
 
 Such as in Sleep are silently unfolded. 
 
 When from their mansions star-like forms repair 
 
 To realise the shapes we dream of there ; 
 
 Thy smile— the very birth of light ! thine eyes, 
 
 Caught from yon heaven their tenderest azure, where 
 
 The heart's lost happiness deep buried lies ; 
 
 Thy brow — beneath whose arch Love ever homeward 
 flies ! 
 
 IX. 
 Nymph of immortal Beauty ! round thee throwing 
 A halo, which thy own reflection gives. 
 Soft as the mellowed flood of moonlight, glowing 
 Through the rich veil of Autumn's cincturing leaves! 
 The poetry of colom's ! such as weaves 
 Iris, or circle round the Lord of Day, 
 When Twilight from his presence life receives ; 
 Dost thou not still shed down thine influence, say. 
 
 On those who seek thy shrine for ever — as to-dav .'' —
 
 240 PARTHENOPE. 
 
 X. 
 
 Thou dost: thou art the Spirit of pure Love 
 Dreamed by the sage of old, which filled the Whole; 
 Whose inspirations quickening from above, 
 Entering, built up, yea, made the poet's soul ! 
 Until his song, poured forth without control. 
 Became as deathless : thou art she, whose shrine 
 Still stands where Baiae's azure waters roll ; 
 In her air still is felt thy breath divine. 
 As mournfully thou sigh'st o'er haunts no longer thine ! 
 
 MAL DU PAYS : 
 FROM THE BAY OF NAPLES. 
 
 1. 
 
 I sit upon a craggy stone 
 
 Beneath the vine-embosomed hill ; 
 The Waves are wildly round me thrown. 
 
 Each revelling in its own sweet will : 
 And blue as Ocean is the sky. 
 Lit by the Sun's all- cloudless eye !
 
 MAL DU PAYS. 24 1 
 
 2. 
 
 The Spirit of intense delight 
 
 Lives here ; the fiir is joy revealing : 
 Vesuvius, from his purple height, 
 
 Seems basking in the common feeling : 
 One chain of harmony and love 
 Links all below — around — above. 
 
 3. 
 And wherefore hangs this cloud of sadness 
 
 Upon my heart, when all is gay ? 
 Why lights not upon me the gladness 
 
 That animates this glorious day .'' 
 It is that on this craggy stone 
 I feel the only thing — alone. 
 
 4. 
 Yet heaven on earth around me lies ! 
 
 Those sands — the blue waves dancing o'er : 
 There is no dream of Paradise 
 
 Can rival this delicious shore ! 
 The very winds that fragrance bear 
 Seem breath of incense borne from there. 
 
 R
 
 •242 MAL Ui; PAYS,. 
 
 5. 
 
 The Mountains watch me from above ; 
 
 The Waves invite with their glad voice 
 Nature smiles on me in her love, 
 
 And Heaven bids me alike rejoice : 
 Yet does my heart alone expand 
 With memories of my native land ! 
 
 6. 
 Yon Sky looked not upon my birth : 
 
 The lovelier shore on which I tread 
 Is not my own — my Mother-earth ; 
 
 I could not sleep within its bed ! 
 I feel my very dust would join 
 My native Land ! at last, with ihifw ! 
 
 1. 
 Even now, while blessing thee, thy hills, 
 
 Thy low hills rise before my eye. 
 The greenness of thy herbage fills 
 
 My wearied heart refreshingly ! 
 While, looking upward, fills my eye 
 The witchery of thy soft blue Sky !
 
 MAL DU PAYS. 243 
 
 8. 
 I see the leafy covert, green, 
 
 And rich and shadowy ! — far within 
 Flashes of glancing sunlight seen ; 
 
 Glimpses of Paradise — which win 
 The eye to pierce their depths forbidden, 
 More dear — because in distance hidden ! 
 
 9. 
 I hear the wind — the joyous wind ! 
 
 Exulting in the outward air. 
 While all so thick the branches twined, 
 
 It cannot rudely enter there ; 
 But makes that music held so dear 
 By the rapt Poet's musing ear ! 
 
 10. 
 Lo — bosomed midst the shadowy trees, 
 
 Yon low thatched cottage peers in view ! 
 Mine eye the sun-burnt reaper sees ; 
 
 The gambols of his urchin crew : 
 I hear the harvest songs of home, 
 And marvel how I e'er could roam ! 
 
 r2
 
 244 VESUVIUS. 
 
 11. 
 
 The angiy Clouds, the rains that dash 
 
 Thy Landscape's changeful cheek with tears ! 
 
 The rainbow's hue, the sun-light's flash, 
 Thy gentle calm the more endears : 
 
 The storm — the cold — the damp — the chill. 
 
 Are but the types of human will. 
 
 12. 
 
 There is a sacred bond between 
 Man, and that spot where first the dawn. 
 
 The blessed Light of Day was seen ; 
 
 Where first his breath of Life was drawn ; 
 
 Rocks — wastes — seas — mountains round him rise, 
 
 Home — home the unexiled spirit flies !
 
 VESUVIUS. 245 
 
 XI. 
 
 How thy Circean draughts thou ofFerest still, 
 Fair Naples ! to the wanderer who returns 
 Sated with musing from the seven-fold liill, 
 Where thy sad Roman Sisters' spirit yearns 
 For those whose ashes fill no more her urns I 
 Away with grief! thy sun on him hath shone : 
 Who, in Joy's welcome, for a shadow mourns ? 
 Seize, while thou may'st, the hours still rolling on : 
 Thy life is gliding there — a moment more — 'tis gone. 
 
 XII. 
 Yes— I would sit at\hy Egyptian' feast, 
 Draining the bowl, aye, to its dregs ; but I 
 Have caught a Form there present, till hath ceased 
 My rapture in its growth, while, silently, 
 I have become as He ; and, with fixed eye, 
 Turn from the joys thou vainly dost prepare : 
 For I would through that robe of Clouds espy 
 Which shroud him : and the awful mysteries share 
 Of Him who hath for ages sate eternal there ! —
 
 246 VESUVIUS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Watching the millions who have loved, laughed, 
 
 grieved. 
 Then passed from life : in their light revelry 
 By others followed : who, the ground upheaved 
 Beneath them — He, the working deity! 
 The Swallower of Cities, and to be 
 Destroyer still : who from the depths beneath 
 Hath hurled up mountains cleaving through the Sea, 
 To rise, created isles : whose fiery breath 
 Shall sink the World at last in one abyss of death ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 O thou Vesuvius ! rising ever there, 
 Image of drear eternity — alone 
 Seated in thy own silent fields of air ! 
 Titan ! whose powers, perchance, are yet unknown ; 
 Whirlwinds, rain, hail, exult round thy wild throne, 
 Parent of Lightnings ! and the tempest's shroud 
 Crowning, or round thy giant shoulders thrown 
 In majesty of Shadow ! ere the Cloud 
 Break on the nether world, its stormy wrath avowed.
 
 VESUVIUS. 247 
 
 XV. 
 
 Heart of the Universe ! vvliose life is fire : 
 
 Whose pulse is earthquake, from whose breast are 
 
 rolled 
 Those flames in which shall penal earth expire ; 
 Whose scathing robe, the Lava's burning fold, 
 Whose anned hand the thunderbolt doth hold ! 
 Whose Voice is as the trump that wakes to doom ; 
 Creator and Destroyer ! who hath told 
 What world of life lies buried in thy womb r 
 What Mammoth-wrecks are sunk in thy all-blasting 
 toinb ? 
 
 XVI. 
 But now, while gazing on thee, I arrest 
 One moment from the eternity of time, 
 Thou, like Night's Altar visibly confessed, 
 Risest, sad, savage, solemn, yet sublime ! 
 How vestal Nature even to thy cime, 
 Hath sprinkled round thy breast, as she w ould hide, 
 Thy desolation — flowers from every clime ! 
 As if she thus would soften, not deride, 
 Thy inuiges of human death tiiat speak to luiinan j)iide.
 
 218 THE ASCENT. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 On to the ascent ; hark ! — how the hollow ground 
 Reverberates beneath the sullen tread : 
 'Tis Hekculaneum in her sleep profound ! 
 A City rises o'er her ashes' bed, 
 All life — all joy — the living on the dead ! — 
 Perchance, to die like her \ feels not thy heart 
 The sudden life-blood quicker to it sped ? 
 Yea, for our fellow-men the tear doth start ; 
 We feel great Nature's ties, and own our natural part. 
 
 XVllI. 
 
 But the Scene changes, and is left behind, 
 Like an enchanting dream : the vine expires : 
 Nature's faint hues have sicklily declined ; 
 Silent the voices of the birds, whose choirs 
 The spirit of ever-living Joy inspires : 
 The Silence tells that we are nearing now 
 The subterranean Palace of the Fires ! 
 Lo — how above, its awful front doth show 
 Yon far cloud-cleaving Cone its pale and wrathful 
 brow,
 
 THE ASCENT. 249 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Frowning down on ye, like the Form of Death, 
 As, though the vapours drifted by the blast. 
 Its Shadow falls on the grey waste beneath ! 
 Chaos of black crags wildly round are cast : 
 Mountains of lava, which, as here they past. 
 Wave-like, while floating, were transfixed to stone. 
 Stopped in full tide, yet scathing to the last ! 
 Nor flower nor blade of grass hath ever grown 
 
 O'er the Life whelmed beneath — scorched — blasted — and 
 unknown. 
 
 XX. 
 Nature ! thy olden curse thou dost inherit 
 Here : withered— lightning-scathed— and earthquake 
 
 riven ; 
 As if had passed God's ministering Spirit, 
 In his avenging hand the biurning levin : 
 To mark with delegated flres from heaven 
 A Cain-like stamp upon yon mountain's brow ! 
 As if it were the abode of souls unshriven 
 By licry ordeal: the place of woe 
 
 Of the damned doomed to sec the joys they must forego ;
 
 250 THE ASCENT. 
 
 XXL 
 
 Beholding in their agony from far, 
 The Paradise they have for ever lost ; 
 Even thus, appearing like a distant Star, 
 Rises, midst wreaths of azure vapour tossed, 
 The Cloud-like mountains round her like a host, 
 Yon Naples, shrined as in a nether sjjhere ! 
 Here — pales around the Stygian coast : 
 The Anatomy of Earth stretched on her bier. 
 
 Torched by the Sun, w^hose rays through ghost-like 
 vapours peer. 
 
 XXII. 
 Spirit of Desolation ! here, thou art 
 A Presence, seen and felt all palpably : 
 Thy sternness to the mind thou dost impart. 
 Awed, though repelled by thy sublimity ! 
 Thou, that stand'st here aloof, and dravv'st a high 
 And thrilling grandeur from the sense impressed 
 Thou giv'st, that thou dost make a mockery 
 Of life, and death, and ruin :— oh ! what rest, 
 
 What change could heal thy Mountain's thundcr-splil- 
 ten breast ?
 
 THE HEIGHT OF VESUVIUS. 251 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Sisyphian toil ! — the ascent, at last, is crowned : 
 How the Scene's stem sublimity appals ! 
 The wild, waste plain of ever blasted ground : 
 The circling Crater's thunder-shivered walls : 
 The Central Pit— the Portal to the Halls 
 Of everlasting Fires : where, scathing o'er, 
 In its first rage the shower volcanic falls ; 
 Lo — how it reeks from every burning pore ! 
 While, rapidly mounting from yon subterranean door, 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Rushing up wildly from the depths beneath, 
 Clouds, opening their enormous folds are curled 
 In sulphurous masses, darkening the heath, 
 As if Night's blackest banners were unfurled : 
 Mountains of Vapour on each other hurled, 
 Careering upwards — giant Forms of Air ! 
 Swept on the Wind's wings to the nether world. 
 To burst in wrath, and storm, and darkness there, 
 The Heralds they, sent forth to bid the earth prepare.
 
 252 THE CRATER, 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Their Silence— how unearthly to the mind ! 
 
 Their living motion — how almighty ! Powers 
 
 Of Darkness and of Light ! ye here are joined 
 
 Above the original Chaos, that devours 
 
 All things in its wild womb : how awful lowers 
 
 Yon Canopy above ! and how are heard, 
 
 Pealed from yon hollow depths, 'midst sulphurous 
 
 showers. 
 
 Voices and thunderings ; the Life-pulse stirred 
 
 Of the still slumbering Fires whose waking is deferred. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And, standing here, the moral contemplate 
 
 Of chained Prometheus, liere, ye feel it true ; 
 
 No time can change, nor fortune which is fate. 
 
 The unshaken mind ; the hopes that from it grew. 
 
 And aspirations, may be seared : the hue 
 
 Of its young feelings withered, yet resigned 
 
 To every stroke, it can its strength renew 
 
 From its own innate energies, and find 
 
 Tics of a nobler stamp allying with mankind.
 
 thf: record. 25.'3 
 
 XXVIL 
 
 Yet I would throw one ray of human light, 
 One record, like a votive wreath, above 
 This tomb of Desolation ; 'tis a trite, 
 Worn, olden subject — a mere tale of love : 
 A thing that hath occurred, by fiction wove 
 Into a thousand shapes, the end the same ; 
 The heart that vainly with its passion strove ; 
 The illusion cherished still, that fanned the flame : 
 The love's abounding hope that only life can tame. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 She — would'st thou name this rose, from beauty's 
 
 wreath 
 So early nipped ? — Francesca 'twas : — she grew 
 In yonder Resina that lies beneath ; 
 But she was one of those abstracted few. 
 On whose soft form and graces Nature threw 
 A nameless spell ; a charm that seemed to steep 
 That flower for ever in its morning dew ! 
 Which, like the breath of heaven, seems to keep 
 A watch above its shrine — whose loss the Angels weep.
 
 254 THE RFX'ORD. 
 
 XXTX. 
 
 But the Italian sun which overwrought 
 
 Her tenderest spirit, filled it with a tone, 
 
 An energy of feeling and of thought. 
 
 To colder climes and colder heaits unknown, 
 
 Which sought a being like herself to owti 
 
 Her slumbering sympathies ; and to impart 
 
 Feelings and thoughts that with her growth had grown ; 
 
 A child of nature she, who knew not art : 
 
 Her dower, that wealth misprized — the world of woman's 
 heart ! 
 
 XXX. 
 And there was one who wanted but the scope 
 To be a youthfiil hero ; one who shared, 
 With the Italian's passion, the proud hope 
 To see his country what she was ; prepared 
 With patriot energies her own to guard : 
 One who had staked all life, but to reveal 
 For one short hour the heights his valour dared : 
 Love taught her not her rapture to conceal, 
 
 That sense of waking bliss cold hearts would vainly feel.
 
 THE RECORD. 'ioo 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Yet, were it weariness, or wish for change. 
 Or sigh for freedom, or that restlessness 
 Whose wayward impulses from love estrange, 
 He first the imperfect nature did confess ; 
 Then came restraint which dared not truth confess : 
 Coldness when met, till, like a blight, remorse 
 Sate on the grave of bm-ied happiness ! 
 Ah ! wherefore from its fount retrace the course 
 Of love that flowed so freshly from its morning source ? 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 She sate on the sea-shore : it was a wild 
 And lowering day : the waves broke round her feet ; 
 Their wild monotony her ear beguiled : 
 Until the bells that stole on her retreat 
 Came with a gladder sound her ear to gi-eet ; 
 Listlessly to the church she turned aside ; 
 The crowd were thronged around the Altar-seat : 
 How is the eye of love its certain guide ! 
 She saw him kneeling there — and with another bride.
 
 256 THE RECORD. 
 
 XXXTII. 
 
 A moment — darkness swam before her sight — 
 'Twas but a moment : then was all too clear, 
 Illumined by the lightning-flashing light 
 Of the mind falling maddened from its sphere ! 
 When future — present — past — at once appear : 
 And that last wild resolve — ere it give way — 
 Is ta'en — which ends its earthly trials here : 
 None marked her gesture as she knelt to pray : 
 Who heeds the grief-wrung brow when all around are 
 
 gay? 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 But with the night she came not back to him 
 Her grey-haired sire, who feebly then went forth 
 To meet the wanderer • she, who to his dim 
 And aged eyes was all his joy on earth : 
 She, who threw round his solitary hearth 
 The light in which he lived : he found her not ; 
 Then proved the peasants round their natural worth. 
 The feeling which warms breasts the roughest 
 wrought ; 
 The midnight passed away, but she was vainly sought.
 
 THE RKCORK. 257 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Then, in her chamber, as if thrown aside. 
 Perchance forgotten — a scroll met his eye : 
 Confessions poured forth when she could not hide 
 The desolate tmth : the words unmeasured, high, 
 And wild, and passionate, were poetry ; 
 For what is Poetry but to imjjart 
 All passions in their grandest energy r 
 The eloquence inspired by Nature — art 
 
 Never yet felt that glow which springs but from the 
 heart. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 Man's sterner breast, how little does it know 
 The feelings of the woman ! and how less 
 Dare she his strength and all her weakness show ! 
 And so an untold world of happiness, 
 Of sympathies which she durst not confess. 
 Die, treasured in her bosom — all her own ; 
 But in this scroll, the very nakedness. 
 Of the heart's childish innocence was shown, 
 
 No mask, no veil to hide — its inmost feelings known. 
 
 s
 
 258 THE RECORD. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 And the all infantine simplicity 
 Of that untutored bosom ! its love dwelling, 
 Though all forsook, as proudly, tenderly, 
 As if each hour were not its requiem knelling ; 
 Now with those memories so cherished swelling, 
 On all that was— bright scenes for ever o'er ! 
 Then in remorse its own affection telling ; 
 Ah ! love is still its own avenger sure : 
 The heart that slights its pledge doth mourn it ever- 
 more. 
 
 1. 
 It is so — ^he has left me — hope, love, pride. 
 Uphold no more ; my brain, my heart are dried : 
 Yes, he has left me ! day on day has flower ; 
 Yet still I ask if I am left alone ? 
 Thou wert my day my universe to me I 
 Tree, bird, and flower — I found them all in thee 
 Thy beautiful young brow, thy warm, bright eye, 
 They were my life's sun, and my summer sky I
 
 THE RECORD. 259 
 
 2. 
 
 Thy soft lip's opening smiles were my young roses ; 
 
 Thy breath was like the evening's when it closes ; 
 
 Thy voice, the nightingale's rich notes to me ; 
 
 Thy step, the music of the summer sea ! 
 
 In the foil strength thy perfect form bespoke, 
 
 I saw the beauty of the verdant oak ! 
 
 In thy proud bearing towered the lofty pine, 
 
 And in thy movements bent the graceful vine. 
 
 3. 
 
 The war-horse, pawing in the distant vale, 
 Scenting the battle on the coming gale, 
 Laughing at fear, and glorying in the life 
 That clothes his neck with thunder for the strife. 
 Gave me the image of thy nobler heart ; 
 I saw, like his, thy bosom dare the dart. 
 Like his, thy full eye scorn the danger near ; 
 And give a soldier's welcome to the spear ! 
 
 s 2
 
 •2C0 THE RECORD. 
 
 4. 
 
 I saw thee beautiful, in thy spring-tide 
 Of lofty fearlessness, and manly pride ; 
 I saw thee beautiful — I felt thee mine : 
 And from that hour my spirit clung to thine ! 
 Thou wert its life, the sun of light, and guide 
 To thy own shadow moving by thy side ! 
 And from that hour, the universe to me, 
 Tree, bird, and flower, were thee— were only thee ! 
 
 5. 
 
 The Tree is gone whose branches round me spread 
 And the bird singing 'midst its leaves, is dead : 
 And love's own flower that bloomed for only me, 
 Is withered — crushed — all — all have died in thee ! 
 Thou hast forsaken, but must not despise : 
 As thou would'st do, if life I still could prize: 
 Thou wilt remember me — I dare not dwell 
 Upon the past — for ever, oh, farewell !
 
 THE RECORD. 2()1 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 But where was she, this fond, yet erring creature, 
 
 This martyr of the heart ? what home received ? 
 
 Who soothed that maddened mind whose every fea- 
 ture 
 
 Was thus o'erwrought ? was then her sense bereaved ? 
 
 Or still did Memory tell her while she grieved ? 
 
 Months rolled away — but she wasunforgot ; 
 
 Autumn's suns burned, until the moimtain heaved 
 
 With its long pent-up fires : the warning drought 
 Dried up the water-springs : the Hermit rose, and sought 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The abysses of the crater to foretell 
 
 The hour to Naples when the storm should burst : 
 
 He, chosen still the Mountain's oracle : 
 
 Then of all presages he saw the worst. 
 
 By the dark fate of poor Francesca nursed ; 
 
 There — 'neath a stone still clung, in tatters riven, 
 
 A veil, and fixed to it a cross ; — the first 
 
 Fond pledge of love — the sweetest to her given, 
 When love and hope were one, when life to her seemed 
 heaven.
 
 262 THE KIVER SARNO. 
 
 XL. 
 
 But oh, the warring passions that, o'erwrought 
 To desperate frenzy, led without a guide, 
 Through the wild darkness to that wilder spot ! 
 The clinging love, yet the remorseful pride ; 
 Forgiveness, whose revenge was suicide ; 
 And its reward absorbing, so it won 
 Tears, or a sigh ; for this was death defied. 
 And heaven forgotten ! here, that erring one 
 Stood lingering — trembling— fixed— till, plunging— all 
 was done ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Along the nan'ow road with willows lined, 
 A silvery brook glides silently along: 
 And Sarno keeps its name, whose waters wind 
 Between then- roots with a low murnuu-mg song : 
 Once did its now all-shrunken bosom throng 
 A thousand barks borne proudly to the sea ! 
 But they who took their name and place among 
 The nations, like the rest, have ceased to be : 
 Joined, and forgotten with the past eternity.
 
 POMPEII. 263 
 
 XLII. 
 
 A broad, and lengtheued ridge of mossy green, 
 With fig-trees waving o'er its wild-flowered crest. 
 Fronting the eye, shuts out the levelled scene ; 
 Till, opening behind them, stands confessed 
 The grave reclaimed from Nature's sheltering breast : 
 Pompeii — city of the dead, behold ! 
 How is the Vision on the mind impressed ! 
 The mighty marvel : Time hath here unrolled 
 The Past — o'er hidden ages raised the mantling fold. 
 
 XLIII. 
 We move, as in the mystic Realm of Dreams 
 The spirit moves where all is overwTought, 
 Till natm'al each marvellous object seems ; 
 So, passively, we turn from spot to spot : 
 But this is mute reality of what 
 Is dream-like ; lo ! the roofless chambers round : 
 The bench left in the hall, as if forgot : 
 The wine-stains on the floor- the goblet crowned : 
 We start — and i)ause to hear the reveller's distant sound!
 
 264 POMPEII. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Exquisite figures, dim in fading grace, 
 Adorn the arabesqued and roofless walls, 
 Which, hourly vanishing, shall leave no trace, 
 Save what the record or the verse recals ! 
 Tales of heroic time : how love enthralls 
 The brave : the soft reward by beauty given ; 
 Dash but the sands aside that choke the halls, 
 Lo, the Mosaic shows its hues of heaven, 
 The vanities of wealth which now may be forgiven. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The City of the Dead again restored 
 To life and resurrection, and the plan 
 Of Destiny suspended to record 
 The grandeur and the nothingness of man ; 
 Arresting here fi'om Time and Nature's ban, 
 That, which embowelled, they had claimed their own. 
 'Tis here the moralizev feels the span 
 Of brief existence : truths famihar known. 
 But never to the eye thus eloquently shown !
 
 POMPEIAN TEMPLES. 265 
 
 XLVL 
 
 And, ever brooding there, as o'er its shrine, 
 A Spirit, invisible and bodiless, 
 Making us own its influence divine. 
 With awe — an awe we w-ould not render less — 
 Silence doth reign ; not such as we confess. 
 Musing o'er Nature, when above, beneath, 
 Is felt her life, though all be motionless ; 
 But the cold pulseless apathy of death : 
 A void, a chilling stillness that suspends the breath. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 An open space girt round with shattered walls, 
 Where broken frieze and cornice show the ground. 
 And pillars riven from the capitals ; 
 The white bright stucco's fragments clinging round 
 Their dull, red tufa, once with marble bound ; 
 Lo — the rent shrine of Jove upreared on high ! 
 Beside it — she who aye hath altars found : 
 Love — Venus ! worship of eternity. 
 To whom, where'er man kneels, 'tis not idolatry.
 
 266 FORUM OF POMPEII. 
 
 XLVIIT. 
 
 The Shrine of Isis, and the open cell ; 
 The hollowed spaces where the jugglers gave 
 Words which hope tortured to an oracle ; 
 So Truth succumbed to Cunning still the slave, 
 Till raised at last, immortal from her grave ! 
 All, save the broken shafts, to earth are cast : 
 They, like the Forest-trunks, still standing, brave 
 The present — as the Tempest of the Past : 
 Head, stem, and bi-auches shorn by that earth-rending 
 blast. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Such the Pompeian Forum ! even now 
 Sitting, where round this arch its ruin throws, 
 How close above frowns yon Destroyer's brow ! 
 Not, as once, beautiful in green repose. 
 King of the Mountains which around him close, 
 But dark and savage, as when based with wood. 
 O'er the Phlegraean burning fields he rose : 
 When the earth round was fen or fiery flood : 
 Haunt of the savage wild, or wilder solitude.
 
 THEATRES OF POMPEII. 267 
 
 L, 
 
 Yet what a social haunt the Forum here, 
 For recreation and delight ! — the sky 
 Hued in its twilight loveliness ; its sphere 
 Blue as yon Sea, whose breath refi'eshingly 
 Arose, and gladdened every heart and eye, 
 Oppressed, and fevered with the heats of day : 
 Moments when life was felt, when even the sigh 
 Was pleasure ; impulses that all obey, 
 As Nature o'er the heart exerts her magic sway. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Thou who dost press the seats around arrayed, 
 In that void I'heatre ; yon stage, the same 
 They saw, save where the Scene illusion made ; 
 Whom the same hopes, wants, joys, and wishes claim. 
 As thy own fellow- men : thou wilt not blame 
 Thyself for weakness, if, from thought severe 
 Thy brow relaxing, gentler feelings tame : 
 If thou dost sigh, it may be, drop a tear 
 For those who lived like tlice, who thronged rejoicing 
 here !
 
 268 THE WILLOW. 
 
 LIL 
 
 And muse upon the satire and applause, 
 That lightly mocked the follies of the hour ; 
 Or the more dignifying Scene that draws 
 The tears which own the Muse's tragic power ; 
 And they who gazed,— the lover, and his flower 
 Of beauty, near him ; in whose ear was sighed 
 That tale still prized beyond the wealthiest dower ; 
 Where are they now in their patrician pride ? 
 Their very dust with nature doth no more abide ! 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Yet, rising there, one living witness stands, 
 As if designed a monument to be 
 More touching than if reared by human hands, 
 For it doth speak aloud its elegy 
 In sounds which ever here make melody ' 
 A requiem for those who long have fled ; 
 Yon shadowing and gigantic willow ! — see 
 How its broad, bright green umbrage round is shed 
 As if by Nature reared to mourn above the dead.
 
 THEATRES, RUIN. 269 
 
 LIV. 
 
 How vacant now those seats where Life hath been ; 
 
 The columns, the orchestra, and the Scene ; 
 
 Behind which toiled inventive art to win 
 
 The thunder of the applauding gods ; how green 
 
 Yon landscape in the distance ! how serene 
 
 Above, the quiet of yon azure sphere ! 
 
 No roof, or light velarium spread between ; 
 
 How like a desolate and open bier 
 
 Mid Nature's deathless works man's mortal wrecks 
 
 appear ! 
 
 LV. 
 
 Looking a Satire, how severely true. 
 Upon the enjoyments of the vanished dead ; 
 The stage of human life exposed to view : 
 Its gauds, and shows, and tinsel fopperies fled : 
 How like a Skull 'tis cast beneath ! ye thread 
 Those avenues which man no more shall build : 
 The portals, and the winding paths that led 
 To chambers once with stining life so filled : 
 Where the retiring Mind planned, reasoned, thought, 
 and willed.
 
 270 THE STREET OF TOMBS. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 The Street of Tombs ! the dwelling-i^lace of those 
 
 Who heard not when the fires above them swept, 
 
 Hushed in their last mysterious repose : 
 
 But in those hollowed niches where they slept, 
 
 Even in their urns, the fiery vapour crept : 
 
 The mountain's ashes, and the human dust 
 
 Mingled together ! ashes, that once kept 
 
 TJieir unis, perchance, like these around, ere thrust 
 
 Forth from the yawning earth where men did them 
 entrust. 
 
 LVII. 
 I stood within the chamber of the dead : 
 Its flower-wreathed walls stood open to the sky : 
 The central pedestal still reared its head, 
 Where stood the Urn ; the seats rose ordered nigh, 
 Half-circling, when the guests or heaved the sigh, 
 Or pom-ed libations, or called him to hear 
 His praises who was deaf: vain flattery, 
 Proffered too late to dull oblivion's ear ! — 
 
 Or spread the untasted feast upon the wintry bier.
 
 THi: HOUSK OF DIOMED. 271 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Tribute of love to the Departed ! — yet 
 A mockery on the livmg, wlio, ere o'er 
 The passing hour, might ask the same regret : 
 Ah ! nobler had it been to kneel before 
 Death's portal, opening on the untrodden shore, 
 Not revelling and feasting, but with trust 
 Lowliest in Him who can the dead restore : 
 That, though the human frame dissolve to dust, 
 
 The soul should mount to heaven, and mingle with tlie 
 Just. 
 
 LIX. 
 I sate within that House, even then, as now, 
 A Tomb : raised up from earth to meet the day ; 
 The airs blew freshly fanning o'er my brow : 
 The Sky looked in, and the Sun's gladdening ray, 
 As when the life it quickened passed away : 
 Ruin, tricked out in tinsel pageantry, 
 Seemed as it mocked the moral of decay ; 
 Life in her masquerading revelry 
 
 Sui-prised — arrested in that motley garb to die.
 
 •27-2 THE HOUSE OF DIOMED. 
 
 LX. 
 
 In their absorbing trifles of the hour 
 They passed — swept off" as dust before the wind ; 
 Yet how his show of wealth and petty power, 
 Soothed, and was grateful to the owner's mind : 
 And when upon his marble couch reclined. 
 How little deemed he that dark hoiu: so near, 
 Which to eternity his toys consigned, 
 In earthly resuiTection to appear, 
 Judged by the curious eye of vain Opinion here. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 The house of Diomed — the pleasant place 
 Of the voluptuous Roman : where the hand 
 Of art and luxury have left a trace 
 Which, from time hidden, could all change withstand 
 But now unburied, soon shall sink to sand, 
 Opened to skiey influence and the air, 
 AU that his vanity or fondness planned ; 
 The laws of Nature it again doth shai'e. 
 And sternly are they dealt — so long evaded there !
 
 THE ROMAN FAMILY. 273 
 
 LXII. 
 
 How the Mind's eye embodies the scenes fled 
 Of human life, enacted, witnessed here ! 
 No phantasy, no tale forgot when read : 
 But records stamped by Truth's impress severe ; 
 Even with a thought, again are raised, how clear 
 On memory's eye their Roman forms to view ! 
 Familiar in their home, the dead appear. 
 Living as once : the fountain flows as true ; 
 The columns rise around, the flowers their breath renew. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 A marble bench beside that Fount is placed : 
 The Roman Family are circled round ; 
 There Diomed reclines, and, half-embraced, 
 His eldest — Julia : but there is no sound 
 Of life and gladness there ; a gloom profound 
 Hangs over them and Nature, like a pall ; 
 The sultry heats have cracked the gaping ground : 
 The flowers are withered — ceased the fountain's fall ; 
 Languor and listlessness weigh lead-like over all. 
 
 r
 
 274 THE REPOSE. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 But Julia leaned upon her father's bi'east, 
 
 And their eyes met, as each their thoughts controlled : 
 
 A sense of evil weighed, though unexpressed, 
 
 On either ; she watched mourafully the fold 
 
 Of heaviest Clouds which thus long days had rolled, 
 
 Upon the Mountain's hidden bosom nursed ; 
 
 Prophet it looked of evils yet untold ! 
 
 Fear, gazing there still magnified the worst ; — 
 
 Storms whose wrath held so long might yet in thunder 
 burst ! 
 
 LXV. 
 The town was hushed ; save when a faint shout came 
 From the far distant Amphitheatre, 
 The oppressive air was charged with sulphurous 
 
 flame; 
 The trees drooped wan, no breath a leaf to stir. 
 Each trunk stood moveless as a sepulchre ; 
 And the all-sickly weight, by Nature shovni. 
 Pressed heaviest on human heails ; they were 
 All silent : each, foreboding, dared not own 
 
 Their fears — the coming Shadow of an ill unknown !
 
 THE ALARM. 275 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 " Behold the Mountain !" words withheld while spo- 
 ken — 
 For the Appearance fixed the arrested mind ! 
 The Clouds that veiled so long its crest, were broken 
 Away — hurled upward by some mighty Wind, 
 Which earth no more could in her caverns bind ; 
 A mightier mar\'el ! lo — forth wildly driven. 
 As if within her depths till then confined, 
 Thick volumed smoke cleaves through its forehead 
 riven. 
 
 Branching its pine-like shape in the profound of heaven ! 
 
 LXVII. 
 A moment — mute — awed — stupified — they stood : 
 The Mountain that had slept a thousand years. 
 Awakens from his slumber ! lo — that flood 
 Of eddying vapour still its shape uprears : 
 They fly not yet, for who had linked with fears 
 Vesuvius in his ever green attke ? 
 But lo — each moment wilder, fiercer nears 
 The enormous canopy still branching higher, 
 
 Away — for life — for life — its leaves are turned to fire ! 
 
 T 2
 
 27G THE ERUPTION.. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Its trunk glows now a furnace flame ! — the shrouds 
 Of Darkness hurling off each side, alone 
 Blazmg, encircled with a night of clouds, 
 The Spirit of Fire comes rushing from his throne ! 
 Earth cleft asunder, to her depths is shown. 
 Belching forth flames, while, 'scaping from their thrall, 
 The Winds leap upward from their caves unknown : 
 The answering Sea doth on the Mountains call : 
 The thunder of the Heaven is heard above them all ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Hark — from the City one astounding shout ! 
 The roar of thousands for a moment drowned 
 The wreck of Elements; still o'er the rout 
 Rose woman's screams — a wilder, shriller sound, 
 Then — sunk for ever ! who might hear .? — the ground 
 Reeling beneath — who see ? where air was night 
 Lit by the forked lightnings hurtling round 
 Their arrowy deaths ! — the flash that blinded sight, — 
 The scathing ashes shot from that red Mountain's height;
 
 THE ERUPTION. 277 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Making the Shape of Darkness visible ! 
 As, blazing up all terribly in air, 
 It stood out there, the World's last funeral pile ; 
 Death was within the walls, without — despair ; 
 How the crowds rushed beneath that lurid glare, 
 Deliriously on ! or wildly clung 
 To the deaf shrines, assailing Heaven with prayer ! 
 Or, o'er their hearths in gibbering madness hung ; 
 Or motionless lay crushed 'neath giant columns flung ! — 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Caught mid-way in the jaws of earth while flying; 
 Or writhing, scathed beneath the fiery rain. 
 Prostrate, in agonies undreamed of dying ! 
 Trampled like worms — invoking those in vain 
 Above them rushing from the maddening pain, 
 Like tortured fiends — their flight but to delay 
 One moment — no voice answered them again ! 
 The chase was life and death — no foot dared stay : 
 Alas— the crushing walls were not more deaf than they !
 
 278 THE TERROR AND THE FLIGHT. 
 
 LXXIL 
 
 All was forgotten in the one wild strife 
 For preservation ; for the short-lived span, 
 The fleeting tenement of human life ! 
 Then rose the prayers of faith — the reckless ban 
 Of pale Apostasy ! no longer ran 
 Blood in the veins, nor tears from answering eyes, 
 Into a demon seemed transformed the man : 
 Bared was his naked heart ! — love's social ties. 
 Law, habit, reverence, life's soft sympathies, 
 
 LXXllI. 
 
 Were crushed like threads before the giant force 
 Of Nature's master-passion ! which now made 
 That spot a Hell, without its vain remorse ! 
 The Son shook off his grey Sire, who delayed 
 His flight, and plunged the parricidal blade ! 
 The husband left his wife ; but she, in death, 
 All woman-like, forgot not, though betrayed. 
 She was a mother ! from the ashes' breath 
 She with her body sliields her dying child bencalh.
 
 THF PRIEST. — THK SLAVE. 279 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 Beneath yon arch — apart from the blind crowds — 
 Crushed, trampled, scathed along the fiery streets, 
 How yon pale Priest amidst the darkness shrouds ! 
 Triumph is in his hollow eyes, that meets 
 Strangely vvith awe and horror ; yet how beats 
 His heart with joy ! his shrine's wealth he doth bear, 
 While through the sea-ward passage he retreats ; 
 Hark — his sharp cry of torture and despair- ! 
 The light of twenty ages found his ashes there. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Or turn to the Patrician's marble hall. 
 Where yon gigantic slave doth sit alone : 
 Nature and his red hand have bm-st his thrall ! 
 Lifeless his murdered victims round are thrown ; 
 How full — how fierce his triumph ! 'tis his own, 
 That Hall — but how escape the ash-heaped door ? 
 Through one thick wall his axe hath wildly hew n ! 
 The second yields — the roof gives way — 'tis o'er — 
 The Murderer sinks, crushed dov\ n upon the buried floor.
 
 280 THE SENTINEL. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 But while the human tides rush througli the gate, 
 How the red Mountain blazing full in view, 
 Yon Roman Sentinel doth contemplate ! 
 Motionless as a Statue there he grew : 
 Composed his face, though livid is its hue : 
 Sternness with awe in his undaunted eye ! 
 Vainly the fiery Tempest rovmd him flew : 
 He had not, like yon herd, been taught to fly ; 
 Scorched — blasted in his place, the warrior stood to die! 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Descend yon subteiTanean gallery : 
 A lamp burns dimly there, which, as ye look, 
 Reveals forms palpable before the eye : 
 So mute, so motionless in that dark nook, 
 That ye might well deem life had each forsook ; 
 Save that, at times, a sigh, a groan was sped 
 From bosoms that convulsive tremors shook ; 
 Ah, better were it the faint spark had fled, 
 Than by delusive hope thus vainly, fondly fed !
 
 THE LAST RETREAT. 281 
 
 LXXVllI. 
 
 But as their faces toward each other turned, 
 Tlieij told the truths, like prophets, which their love 
 Would hide in vain j the lamp that flickering burned. 
 O'er their pale features gleaming, showed how strove 
 Death and life busy there ! its ray above 
 Sicklily waved — expired — and all was gloom, 
 Darkness and Silence ! save when wilder drove 
 The thunders bellowing o'er their living tomb ! 
 Or when the flashing Light the vaulted caves illume ! 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Then their long silence was no more withheld ? 
 " Air — air ! — one desperate impulse was obeyed 
 By all J for mad despair alike impelled 
 To burst the door — their fate no more delayed ; 
 What recked it now, debarred all human aid, 
 How they expired ? while here, a living death 
 In tenfold horrors they beheld arrayed ? 
 To die above — to gasp in fiery breath 
 Were heaven, so they escaped this sulphurous liold be- 
 neath !
 
 282 DESPAIR : 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 They stand, each leaning, turned towards the wall, 
 With lips impressed ; as if they might inhale 
 Air, or its freshness by that touch recal : 
 One gasp — for life — where breath of life doth fail ! 
 Alas ! that faint hope, what may it avail ? 
 Yon loop-holes that receive the air from high. 
 Take through their apertures the burning gale : 
 Life feebler draws its breath of agony. 
 Its audibly thrilling pulse, as Death advances nigh ! 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 There sits the Roman Matron motionless. 
 Her infant stretched round her, in theii- last rest : 
 What words her mighty sorrows could express ^ 
 But she, so beautiful in youth, hath pressed. 
 Fair Julia, to her mother, and caressed. 
 As those who part for ever ! and they kiss : 
 Such kisses as reveal, though unconfessed. 
 The desolating truth — that death hath less 
 Pang than this last farewell to hope — to happiness !
 
 AND FINAL CATASTROPHE. 283 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 One last — long — wild — nd passionate embrace 
 For those who shall embrace in life no more ! 
 Then, with fixed will portrayed in her stern face, 
 The Matron rose to' unclose the heated door ; 
 One shrill but stifled shriek told all was o'er ! 
 The strained bars flew — the weight of ashes, rife 
 With sulphurous fires, heaped up the burning floor : 
 A moment's agony — a feeble strife 
 
 To meet — to join — to clasp — then ceased the pulse of 
 life! 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 But Time and Life rolled on : and Nature spent 
 The wrath that had for ages slept so nigh, 
 Tu burst, above the living imminent, 
 Perchance, when some far morrow shall ally 
 Itself with the Eternity gone by ! 
 Where Cities rose, and sti'ove for rival sway, 
 Are ash-heaps ; burying them from human eye, 
 As once — on some forgotten Yesterday, 
 
 Anterior Pompeii's turned again to clay :
 
 284 MUTABILITY OF MAN : 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Forming a basis o'er their wreck beneath : 
 And men may sport awhile, forgetful there, 
 Living above a wilderness of death ! 
 Empires rise, flourish, fall : new faiths repair 
 The ruins of the old : and Nations dare 
 To talk of freedom, now no more a dream : 
 But still of Mutability the heir 
 Is man : a straw — borne down the mighty stream 
 Of tendency — all free and ruling though he seem. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Yon Sun-lit Isles that shoreless ether range, 
 Departing, own, in each receding beam, 
 The' inevitable laws of Time and Change : 
 What are w^e ? — foam-drops swept before the stream 
 Whose tendency is infinite : a gleam, 
 A spark — and we are fled — but where to dwell ? 
 Who shall the light of worlds and man redeem? 
 Who, raise — who, save — save Thou, Inefiable ! 
 Thou Cause — thou Source of All — whose nature who 
 shall tell ?
 
 AND NATURE. 285 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 What are fallen Empires, wrecks of buried Power, 
 Earth's heaped-iip Babel-piles that meet the skies. 
 The toys of tyrants that outlived then- hour, 
 Cumbering the ground in thy Almighty eyes? 
 What is the World beneath Thee as it flies ? — 
 A grain, an atom floating upon space, 
 Which human pride so fondly magnifies ! 
 Was it a Hell or Pai-adise ? what trace, 
 What record, tells the hour which fixed its airy base ? 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 What are our ruined piles to Nature's own ? 
 Her sky-roofed Temple with yon lights enshrined, 
 The eternal cressets of Heaven's starry zone : 
 Her Organ-pipe the Voices of the Wind : 
 Or when the Tempests, with the thunder joined. 
 Raise up their thrilling Choral : yon Hills riven, 
 The shattered pillars which in vain confined 
 Her mighty area ; the Ocean driven 
 Wildly between their sides, upheaving into heaven,
 
 286 HUMILITY. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Shells, and the Mammoth of past ages, rolled 
 From her once-peopled depths, as if in scorn. 
 Upon their topmost capitals ! behold. 
 Deep in the graven stone the traces worn 
 Of their quick life ; what armies hath it borne. 
 What infinite hosts have swept along the earth. 
 Their records all forgot, their glories shorn ; 
 Yet have these weak things left their trace, their birth, 
 As if to show vain men what dusty fame is worth ! 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 We stand beside the Ocean-waves that hide 
 One world — which buried both : and feel a fear 
 While its deep Voice appeals to human pride : 
 We upward look : Thy Shrine doth there appear, 
 Thou, whom each Star doth worship with its sphere : 
 What feel we, gazing, but humility ? 
 How weak the thought that soars to seek Thee there : 
 Men on earth's sun-lit hills first bowed the knee. 
 They felt those giant-steps were guides that led to Thee ! 
 
 END OF CANTO V.
 
 CANTO VL
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pausilipo -, its beautiful localities — influence on Virgil. Lake Avemus : 
 Creations of the Poets: Elysian fields. Bridge of Puzzuoli, and passage 
 of Caligula. Nero in the Amphitheatre. Baise and its amenities — illustri- 
 ous Romans who resided there. Messalina— her despair ; Agrippina : her 
 character and death. Changes in Baiae : Ruin of the Temple of Venus : 
 Cuma: fertility mthin it. Thoughts among the ruins. Moral fable 
 of Dffidalus : Scipio at Litemum. Cape Misenum. Capri ; Tiberius 
 —his character : portrait of the man : his remorse. Sorrento — convul- 
 sions of Nature. Sirens' Isles : Homer — Circe and Ulysses. 
 
 Tasso and his Sister — their meeting at Sorrento : Twilight : Ode on 
 the Promontory of Minerva — Night : Reflections, Amalfi — its magnifi- 
 cent appearance from the Sea. Solitudes of La Cava : Salerno — the 
 Wastes. Paestum — appearance and locality. Thoughts on the Present, 
 and the Past. Augustus Caesar at Pastum. The Setting Sun on the 
 Temples : Apostrophe to the Sea : — Conclusion.
 
 CANTO VI 
 
 I. 
 
 Spirit of Beauty ! holiest emanation 
 From the All-Perfect — it is here thou art 
 No Form ideal : no fabulous creation 
 Born from the visions of the overflowing heart ; 
 Even as Athena into life did start, 
 So art thou bodied from the Almighty Mind ! 
 Thy entering inspirations are a part 
 Of our own being, to thy rule resigned. 
 Thou, who pervading all, with Nature's self art joined. 
 
 u
 
 290 PAUSILIPO. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thine eyes are yonder azure, and th}' breath 
 Fills the live air ; descending from the sky, 
 Thy Shadow fills thy chosen land beneath : 
 Thy Voice is in the Waters when they sigh 
 Away their strength to thee in melod}^ ! 
 Oh, who that looks upon that Ocean-foam, 
 Nor sees thee rising to his raptured eye ? 
 Nor feels while, cloud-like, thou o'er earth dost roam, 
 Here is thy chosen shrine, thy resting-place, thy home ? 
 
 III. 
 
 The Presence, the pervading Beautiful, 
 Felt in the answering soul : whose haloing ray 
 Circles the earth as with a Coronal : 
 'Tis we, brief breathing triflers, who decay. 
 Who, be our moments here or gi*ave or gay. 
 Must be forgotten : such be not the fate 
 Of him who pours his worship in this lay ; 
 Who would an immortality create 
 Even with the Spirit here, whicli none might sepa- 
 rate.
 
 LAKE AVERNUS. 291 
 
 IV. 
 
 And oh, if Nature, robed in hues of heaven, 
 Could, i)rophet-like, herself inspire that glow 
 Only to meeting, answering bosoms given : 
 Wliich only spirits who have felt can know. 
 Here would she her high Oracles bestow, 
 Where Maro blest thee once with loving eye. 
 Softener of griefs, divine Pausili])o ! 
 Here, where he felt the inspiration high. 
 
 That poured the ardent song whose strains were pro- 
 phecy. 
 
 V. 
 Onward we pass, and lo, Avernus lying 
 Buried in depths with crag and vineyard crowned : 
 Hast thou not still an Oracle replying 
 To him descending there, which Maro found 
 Thy solemn solitudes inspiring round ? 
 Or he, who, flying from his Grecian clime, 
 Sought thee in thy Cimmerian gloom profound ; 
 Here, where the prophet in that night of time, 
 
 Proved man's immortal soul, first, holiest faith sublime ! 
 
 u 2
 
 •29-2 REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Garden of the old Hesperides : 
 Path to Elysium, where the golden bough 
 Shed o'er the gloom the soft humanities ; 
 Guiding the filial duty to avow 
 The love, and the remembrance which we owe 
 To those o'er whom the dust of earth is spread : 
 How the light poured there sheds its halo now ! 
 There, where retired, the Spirits of the Dead 
 Spake, even as Spirits spealc, their earthly passions fled. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And oh ! the rapture standing on the spot 
 Where ye have stood, whose Visions sanctified 
 Each nook with holiest traditions fraught; 
 Lo — now the change ! no more dark forests hide 
 Those caverns to the day now opened wide ; 
 The glory is departed : nought behind 
 Save cold realities of life abide: 
 But ye with deathless memory ai*e joined : 
 Art's — natiu-e's works decay, but lives the immortal mind !
 
 THE BRIDGE OF PUZZUOLI. 293 
 
 Vlll. 
 
 Again the azure Waters at our feet ; 
 Behold the Bridge, the plaything of the child, 
 Whose broken and unsightly wrecks repeat 
 The tale of transient tyranny : what wild 
 Fancies, in deeds embodied, have defiled 
 The records of the nations, wrought by those 
 Whom Power warped, flattered, blinded, and be- 
 guiled 
 From their own natures ; but the slaves who chose 
 Such tyrants, baser in their iniamous repose ; 
 
 IX. 
 
 Until the bowl, or dagger's stroke, at last, 
 Asserted change, not Ireedom — to be won 
 Then, when the shadows of oppression past, 
 Rises that life-invigorating sun. 
 Reviving, sti'englliening all it looks upon : — 
 Then, when again the throne of common right 
 Is reared, whose deep foundations are begun 
 In human hearts : pause here — recal the flight 
 Of lime — of triumphs witnessed — the intense delight,
 
 294 THE PAST KECALLED. 
 
 X. 
 
 The spirit-stirring scenes of one glad morn, 
 Recorded; men their common wrongs forget, 
 Gazing upon the gauds which Power adorn, 
 The baffled hope, the patriot's vain regret ; 
 In the vast mass of Hfe according met, 
 Each doth a part of the bright pageant seem : 
 Oh ! could the monarch stoop but from his state. 
 And feel a man, and his great pledge redeem, 
 The golden Age restored no more would be a dream ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lo, how again the aerial Bridge spans o'er 
 The azure waves that idly fret between 
 Puzzuoli, and Baiae's golden shore ! 
 The toga.'d majesty of Home is seen 
 Concentered round : no waters intervene, 
 Curtained beneath a thousand shadowing sails ; 
 No shore, save where yon myrtle's rising green 
 Shows where the naiTowed space o'ercrowded, fails 
 To hold the infinite life, where nought but joy prevails.
 
 CALIGULA. 295 
 
 XII. 
 
 Hai'k ! — 'tis the trumpet's martial flourish sounding 
 Above the applauding multitudes — behold 
 The youthful Monarch on his charger bounding, 
 Robed in the imperial toga's purple fold : 
 Kings, clad in their barbaric pomp and gold, 
 Arrayed behind : the legion's martial band ; 
 The following crowds in long procession rolled : 
 The Sea, one heaving life, the tented strand 
 Covered with Syren-forms that beckon love to land. 
 
 XTII. 
 
 And he, the first that airy bridge to pass : 
 O'er the sea, Xerxes-like, his passage swept : 
 What blessings, or what scourges yield, alas. 
 Human example ! how oft vice had slept. 
 And slumbering virtue nor rejoiced, nor wept, 
 Until aroused by Emulation's call. 
 Even she her path in jealous haste o'erstepped •• 
 Yet was his triumph sweet, the festival 
 Which asked a second mom, enjoyment's edge to pall.
 
 •296 NERO. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Or turn where yonder mouldering walls confess 
 The Amphitheatre ; within whose bound 
 The master of the world found happiness ; 
 Even all he asked : liis false ambition crowned 
 In the base rabble's venal shouts, whose sound 
 Was fame that gave him raptures undisguised : 
 Were they accorded meed for virtues found ? 
 No — the hired singers' fame alone he prized : 
 For this, he bowed a slave, by slaves themselves de- 
 spised ! 
 
 XV. 
 Burner of Rome, and player of the hour : 
 Now man, now woman, god — or brute — whose name 
 By-word became for infamy : whom power 
 Turned into fiend : yet ev'n this wretch sought fame, 
 Even he that bright abstraction dared to claim. 
 Stained with each darker crime, which but to hear 
 Cast o'er Humanity the blush of shame ; 
 Even he could die a monarch, and endear 
 Himself to one fond heart — that gave his tomb a tear.
 
 BAI-'E. 297 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But lo, that spot of earth, even now a Vision 
 
 Of immaterial beauty, yea, even now, 
 Though the life, peopling once that shore elysian. 
 Is fled for ever ! empires pass, but how 
 The undecaying forms of Beauty show. 
 Though worn, and rent, each once harmonious line ! 
 The shore of Baia) ! lo, the curving brow 
 Of those low swelling hills, that still enshrine 
 That spirit-haunted spot, now, as of old, divine ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Paradise of Italy ! the bower, 
 And throne of luxury : where the air breathed love, 
 And passionate feeling, making Life's brief hour 
 One long enjoyment ! vvhere the Seasons strove 
 In rivalry, and wreaths together wove 
 Of roses, mourning not the Summer's flight : 
 Where Morning, lingering o'er her gates above, 
 Tinted anew each vale and wooded height, 
 As if, enamoured, watching her own violet light 
 
 I
 
 298 BALE — ITS MEMORIES. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 And where the TwiUght gathered earth with heaven ! 
 
 The substance with the holy Vision blended, 
 
 In the pure Sea's reflecting bosom given ; 
 
 Where myrtle-groves in tenderest gloom impended : 
 
 From whose rich bowers with evening's shades 
 
 ascended 
 Songs that expired in passion's eloquent sighs, 
 To lutes whose latest lingering cadence ended 
 In the deep Waters' slumberous melodies, 
 Whose azure hues beneath lay mirrored in the skies ! 
 
 XIX 
 
 Haunt of those mortal spirits who have made 
 Themselves immortal, thou art still divine. 
 Even from the glory by themselves arrayed ; 
 Without tlieir deathless memories what were thine ? 
 They were the oracles and thou the shrine ; — 
 Here, Marius strove to soothe his rugged mood ; 
 There, ardent Tully conned the sophist's line : 
 That barren spot Lucullus' mind imbued 
 With his own taste, and lent a grace to solitude !
 
 MESSALINA. 299 
 
 XX. 
 
 Pause here — and bring before the mental eye 
 A tale of human sorrow ! such hath been, 
 Yea, is, wherever passion's votary 
 Is summoned hastily to leave the scene, 
 Unfit to die, unweaned from life and sin ; 
 But, here, how wildly, passionately clung 
 The victim, the poor boon of life to win : — 
 Wliat tears, what wild entreaties here were wrung 
 From thee, upon the ground, fair Messalina flung ! 
 
 XXI. 
 
 On the cold ground, then, when this savage spot 
 A garden rose, a rayrtled Paradise : 
 She, prostrate there, in her distress o'erwrought. 
 How beautiful ! her arms, her upraised eyes. 
 Her swelling neck of snow — her bursting sighs 
 Imploring but for life, whose passion spoke 
 Beyond the tongue to human sympathies ! 
 Now vows — now vain reproaches from her broke. 
 Stretched motionless on earth, as yielding to the stroke.
 
 300 AGKIPPINA. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But not alone — her mother watches nigh : 
 
 Disowned in life, she kneels beside her there ; 
 
 " Thou, who knew' St not to live, yet learn to die, 
 
 And close the scene with dignity." — Despair 
 
 Checked utterance — in that unsettled air 
 
 Her reason reeled ; in vain she raised her hand. 
 
 Virtue alone that suicide could dare ! 
 
 The messengers of death around her stand : 
 
 One blow — her beauteous head rolls quivering on the 
 sand. 
 
 XXIII. 
 Or turn to her, that sterner, haughtier spirit, 
 Who sacrificed love, honour, fame, to pride • 
 All — so the world's sole empire should inherit 
 The serpent whom her love so magnitied ; 
 Martyr, who on Ambition's altar died. 
 Here Agrippina's countless crimes but earned 
 Death irom the son her love had deified ! 
 Oh, ever thus is guilt's excess returned. 
 
 Ambition mounts the steps which, from its height, are 
 spurned.
 
 HKR UKATH, 301 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Escaped the drowning waters, she is lying 
 Exhausted on her couch ; none round her wait ; 
 The echo of her voice her call replying : 
 Who dares stand near the victim whom the hate 
 Of tyranny hath marked to certain fate ? 
 The murderers come with brows of sullen wrath : 
 They circle round : then flashed forth all too late 
 Her loftier spirit in its latent worth : — 
 " Strike here — the womb that gave to such a monster 
 birth !" 
 
 XXV. 
 Look round thee now ! say, where hath Change so 
 
 wrought ? 
 Where Mutability so fixed her throne ? 
 Where Desolation poured her vials fraught 
 With wrath, its deep pollutions to atone ? 
 Lightnings have scathed — earth heaved— the thunder- 
 stone, 
 Blasted, and War's red footsteps where they pressed : 
 The breezes that were once Elysium's o\\ n, 
 Are tainted : there, where life was joy confessed ; 
 When death was sleep, reclined on Beauty's heavenly 
 breast !
 
 30-2 TEMPLK OF VENUS. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Who wrought, save man himself, the infamy ? 
 \VTio, sacred Nature so debased with crime 
 That God avenged her injured majesty ! 
 Leaving the moral as the deed sublime : 
 Then Solitude sate there, and from the slime 
 Of pools, Plague spread her deadliest control : 
 Yet Earth blooms here unchanged as in her prime ; 
 Man only pines amidst the glorious whole : 
 Nature gives life, form, strength, but freedom wakes the 
 soul. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Yet one fair ^^Teck, one relic left behind, 
 Breathes of the Past — the shrine of Venus seek; 
 How gracefully fr'om its fair roof declined, 
 The vine- wreaths shed, as eloquently speak, 
 As the rich locks that wave o'er beauty's cheek, 
 Veiling, but hiding not its loveliness ; 
 How Time hath touched it with his tenderest streak ! 
 How, on that faded shore companionless, 
 Her Altar woos ye there, ere parting, to confess !
 
 CUMA. 303 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Tarn to where patriarchal Cuma rears 
 The shattered pillars of her giant gate : 
 What spectacle behind its arch appears ? — 
 The majesty of ruin to create 
 The sigh, the memory, the thought sedate ? 
 No — for Elysium's scenes those gates enclose, 
 Where an undying life we contemplate ; 
 Where Nature doth with Solitude repose ; 
 Hiding the grave where once a mighty City rose. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Well art thou named " the happy," for thou guidest 
 Where sits the Beautiful embodied here : 
 Filling the eye and bosom, while thou hidest 
 All that would point the moral too severe : 
 Nay — bmying death too sweetly for a tear ! 
 Who would not sleep in such a grave where flowers 
 Bloom wildly fresh, unchanging as the year ? 
 Where the Sun ever leads the purple hours ; 
 Where the soft Spirit of Peace her gentlest influence 
 showers.
 
 •304 ITS BEAUTIFUL LOCALITY 
 
 XXX. 
 
 A wilderness of flowers around thee lying 
 Entangling, thy sweet hiding pathway throng ; 
 Myrtles and vines bloom there above ye, sighing 
 As the Wind wakes their fibres into song ! 
 Heaven's clondless aznre doth the day prolong, 
 As it would last for ever; and the Sea, 
 Heard far below, swells up its mighty tongue ! 
 The triad-Spirits, love, joy, harmony. 
 Join, as if Time slept here, as if death could not be. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Yet dash aside the myrtle-boughs, revealing 
 
 The ruins that beneath them buried lie, 
 
 How^ to thine eye their pale grey brows appealing. 
 
 Ask for thy tribute to humanity ! 
 
 For those who tvere — like thee : who did ally 
 
 Themselves with the departed gone before, 
 
 Even as thou shaltjoin a world gone by; 
 
 Thy joys, thy hopes, thy aspirations o'er ; — 
 
 God — God alone is great — the same for evermore ?
 
 THOUGHTS IN CUMA. 305 
 
 XXXIT. 
 
 Upon a mossy stone I sate me clown, 
 And thought of mighty CuMA in her pride ! 
 She of the Oracles of old renown ; 
 I thought of all the infinite life that plied 
 Through buried streets where now the worms abide ! 
 I thought of all the good, the great, the just : 
 Of chiefs for god-like actions deified, 
 Whose names are vanished — record — fame — and bust ; 
 Of Beauty's heavenly form — all turned alike to dust ! 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 I would have mourned — my bosom sought relief: 
 My heart yearned sadly toward my human kind ! 
 But Nature's self forbad the unnatural grief: 
 The Sun shone down reproof, and, in the wind, 
 I heard a spirit bid me be resigned : 
 Was not the crowning blessing — Life — allowed ? 
 The faculty, the enjoyment unconfined r 
 Low to the mcmitory Voice I bowed ; 
 And walked rejoicing on— my gratitude avo«ed. 
 
 X
 
 306 STORY OF D.EDALUS. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Pause for awhile on yonder grassy hill, 
 When, offering up the steerage of his wings, 
 The tale of Daedalus instructs us still : 
 How beauteous those divine imaginings 
 Of the old time, round which fond Fancy flings 
 Her brightest hues to' arrest the heedless mind I 
 How flower-like truth from buried fable springs ! 
 Here the sad Father in his grief designed 
 The story of his son, in rash presumption blind : 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Thrice he essayed — and thrice the sire confessed 
 The o'ermastering power of Nature as he failed ! 
 What need the truth implanted in each breast ? 
 On human wisdom the restraint entailed, 
 Whose glorious ambition heaven assailed ? — 
 To leave the baser herd behind, to prove. 
 Even though the wi'ath of man or heaven prevailed, 
 Its immortality, that vainly strove 
 To' o'erleap its mortal state, and sphere itself above.
 
 SCIPIO AT LITERNUM. 307 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Lo — far beneath, along that curving strand, 
 
 Where stood Liternum, gleams a riimed Tower : 
 
 How doth a glory round its wreck expand ! 
 
 Time may the records of the past devour, 
 
 Yet shall that spot o'er answering minds hold power ; 
 
 The vanquisher of Hannibal, the sword 
 
 Of Rome, there lingered out life's latest hour : 
 
 There died he, exiled, hated ; the reward 
 
 Dealt by mankind to those their freeman's rights who 
 guard. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 If thou dost well, descend that shelving shore. 
 The rocks, the hills, the pebbled ridge the same : 
 The waves break round thee with the same wild roar. 
 As, when beside them, SciPio strove to tame 
 The memory of his wrongs, and blighted name ; 
 Perchance, the enduring fonns around confessed, 
 Showed him the fleetingness of earthly fame ; 
 It may be. Nature entering his breast, 
 
 Soothed, till it hushed awhile, ambition's self to I'cst. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 TIBERIUS. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Ah ! vainly may the tutored soul essay 
 To steel itself to an mmatural mood 
 Of self-endurance — stem resolve gives way : 
 The stifled passions checked, but unsubdued, 
 Are ever s])ringing forth to be renewed ; 
 Time closes not that hidden wound which pained, 
 The wasting canker of ingi-atitude ! 
 How in his mighty heart that pang remained : 
 He, who beyond the grave, indignant wrath retained ! 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The Mountain-peaks — earth's portals to the sky : 
 Lo, even here on Capri's loftiest cime, 
 The wrecks of grandeur, arch, and column lie : 
 Here, where enthroned in solitude sublime, 
 Tiberius drew a majesty from crime: 
 Who strove to veil, that hoary eremite, 
 Deeds by stern fame recorded to all time ; 
 Who, buried here from man's detested sight, 
 Revelled in crime that hides its orgies from the light.
 
 HIS CHARACTER. 309 
 
 XL. 
 
 Cold as the cliff, and inaccessible 
 To human sympathies, one passion sate 
 Within that bloodless heart immovable ; 
 With power, fame, lust, ambition, satiate, 
 All there was buried, save undying hate 
 Of his own human kind : he stood so high. 
 Nor hope, nor flattery could more elate : 
 He sunk so low — polluting Infamy 
 Failed on that blackened heart to cast a deeper dye. 
 
 XLT. 
 
 He clung to Power as his minister : 
 Loathing the slav^es who made him tyrant ; scorn 
 Engendered hatred with mankind at war : 
 Asserted freedom he had better borne ; 
 Aught that the flatterer's veil aside had torn, 
 And shown the heart from all its foldings bare ; 
 He wi'eaked on them the vengeance they had cbawn ; 
 A fallen, conscious spirit, plunging there 
 In deeds he loved, yet loathed — ambition in despair !
 
 310 PICTURE OF TIBERIUS. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 There is no prying eye upon him now : 
 None pass that platform in the twilight hour ; 
 Lo — bent towards the ground is that dark brow, 
 O'er which profoundest sadness now doth lower : 
 The man before whose eye the bravest cower, 
 Whose look was law, whose gesture life controlled : 
 He, the Inscrutable, arrayed with power ; 
 Whose slightest acts a mystery enfold, 
 
 Whose wrath, like lightning struck, ere yet the thunder 
 told ! 
 
 XLIII. 
 Behold the ruin of the man ! decay 
 Hath fixed upon that tottering form : yet pride 
 Erect is there ; in his quick eye, the sway 
 Of reinless, restless passion is descried, 
 Which gi-ey dissimulation cannot hide I 
 Yet on that high, imperious brow, is shown 
 The stamp of Mind to nobler things allied ; 
 Bom to command : which, in the crowd unknown, 
 
 Had risen o'er all, and proved its heirship to a throne.
 
 HIS REMORSE : 311 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 He stood and watched where, over Baiae's shore, 
 
 Like a material god the Sun enshrined, 
 
 Called on the hearts who watched him to adore ; 
 
 Even as a Monarch's glory left behind, 
 
 A visible Blessing ! felt among mankind. 
 
 And hallowed when departed ! even thus 
 
 Should he have passed to deathless fame consigned : 
 
 What was he now ? a blight — a withering curse : 
 
 None loved — nought clung to him — nought save his vain 
 remorse. 
 
 XLV. 
 The mind upon its rack of pain — the Past — 
 Its Visions magnified in memory's shade : 
 The hopeless future — life's hours ebbing fast — 
 Health, strength, hope, passion, energy decayed ; 
 All, then, he felt — till pride no longer swayed 
 His will inflexible— forth flowed the tears ! 
 Not that refreshing dew to Virtue paid, 
 But such as, scalding, the lone bosom seais, 
 
 Shed o'er the ai'id waste of execrated years !
 
 31-2 AND DESPAIR. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 'Twas but a moment — but that moment brought 
 Pangs which he never dealt ! there is a hell 
 Upon itself by the quick Spirit wi'ought, 
 That mocks imagination's baffled spell ; 
 Whose retributive tortures none may tell ! 
 The wild remorse — the curse of guilt unshriven : — 
 The old man turned — that hour repaid him well ! 
 Outcast from earth, without a hope ftom heaven, 
 That night, the minderer's blow to him was mercy given ! 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Pass o'er — where buried in its leafy nest, 
 Like a lone cushat-dove, Sorrento lies : 
 A mirror of the " Islands of the Blest;" 
 Or that unfound Hesperides, which lies 
 Beyond our life : that unseen Paradise, 
 Vision of hope, the glory, and the dream ! 
 What living foliage of a thousand dyes 
 Shoots upwai'd, shadowing o'er yon Ocean-Stream, 
 Braiding the rock-ribbed hills that rise to heaven 
 supreme :
 
 SORRENTO. 313 
 
 XL VI II. 
 
 Which cast below the Shadows of their power : 
 Their brows of majesty all softened, while 
 Beauty, the Spmt ! sleeps away her hour, 
 Heposing at their feet ; ye see her smile 
 In every flower ; — each flower the happy isle 
 Of infinite existence ! and ye feel 
 H er breath upon the sunny air beguile 
 The heart to its own happiness, and steal 
 Its anxious grief away, and solter hopes reveal. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Such are thy charms, Sorrento ! which before 
 Were yet too fair : behold, in yon deep bay, 
 The grey crag hurled beyond the pebbled shore ; 
 Round which the blue waves chafe in idle play : 
 Know'st thou whose mighty Spirit casts a ray 
 O'er yon dim cavern ? know'st thou who stood tliere. 
 Embodying in his everlasting lay. 
 Its talc ? — whose genius fills — inspires the air, 
 Whose Phantoms round that spot for ever shall repair }
 
 314 HOMER. 
 
 L. 
 
 Even now, while sitting on this mossy stone, 
 I see the sail spread from Lachaea's isle ; 
 They scale the Cyclop's cave — a shout — a groan — 
 Tn his red eye is plunged the fiery pile ! 
 Lo, with the morning's light, the goats defile 
 Slowly beneath the blinded monster's hand : 
 Free stands, at length, the hero of the wile. 
 And now the giant's clamoui's fill the strand, 
 As, shouting, bound from shore the Ulyssean band ! 
 
 LI. 
 
 O thou eternal Homer ! every nook 
 Of this most wild yet lovely coast is thine : 
 The Syrens yon dim islands have forsook. 
 Yet is each vestige of their haunt divine ! 
 Doth not thy awful Genius o'er it shine, 
 Bright, yet as softened as yon setting Sun, 
 That floods them o'er with glory firom its shrine ? 
 Empires have vanished like the Day when done. 
 But with renewing time thy life is still begun.
 
 CIRCE AND ULYSSES. 315 
 
 LII. 
 
 How hath thy song the light of Truth arrayed ! 
 
 Lo — yon blue promontory : Circe's spell 
 
 There changed to brutes the slaves who vice obeyed : 
 
 Speaks not the moral eloquently well ? 
 
 What herb, save reason, could her power compel ? 
 
 Why rather sought the hero o'er the foam 
 
 Death, than imprisoned in her chains to dwell ? 
 
 Her charms unfelt, and loathed her starry dome ? 
 
 'Twas Virtue pointed still, his wife — his child — his 
 home ! 
 
 LIII. 
 Sorrento I who that blesses thy soft brow. 
 Dreams of the scars which seam thy bosom o'er ? 
 What awful scenes thy caverned depths avow ! 
 There, where the Lightning's scathing passage tore 
 The very heart of Nature to its core : 
 How yawn her mighty sides opposing riven, 
 Frowning like foes whose wrath can meet no more : 
 Where, through their blackened fissures fiercely 
 driven, 
 Ye mark how clove its track the fiery bolt of heaven !
 
 316 TASSO's HOUSE. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 There was a dwelling on the sea-clift's side, 
 Its vanished site no vestige doth attest, 
 Even such a nook as Love would choose to hide 
 Its loved one from the world : a very nest 
 Of Quiet, when, of all it asks, possessed. 
 The heart would find or make its earthly heaven 
 Where only found, in Woman's answering breast ! 
 All other ties save that sole liie's-tie riven : 
 The world's neglect forgot — its injuries forgiven. 
 
 LV. 
 
 A sacred spot — recal it to thine eye. 
 Each spot is sacred, hallowed by a tear ! 
 And this is sanctified by Memory ; 
 By those revering hearts to whom are dear 
 The martyrs of the past who suffered here : 
 O'er whom are shed the human sympathies 
 Like breath of flowers that consecrate the bier : 
 A Lady by its casements sits and sighs, 
 Watching a distant sail whose white wing homeward 
 flies ;
 
 TASSO AND HIS SISTER. 317 
 
 LVI. 
 
 That light skiff, bird-like, closely nearing now, 
 Shows one therein whose eyes are fixed on her, 
 Those eyes that sunk beneath his sickly brow, 
 And wan as lights within their sepulchre. 
 Now soften with the look familiar 
 Of unforgotten ties ! he springs to land, 
 And they embrace as those whose spirits are 
 United : whose affections more expand, 
 As time and distance knit them with a stronger band. 
 
 LVIl. 
 
 The vSister's love, the holy, and the pure, 
 Recals again all Nature's wonted force 
 Even in Tasso ! other loves endure 
 To perish, lighted al an earthlier source. 
 Dimmed by doubt, fear, or buried in remorse : 
 Oh, if there be one pure receptacle, 
 One feeling flowing purer in its course, 
 One love an Angel might not blush to tell, 
 'Tis when a Sister's heart to thine doth fondly swell !
 
 318 TASSO AND HIS SISTER. 
 
 LVITI. 
 
 The exile came for quiet : to forget 
 
 The blighted hope, the inexpiable wrong : 
 
 To soften here in solitude regret 
 
 Of a love stamped immortal in his song ! 
 
 Which, but for him, had lain the dead among, 
 
 Unheard, unknown ; oh, if thou would'st conceal 
 
 Forms once loved, memories that too busy throng ; 
 
 If inmost wounds, corroding, thou would'st heal, 
 
 Each sight, each sound shall, there, those forms to 
 life reveal ; 
 
 LIX. 
 All thou would'st exorcise — the flower, the star. 
 Shall be the links of Memory's thrilling chain. 
 Vibrating on thy heart, until they wear 
 Its pulse away : so didst thou feel how vain 
 To waken here thy boyhood's dream again ; 
 Until, for very refuge, thou didst fly 
 From Nature's ever fi'esh and joyous reign, 
 Back to the deserts of humanity. 
 
 To bear hate — scorn - remorse — to madden — and to die ?
 
 TWILIGHT AT SORRENTO. 319 
 
 LX. 
 
 It is the hour when her sweet cheek, though faded, 
 Hath more on it of beauty's heavenly spell, 
 Her brow with dews, her feet with roses braided, 
 Meek Twilight turns to bid the Earth farewell ! 
 How doth his darkened brow his sadness tell ! 
 Yet is a softness pictured there, ye trace 
 Reflected, oh, how eloquently well. 
 The beauty of his parting Sister's face : 
 Stealing from her, expression's melancholy grace. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 For oh, round her departing tread how lingers 
 
 Beauty, enamoured of her to the last ! 
 How while grey Evening shuts, with silent fingers, 
 The Gates of Day, she throws on him, ere past, 
 Her loveliest look ; and even, while closing fast 
 Those cloudy portals, doth she lingering yearn. 
 Her eyes with a prophetic feeling cast 
 On him, who watches bent above his urn 
 Of roses, which shall bloom no more till she return !
 
 320 TEMPLE OF MINERVA. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Blest hour of Twilight ! who could feel thy power, 
 Or from Minerva's mined shrine behold 
 The earth, undying beauty for its dower : 
 The Sky — the deep Sea's music round him rolled, 
 Nor feel, Italia ! what thou wert of old. 
 And — what thou art : nor. Freedom ! call to thee 
 Even with a kindred spirit uncontrolled : 
 Until the Song with passionate melody, 
 Exults o'er all thou wert — on all thou yet shalt be I 
 
 ODE 
 
 AMONG THE RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA 
 
 ON THE PROMONTORY OF SORRENTO. 
 1. 
 
 Italia, oh, Italia ! now. 
 
 While bending o'er this fallen shrine, 
 I trace upon thy glorious brow^ 
 
 The lines by Nature stamped divine ; 
 The spirit that hues thy land and sea ; — 
 Let me pour forth my soul to thee !
 
 ODE. 321 
 
 The ardent thoughts that fill my breast, 
 That prophet-like, my soul inspire : 
 
 The hope that from its eagle nest, 
 Rises upon its wings of fire ! 
 
 Whence swells this passion's burst so fi-ee, 
 
 Thou glorious shrine ! save caught from thee ? 
 
 3. 
 
 The Spectres of the mighty Dead, 
 I feel, unseen, are hovering near : 
 
 The Spirits of forty Ages fled 
 
 Pour down prophetic breathings here ; 
 
 Till, like the Delphic priest of old, 
 
 The god is from my bosom rolled ! 
 
 4. 
 
 Birth-place of heroes— shrine of Gods ! 
 
 All shrunk within one nameless tomb, 
 Memory's unchangeable abodes : 
 Oh ! can it be, youth's purple bloom 
 Once clad these wrecks around me hurled ? — 
 Once graced the garden of the world ? 
 
 Y
 
 32'i ODE. 
 
 Yes — from von heaven is left thee still .' — 
 Look on those violet hues that are 
 
 The poetry of light ! — which fill 
 Thy every vein— till not a scar 
 
 Of wounds within thy bosom riven, 
 
 But might be, for their sakes, forgiven ! 
 
 6. 
 
 Oh ! that I, ere I pass away, 
 
 One moment could arrest from Time, 
 
 Like him who sleeps within that bay ; 
 And body forth this scene sublime, 
 
 This world of love and harmony, 
 
 In sti'ains as gloriously as he ! — 
 
 7. 
 
 Naples — far stretching out beside 
 Yon azure ridge, her mighty life : 
 
 Yon Mount, whose clouds ascending, hide 
 The deep blue air with gladness rife : 
 
 That, stem and awfiil watch seems keeping 
 
 O'er Love beneath on roses sleeping !
 
 ODE. 323 
 
 8 
 Oh, that I from me now could throw 
 
 The beauty labouring at my heart, 
 That blends itself with all below, 
 
 Of earth — air — heaven — mankind a part ; 
 I would be the inspiring Soul, 
 The life, the love that fills the Whole ! 
 
 9. 
 I have essayed — and, it may be. 
 
 My Song with Memory shall dwell : 
 1 murmur not to join with ye, 
 
 Ye glorious Dead ! but I would tell 
 That I, too, life have well employed : 
 I, too, Arcadia have enjoyed ! 
 
 10. 
 I would not, like this blessed Air, 
 
 That floats along my cheek, be dumb : 
 But leave some record to declare 
 
 I lived and loved : — T would become 
 The immortal spirit of this spot, 
 Remembered with it — and forgot ! 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 ODE. 
 
 11. 
 
 Even now its Beauty's spell hath bound me ! 
 
 The fresh breeze fans, the wave breaks high, 
 Tossing its spray of gladness round me ! 
 
 The Spirit of Joy is in the sky, 
 Pervading sea, and earth, and air, 
 As if even Freedom's self were there ! 
 
 12. 
 
 And she is there — I feel her now : 
 It is Iter Spirit that hath thrilled 
 
 My bosom, till it dared avow 
 
 The thoughts that would no more be stilled 
 
 That, o'er the flight of ages cast, 
 
 Foretell the future by the past. 
 
 13. 
 
 Fallen Italia ! ivilt thou lie 
 
 For ever thus, profaned, degraded } 
 
 Still must thy beauty be the tie 
 
 That binds thee in thy chains unaided ? 
 
 Still shall the strong— the weak, alike, 
 
 Insult thee — till thou dar'st to strike ?
 
 ODE. 325 
 
 14. 
 1 look into thy peasant's eyes, 
 
 And read the hero in each trace ; 
 I mark the fiery passions rise 
 
 Wliich Tyi'anny can not efface : 
 I feel beneath that passive air, 
 That soul — that soul is living there ! 
 
 15. 
 
 The fires within thy ashes hidden, 
 
 Are gathering slow, though veiled their light, 
 
 Till forth shall burst that word forbidden — 
 Like thy volcano-flames— unite ! 
 
 Then, chains of ages iioxn thee thrown, 
 
 Italia — thou shalt stand alone ! 
 
 16. 
 Look how thy Alps ascend the skies ! 
 
 TJiey guard thee — thou hast but to climb 
 And guard thy rock-walled Paradise : 
 
 Is't not enough ? — look back to time ; 
 Think, while your oft told tale is rung, 
 Degenerate men ! from whom ye sprung.
 
 326 ODE. 
 
 17. 
 Heroes of Rome's heroic age ! 
 
 High martyrs of your country's fame ! 
 Do not your chainless spirits wage 
 
 War with her foes ? does not your flame 
 Pervade the haunts ye loved, and thrill 
 The hearts responsive to ye still ? 
 
 18. 
 1 hear — I hear your answers borne 
 
 Up from the far abyss of Fate ! 
 I see Oppression's banners torn : 
 
 Rome seated in her ancient state ; 
 I spring indignant from this grave, 
 I feel thou art no more a slave !
 
 NIGHT AT SORRENTO. 327 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 It is the night — the sacred hour of Night : 
 How eloquent Darkness opens to the eye 
 The pure, the undying, and the infinite ! 
 The heaven of heavens unfolding spreads on high. 
 The star-roofed Temple of Eternity ! 
 Where rolls in floating argentry along, 
 The living wilderness of galaxy, 
 O'er the vast void-Hke foam from Ocean flung : 
 That solemn Sea of Air whose silence hath a tongue ! 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 And the hushed slumberous Earth ! the moveless trees 
 The nodding hills that nearer round ye close : 
 The Stars that to the eye are melodies. 
 Stilling the bosom to divine repose ! 
 All enter there, till being overflows 
 With love and adoration : till it swells 
 To be a part of the great Soul which glows 
 In all things : that through life, death, motion, dwells, 
 Whose pulse, each blade of grass — each world revolving 
 tells !
 
 328 STARLIGHT. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 And shedding o'er the orange-woods its glow, 
 Soft as the memory rests on buried love, 
 How the Moon silvers o'er the scene below ! 
 Altar of Peace ! the floating world above 
 Of visible tranquillity ! the grove, 
 The vale, the wave, beneath its radiance shine, 
 Until its softness with the being wove, 
 Entering, doth make the heart itself a shrine. 
 As stedfast, pure, and fixed, thou blessed Orb, as thine! 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Ye Stars — that are Night's visible eyes ! enshrined 
 Like the eternal thoughts that sleeplessly 
 Live in the heaven of the Almighty Mind ! 
 How are ye passing beautiful, ye high. 
 Pure, radiant creations ! majesty. 
 Glory, and might are round ye, yet we gaze 
 And feel ye are but lovely ! ye would be 
 Awful — but who e'er drank your softening rays, 
 Nor felt the faith, the hope, that feverish doubt allays ?
 
 AMALFI. :3-29 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Eternal Beings ! born before all time, 
 Or uncreate — coeval with the One : 
 How bowed to ye Earth's giant race sublime ! 
 Wherefore ? — man felt, as now, he was the son 
 Of immortality in ye begun, 
 Or ended: oh ! if souls shall e'er know rest 
 Beyond the grave, if higher spheres be won, 
 Where, baffled here, their powers shall shine con- 
 fessed, 
 
 'Tis on your glorious shores, bright " Islands of the 
 Blest !" 
 
 LXVIII. 
 If thou would'st see the Morning from the Dee]) 
 Rise, wildly fresh, as when to birth she sprung, 
 Stand thou, where hanging from the mountain-steep, 
 Its breast with vines and myrtle-groves o'erhung. 
 Round its grey sides the misty vapours flung 
 Like incense o'er the Altar of the Sea, 
 Rises to heaven the very clouds among. 
 The towering Amalfi ! — once did she 
 
 Europe and Asia join, the guardian of the free.
 
 830 LA CAVA. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 There, would' st thou wile Day's sultry hours, repair 
 Beneath the shadows of its sparry grot ; 
 What forms of Beauty shall approach thee there ! 
 The murmuring leaves, the low cicala's note, 
 The distant dashing oar; the vine-leaves wrought 
 In fairy net- work o'er ye ; through whose wreath 
 Dim glimpses are of distant Ocean caught, 
 Expanding as if Heaven's own azm'e breath 
 Lay visibly floating there, and filled the void beneath ! 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Or would'st thou seek profounder solitudes, 
 Turn where La Cava's silver-sounding bell 
 Startles the traveller musing midst her woods : 
 He, who to busy life hath bade farewell. 
 How sweet were it, even here, for aye, to dwell ! 
 And while the Minster's organ-notes along 
 Stole, mingling with the water's wilder swell. 
 How sweet, while pausing o'er that solemn song, 
 To feel shut out — forgot — the world's insensate throng:
 
 P^STUM. 331 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Salerno calls us, but we may not hear : 
 The Wanderer's latest shrine approaches fast ; 
 A sph'it-stining spectacle is near, 
 One marvel more — the greatest, as the last ! 
 Lo, how the baiTen wastes around are cast, 
 Wild, savage, desolate as Afiic's sands : 
 Scathed by the sun, and seared by wintry blast : 
 Yet here, Sublimity embodied stands ; 
 The infinite of space the kindred soul expands. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 Lo — far on the horizon s verge reclined. 
 Rising amidst the solitude alone, 
 The sun's red rays in lurid light behind, 
 The darkness of the clouds before them thrown, 
 Revealing out each giant column shown 
 Gleaming against a wild and stormy sky, 
 The mighty Temple of an age unknown ! 
 Frowning in solitary majesty, 
 Eternal P/ESTUm there arrests the heart and eye !
 
 33-2 TEMrLE. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 Ye pause — the desolate waste — the open heaven, 
 
 The sea-fowl's clang — the grey mists hurrying by : 
 
 The Altar rising there — unbowed — unriven, 
 
 Inspire ye with their own sublimity ; 
 
 Sky, Mountains, Storms, its mates eternally, 
 
 For the Sea breaks no more ai'ound his shrine, 
 
 Hurled down is the Neptunian Deity : 
 
 The worshippers have pass'd, and left no sign ; 
 
 The Shaker of the Earth no more is held divine ! 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 There, like some Titan, throned o'er his retreat 
 Of deserts, and the setting vSun's last rays 
 Falling around on his majestic seat, 
 Each limb dilated in the twilight haze 
 Of the dim distance that eludes the gaze ; 
 An Image whose tranquillity 
 The awful consciousness of Power displays ; 
 Whose kindred are the hills, the rocks, the Sea ; — 
 Even so the awe-struck mind, reposing, dwells on thee !
 
 OF PiESTUM. 333 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Even so thou risest, simple, stern, sublime, 
 While naked Strength lies sleeping at thy base : 
 How those huge columns mock the assault of Time ! 
 Earthquakes have heaved — storms shook — the light- 
 ning's trace 
 Left the black shadows years shall not efface, 
 And the hot levin dinted where it fell ! 
 But on thy stedfast and majestic face 
 Is stamped the impress of the Uncliangeable ! 
 That, fixed for ever there, thy massive form shall dwell, 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Incorporate with Nature : with the earth. 
 With the grey rocks, the mountains, and the sky : 
 Time spares those columns of primeval birth : 
 They have outlived their earthlier destiny. 
 And changes which they feel not : thrillingly 
 They sj^eak to man, and with an eloquent tongue, 
 Even with the awful Voice of Meraoiy ! — 
 " Here once a mighty City poured its throng : 
 " The tides of Life rolled here exultingly along "
 
 334 p^^STUM. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Spirit of grey Antiquity ! thou sittest 
 
 With solitude and silence here : proclaim 
 
 Thou, who a Shadow round thy ruin flittest, 
 
 Wlio reared that mighty Altar ? from whence came 
 
 The Children of the Sea ? what age — what name 
 
 Bore they, who chose this plain their home to be ? 
 
 A theatre marked out for deeds of fame : 
 
 As if by Nature destined for the free : 
 
 The chainless waves beneath, above. Heaven's 
 
 canopy ! 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 Ascend the Vestibule : lo, gleaming near, 
 The blue, the ever-rolling, living Sea ! 
 So they ascended, calling thee to hear. 
 Source of their fame ! and, while they knelt to thee, 
 They heard thy Voices awful melody ; 
 And, wafted on thy heaving bosom, felt 
 Thy power, and wrath, and thy infinity : 
 Pause — on this spot have prostrate myriads knelt : 
 The thoughts within thy breast, in theirs, it may be, 
 
 dwelt.
 
 p^STUM. 335 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Go thou — sit there — and muse away thine hour ; 
 Thy visions shall arise more just, more pure, 
 And, haply, with the faculty and power, 
 Thou wilt embody thoughts that shall endure : 
 But the same moral comes to all be sure ; 
 The failing grasp we hold on life, and less. 
 On those, alas ? whose love we would seciu*e , 
 The softened feeling which ye then confess, 
 Love holds on earth alone the keys of Happiness ! 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Oh ! that a ministering Spirit here 
 Lived — to enchain me with her beauty's spell, 
 To commune with her of her brighter sphere ; 
 To her the aching thoughts and wishes tell 
 That glow within my soul unquenchable ! 
 A creature, o'er whose brow, ar,d azure eye. 
 No change could come, no earthlier passion dwell : 
 To walk these ruins of a world gone by, 
 And, 'midst decay, to feel our loves could never die.
 
 336 THE PAST RECALLED. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 How our soul's aspiralious die unproved, 
 Untold, unknown ! — what lover e'er expressed 
 The idolatry he felt for her he loved ? 
 The finest chords within the Poet's breast. 
 The patriot's dreams which had his coimtry blest, 
 The sage's wisdom of exhaustless worth, 
 How have their loftiest visions vmconfessed 
 Died — and been buried — not in graves of earth. 
 
 But in the human heart — checked — ^blighted in their 
 birth ! 
 
 LXXXII. 
 Vain visions— false regrets ! — recal the Past : 
 The embodied scenes of life again restore : 
 Clouds rise between me and yon Temple cast ; 
 Lo — it emerges— ruin now no more ! 
 The tides of human life throng round: the roar, 
 The strife of a towered City crowding round ! 
 The shouts and songs of triumph : the far shore 
 With the thronged masts of navies crowned ; 
 
 Even to the ends of earth are Neptune's walls renowned.
 
 AUGUSTUS AT PyESTUM. 337 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 The Vision changes — ages take their flight : 
 All, save the Temple, dream-like, now is flown : 
 The City's place is vanished from the sight : 
 One massive fragment from that shrine is thrown, 
 One sits thereon of kingly mien, alone : 
 Deep lines of thought upon his brow appear : 
 The imperial toga hath the Roman shown : 
 He gazes on the answering Ruin ; — near 
 His silent courtiers wait — for dumb is flattery here ! 
 
 LXXXTV. 
 
 It is Augustus CaBsar : it may be 
 Truth silently is entering his breast, 
 Filled with the wisdom of antiquity : 
 Those mighty spirits who their words impressed, 
 And works, upon mankind, now laid in rest. 
 Passed, yea, forgotten as the breeze that blew 
 Unheeded by him there ! then, unrepressed, 
 A deeper gloom upon his forehead grew, 
 Feeling how vainly Fame doth here our life renew. 
 
 z
 
 338 SUNSET — ON P.ESTUM. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 He felt the Power presiding here, as thou : 
 Stern Mutability : — that Rome, his pride, 
 His boast, arrayed by him in marble now. 
 Might one day in the desert thus abide, 
 Bowed to the Fate she haughtily defied ! 
 Her Forum-place, a solitude ; the spot 
 Even where she stood — unknown : he turned aside : 
 The moral with his spirit's life was wrought ; 
 Truth entered in his soul— her words were unforgot. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 The Sun is setting : carrying Day before, 
 And leaving Night and Solitude behind : 
 Material god ! and is the word — no more — 
 Stamped on thy blazing brow ? shalt thou, enshrined 
 Soul of that infinite space, thy mandate find, 
 The irrevocable doom to be destroyed ? 
 Or, art thou living hke the Almighty Mind ? 
 Thy beams decreed to lighten o'er the void 
 Where once our World of Life, thought, suffered, and 
 enjoyed !
 
 SUNSET, 339 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Glorious idolatry of elder time ! 
 
 God-like, or rising, throned, or in decline : 
 
 Where are those days when men, like gods, sublime. 
 
 Bowed on their hills ? yea, hallowed as divine 
 
 The Stars that drew their crowns of light from thine ! 
 
 They who beheld in thee the visible face 
 
 Of the Invisible within his shrine : 
 
 What shrine was like thine Eye ? what altar-place 
 Like thy all-infinite heaven — whose walls are echoless 
 space ? 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Lord of the Day ! and being infinite, 
 
 That lives within thy beams — whose life thou art : 
 
 Creator of the Seasons — Eye of Light ! 
 
 Thy rays pervade, like melody, the heart, 
 
 Till of their feeling it becomes a part : 
 
 Until all shapes that haunt our phantasy. 
 
 All forms of beauty into life that start, 
 
 Of glory, power, and of majesty, 
 Are drawn from thy bright Urn by treasuring Memory ! 
 
 z >
 
 340 THE SEA. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 The blue Mediterranean bosoms thee : 
 Thy crown of many hues doth o'er her glow ; 
 O thou glad rolling and rejoicing Sea ! 
 Could I behold thy waters foaming now, 
 Nor all the rapture which thou giv'st, avow ? 
 Thy bosom bears the azure of the Sky : 
 The breeze is playing o'er thy glorious brow ! 
 The pulses of thy mighty Heart on high 
 Are heard like thunder — throbbing everlastingly ! 
 
 XC. 
 
 Roll on for ever, wildly fresh and free ! 
 Men raise their ant-hill cities on thy brink ; 
 States, empires' rise and fall are typed by thee : 
 Time's dusty records in oblivion sink ; 
 And they, the lights that shone o'er ages, shrink 
 Again in darkness : deeds, and thoughts that bore 
 The stamps that to immortal natures link ; 
 Unchanged alone thou roll'st from shore to shore, 
 Girding the earth like heaven — the same for evermore !
 
 THE SEA. 341 
 
 XCT. 
 
 And galaxied with Cyclades, whose names 
 Endming as the stars hath Memory kept : 
 What glorious deeds each shore opposing claims ! 
 What patriots there even virtue overstepped ; 
 What baffled tyrants vainly there have wept, 
 Checked in their game of slaughter unessayed, 
 And, while thy Waves in thunder by them swe^Jt, 
 Stood— even as children ! — but thy Voice obeyed : 
 
 " No further pass — even here shall thy proud course be 
 stayed !" 
 
 XCII. 
 Thou mighty Being ! vain are round thee reared 
 Earth's mountain walls, and ramparts of the sand, 
 That sunk beneath the irruption which they feared ; 
 Thou, who hast made an Ocean of the land, 
 Whose Waters o'er a buried world expand ! 
 What Mammoth-monsters, there, lie unconfessed ! 
 Oh, in thy mystery alone how grand 
 Art thou ! — the Almighty mirrored in thy breast : 
 
 The calm — the wrath — the thunder — the eternal rest !
 
 342 THE SEA. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 Even to the loftiest mountain-peaks thou sendest 
 Thy warnings to weak man on his vain height : 
 Until thy spirit's strength to him thou lendest, 
 To read thy truths below : to mark the flight 
 Of days, of ages, of the infinite, 
 Embodied on thy bosom : and to see, 
 In waves that fret and break in baffled might. 
 The idle chafings of humanity ! 
 Striving to o'erleap the bounds by Nature fixed, and 
 thee. 
 
 XCIV. 
 Thou antique Sea ! I, too, would build thee here 
 An Altar, like the idolater of old. 
 Yea, bow to thee with reverential fear ! 
 Thou, in whose breast the spirit doth behold 
 Itself — as pure, immortal, uncontrolled ! 
 A Priest of Nature, I would sit alone 
 On yon grey rock, thy waves beneath me rolled, 
 And pom' forth fi"om that solitary throne 
 
 The Song, which, raised to thee, should catch thy thun- 
 der-tone.
 
 THE SEA. 343 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Farewell — my love is told — my Song is ended : 
 How my soul opened when it first beheld 
 Thy stormy forehead with the tempests blended ! 
 How in me, then, the infinite feeling swelled, 
 By thy own overmastering power compelled : 
 Thou wert to me a voiceful Oracle 
 Unfolding mightiest truths, till then withheld : 
 Even now — while lingering here— I own thy spell, 
 As, turning slow, 1 bid thee, once again — farewell ! 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 The Lay hath ceased : companion, solace, friend, 
 And cherished hope of years : how all too weak ! 
 Yet if to higher thoughts its musings tend : 
 If it hath caught one grace from Art's fair cheek; 
 Or wooed thee in her solitudes to seek 
 Inspiring Nature ; and if nearer be 
 A hope — that to thy inner heart it speak. 
 And waken there one noble sympathy ; 
 Life hath not passed in vain — the Song shall live in 
 thee ! 
 
 END OF CANTO VI.
 
 NOTE S.
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant. 
 Omnia nos . . . . — Horace. 
 
 Even as the bees from bower to bower, 
 We quaff the sweets of many a flower. 
 
 III. 
 
 Stand — -for, unseen beneath, a world lies shrouded. 
 
 The Scene might well be termed sublime, if any visible 
 earthly pageant may really deserve that name. The entire 
 world of landscape, extending from the base of the Apen- 
 nine, was covered and filled up with one ridgy sea of Cloud, 
 terminated, on the opposite side, by azure ranges of moun- 
 tains, their pinnacles splitten into the most fantastic forms ; 
 while, immediately beneath me, they silently broke in billows 
 of gusty vapour. 
 
 What added — if anything could add — to the effect of this
 
 348 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 solemn Spectacle on the mind — was its silence. " The 
 " more I reflect upon it," says Goethe, in one of his happier 
 moods, " the more it strikes me that there is something so 
 " idle, I could almost say bufFoonish in Talk, that one is awe- 
 *' stricken before the deep solemn Silence of Nature, as soon 
 " as one stands withdrawn into oneself, and confronted with 
 " her, before some massive wall of rock, or in the solitude of 
 " some venerable Mountain." The silence of the mountains, 
 rising into the very depths of heaven, and, above all, the 
 silence of that shadowy yet most palpable looking Sea, 
 whose waves seemed material, and which changed in per- 
 tual fluctuation, had almost a spiritual effect, heightened, as 
 it was, by the Sun, which, cloudless in the sky, converted 
 the whole Ocean of Cloud beneath into a veil of luminous 
 light, a floating glory. — Journal. 
 
 V. 
 
 Lo — Lifes true Isthmus : 
 
 To Cowley, I believe, belongs the original of this noble 
 image, which has been so often applied : 
 
 Vain, weak-built Isthmus, which dost proudly rise 
 Up, betwixt two eternities. 
 
 VIII. 
 Athens of Italy ! I gaze on thee. 
 
 Florence was the Athens of Italy. The genius displayed
 
 NOTF.S TO CANTO I. 349 
 
 by its citizens, the intelligence to be found in the mass of its 
 people, the national character of generosity to protect the 
 oppressed, raised the City above every other — Sismondi. 
 
 There is no point of view from which Florence is seen to 
 more advantage than from the hill of St. Miniato, known, 
 during the tenth century, as the King's Mountain. Pre- 
 vious to arriving at the ancient fortress, we pass on the road 
 the Church of the Saviour of the Mount, beautifully embo- 
 somed among a group of cypresses. 
 
 The writer of this note recals every spot of St. Miniato 
 
 with delight, as all must do, who have explored its beautiful 
 
 localities : — 
 
 " I knew each lane, and every alley green 
 " Dingle, or bushy dell, 
 " And every bosky bourne from side to side, 
 " My daily walk and ancient neighbourhood .'"* 
 
 XII. 
 
 O thou loved Land that still art Paradise ! 
 
 After three ages of misfortunes — those which, in over- 
 whelming, degrade and debase also, one still hears pronounced 
 nowhere, as in Italy, that fond and passionate exclamation, 
 in which there is even more of religion than of love : 
 
 O Die — com' e bello ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thy Beauty which has been thy curse : 
 
 The affecting and sublime sonnet of Filicaja will occur to 
 
 Masque of Comus. 
 
 •
 
 350 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 the Italian reader, incorporated, as it is, for ever, among the 
 stanzas of Childe Harold . 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Of those scarce less than Tyrants in their day. 
 
 It has been justly observed that the decline of Tuscany 
 may be dated from the sovereignty of the Medicis. Sid- 
 ney gives a glowing picture of the melancholy peace which 
 almost immediately succeeded: " In despite of all the 
 " seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid 
 " factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelins, the Neri and Bian- 
 " chi, the nobles and commons, they continued populous, 
 " strong, and exceeding rich ; but in the space of less than 
 " one hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medicis 
 " is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people 
 " of that province." 
 
 The Riccardi Palace was the original residence of Cosmo 
 de Medicis, and his descendants : an inscription over the 
 entrance records his patriotism and his virtues. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Left Hope, the seraph ! sighing at its door : 
 
 Allusion to his famous line placed over the gates of hell. 
 
 Politian has celebrated Fiesole in some exquisite poetry, 
 which the scholar will recal ; but, in a far mightier ex- 
 ample, who does not remember the name of Fiesole inter- 
 woven with one of the very sublimest passages of Paradise 
 Lost?
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 351 
 
 " His ponderous shield 
 
 like the moon, whose orb 
 
 Through optic glass the Tuscan Artist sees. 
 At evening from the top of Fiesole." 
 
 Fiesole will always possess for the writer of this note 
 the most gratifying remembrances, for it was there that he 
 first became acquainted with a man whose name, at last, 
 has become a familiar somid —Walter Savage Landor. All 
 those who have the pleasure of knowing the Author of the 
 " Imaginary Conversations," would find it difficult to decide 
 which to estimate the highest — his writings, or his personal 
 character. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 That fairy Toiver within its shadow nursed : 
 The Campanile — the most airy, fairy structure that ever 
 rose from earth to heaven. 
 
 One man, the wonder of Cosmo's age, Brunelleschi, had 
 crowned the beautiful city with the vast Dome of its Cathe- 
 dral ; a structure unthought of in Italy before, and rarely 
 surpassed. It stood amidst clustering towers of inferior 
 churches, an emblem of the Catholic hierarchy under its 
 supreme head ; like Rome itself, imposing, unbroken, un- 
 changeable, radiating in equal expansion to every part of the 
 earth, and directing its convergent curves to heaven. Round 
 this were numbered, at unequal heights, the Baptistery, 
 with its gates worthy of Paradise,* and the tall and richly 
 * Enthusiastically termed " the Gates of Heaven" by Michael Angclo.
 
 352 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 decorated belfry of Giotto. — Hallam's Literature of 
 Europe. 
 
 The banks of the Arno must acquire tenfold additional 
 interest to him who remembers how the greatest of all Poets 
 once trod them with a delight which he has so gratefully 
 recorded. I felt this sentiment profoundly, whilst repeating 
 his lines, when first I walked among the myrtles and poplars 
 which flourished there, as they do now ; 
 
 O ego quantus eram, gelidi cum stratus ad Ami 
 Murmura, populeumqtie remus, quae mollior herba, 
 Caqjere nunc violas, nunc summas catpere myrtos. 
 
 Journal. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Forum of Florence ! 
 
 There is an antique character, a feudal and a venerable 
 look about the Piazza del Gran' Duca, which, aided by its 
 tower and statues, is imposing : we feel we are standing 
 in the " Athens of Italy." The character of Tuscan archi- 
 tecture is that of simple grandeur ; the great architects of the 
 Medicean age who built, not for a race of singers, but men, 
 threw an air of Grecian grace round the old Etruscan 
 palaces, without depriving them of their massive proportions 
 and heavy projecting cornices.
 
 XOTKS TO CANTO I. 353 
 
 XX. 
 
 ' Tis Cosmo : 
 
 Cosmo, the first who reigned in Florence, was accounted 
 the happiest Prince of his age ; — noiv we can only pity his 
 domestic calamities. Cosmo's second daughter married 
 Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. Equally lovely as her sister, she, 
 too, was equally unguarded, and shared the same fate of 
 assassination, instigated by her own husband. 
 
 The unfortunate mother, the Grand Duchess Eleonora, 
 buried herself and her griefs in the gardens of Pisa, and re- 
 mained there in privacy with her two sons Don Garcia and 
 the Cardinal John de Medicis, during January, in 1562. 
 But the Destiny hanging over the family was present also 
 here. During a shooting expedition, one of the brothers 
 struck down a hare ; each claimed it ;— a quarrel ensued, in 
 the heat of which, Don Garcia struck his dagger into his bro- 
 ther's heart. The Duchess, who almost adored the fratri- 
 cide, after her first horror subsided, listened, — softened, — 
 and finall}' — pardoned him. Confident in her influence to 
 excite the same sentiments in Cosmo, she confessed the 
 whole to him in the presence of her son. Cosmo heard 
 nothing, so frantic was his wrath — and saw nothing but the 
 fratricide before him — " I will have no Cain in my family," 
 he exclaimed, unsheathing his sword, and, before either 
 could take precaution, burying it in the body of his son. The 
 mother and son were borne together to the same tomb. 
 
 A A
 
 354 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The idol of all Nations : 
 
 So much has been said of the " Statue which enchants 
 the world," that notes would be irrelevant. In the following 
 extract, more is said in less compass, perhaps, than in any- 
 thing which I have seen on the subject : La Venus meri- 
 terait que pour elle seule on vint voir Florence, comme jadis 
 on n'allait au temple de Gnide que pour y admirer la Venus de 
 Praxitele. On dirait quelle est parmi les Venus ce que Venus 
 fut parmi les Deesses, Tout ce que Ton pourrait dire sur cette 
 incomparable statue serait insuffisant pour en donner una 
 juste idee, et on est decourage quand on se propose d'en 
 detainer les beautes. Plus on I'examine et plus on y re- 
 connait le chef-d'oeuvre d'art de I'ancienne Grece, on peut 
 bien comparer la Venus a celle de Praxitele, dont I'expres- 
 sion et la vie etaient telles qu'Ovide disait quelle n'etait 
 immobile qua cause que la majeste divine I'exigeait.* 
 Matthew's remark on the Venus is simple, natural, and just : 
 " It seems rather designed as a personification of all that is 
 " graceful and beautiful, abstracted from all human infir- 
 " mities, and elevated above all human feelings and afFec- 
 " tions ; for, though the form is female, the beauty is like 
 " the beauty of the angels, who are of no sex." 
 
 * Qui que tu sois, voici ton maitre : 
 II I'est, le fut, ou le doit etre. 
 
 Voltaire.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 355 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Niobe, the majesty of woe : 
 " The Niobe," says Hazlitt, in one of his happier moments, 
 " more than any other antique head, combines truth and 
 " beauty with deep passion. But here the passion is fixed — 
 " intense — habitual ; it is not a sudden or violent gesticula- 
 " tion, but a settled mould of features ; the grief it expresses 
 " is such, as might almost turn the human countenance itself 
 " into marble." A nobly repressed feeling, visible only in 
 the fixed resolve of the soul and mastering of sorrow, is the 
 true and the only proper expression in sculpture. Grief 
 alone seems to be admissible in its deepest pathos. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Behold light Hermes — Messenger of heaven : 
 
 <' On voit le messager de Jupiter dans I'attitude des elancer 
 dans les airs, appuyant legerement le pied sur le souffle d'un 
 Zephyr. Ses membres sont si bien proportionnes, si de- 
 gages, et sa figure si bien en enquilibre, quilparait vraiment 
 devoir se detacher de la terre, et se derober aux yeux du spec- 
 tateur." This is gracefully expressed, but I believe that no 
 one ever looked on this consummate piece of sculpture with- 
 out wishing it were not of bronze, but marble. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Sole mind that soared to triad Deity ! 
 In a fragment of Archytas the Pythagorean, cited by 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 Taylor, from whose school Plato derived his philosophy, the 
 following extraordinary passage, as it has been justly deemed, 
 
 occurs : 
 
 " So that it is necessary to assert that there are three 
 " principles ; that which is the subject of things (or matter) 
 a — that which is form — and that which is, of itself, mo- 
 " tive, and invisible in power ; with respect to the last 
 " of which, it is not only necessary that it should have a 
 " subsistence, hut that it should be something better than intel- 
 " led. But that which is better than intellect, is evidently 
 '■' the same with that which we denominate — God." 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Still, guide and light to us ; 
 
 In the vain science of metaphysics, whose very name car- 
 ries its own confutation, no single progressive step has been 
 made during the space of three thousand years. Locke's 
 innate ideas, Berkeley's visions, Hume's impressions, and 
 all the wilder reveries of the German School, originate, are 
 compounded, and modified from Plato and Aristotle alone. 
 He who confesses a higher tradition of truth, is following in 
 the steps of Plato ; and he who adopts the course of reason 
 and experience, will find it difficult to advance beyond Aris- 
 totle. Among our Poets, in the sublimer parts of Childe 
 Harold, how much does its noble author owe to his Platonic 
 remembrances ! Numerous passages in Mr. Wordsworth's 
 poetry derive a tone from the same source : his " Ode of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 357 
 
 Intimations," indeed, is a transcript from the same trans- 
 cendent Origmal. 
 
 Many of the finest things in Milton are drawn from 
 Plato ; the whole idea of the following, almost to the words, 
 is taken from the Phaedo : 
 
 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 Embodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
 The divine property of her first being. 
 Such are those thick and gloomy shadoivs damp. 
 Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres 
 Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave. 
 As loth to leave the body that it loved. 
 And linked itself by carnal sensuality 
 To a degenerate and degraded state. 
 
 And that he, Prophet of Truth as he was, looked up to 
 and reverenced " the divine Plato,' and could openly avow 
 it, those solemn and sublime lines in II Penseroso testify 
 well : 
 
 But let my lamp at midnight hour 
 Be seen in some high lonely Tower : 
 Where I might oft outwatcli the Bear ; 
 With thrice great Hermes : or nnsphere 
 The Spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 What world, or ivhat vast regions hold 
 The immortal Mind, that hath forsook 
 Her mansion in this fleshly nook ! 
 
 I must again quote from the same surely inspired 
 source : " The assertion is an ancient one, that souls depart-
 
 358 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 " ing from hence exist in Hades ;* and that they again return 
 " hither, and are generated from the dead. And if hving 
 " natures be regenerated from the dead, can there be any 
 '• other consequence than that our souls are there ? for they 
 " could not be again generated if they had no subsistence ; 
 " and this will be a sufficient argument that these things are 
 " so." — The Ph^do. 
 
 " We should undertake everything," says this divine 
 writer, " to gain Virtue, /or the reward is beautiful, and the 
 "Jiope mighty : and it is necessary to allure ourselves with 
 " such things, as with enchantments." 
 
 From the minds of others we build up our own — they are 
 the ascending steps ; the beautiful sentiment of Plato 
 suggested an after image which, perhaps, may be worth em- 
 bodying : 
 
 Allure yourself 
 With Virtue, as with an Enchantress ; picture 
 Her awful presence like a Queen enthroned, 
 
 * " By the appellation SfSj/s, (Hades,) the multitude appear to conceive 
 " the same as det'Ses, i.e. obscure and dark, and that, being terrified at this 
 " name, they called him Pluto. "We ought, then, not to denominate 
 " SiStjs from de^Ses, dark and invisible, but much rather from a knowledge 
 " of all beautiful things." — Cratylus of Plato. 
 
 " Those Dialogues," says an accomplished writer in the Quarterly, 
 " which we have heard one of the most learned statesmen of our day, and 
 " at the same time one of its sincerest Christians, call with reverence the 
 " most beautiful book in the world, after the Bible." — Quarterly Re- 
 view, No. cxxii. 1838.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 359 
 
 Watching your efforts in Life's mortal race : 
 Tlie rays of heaven descending on her head : 
 The laui-el in her hand ; and Happiness, 
 Like a young cherub, sleeping at her feet ! 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The dancing Fawn — he cannot hide his joy. 
 L'opinion commune I'attribue a Praxitele, plutot sur la 
 perfection de I'ouvrage, que sur aucune preuve certaine. II 
 respire la gaiete, et la legerete. If anything could add to 
 the idea impressed on us of Michael Angelo's Protean 
 powers it is the reflection that the head and arms of this 
 statue are his restorations ; their style, says the critic, " est 
 " si semblable, qu'il semble impossible que toute la Statue 
 " ne soit du meme artiste." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 The severed head of the Medusa lies. 
 
 The only notice I have ever seen of this impressive Pic- 
 ture is given in a Tour through Italy, lightly and grace- 
 fully written by the author of " Vathek." Da Vinci was 
 more than a painter. " The discoveries which have made 
 " Galileo, and Kepler, and other names illustrious, the system 
 " of Copernicus, the very theories of recent geologers, are 
 " anticipated by Da Vinci within the compass of a few pages, 
 " not in the most precise language, or in the most conclusive 
 " reasoning, but so as to strike us with something of the awe 
 " of preternatural knowledge. Leonardo himself speaks of 
 " the earth's annual motion in a treatise that appeal's to have
 
 360 NOTES TO CANTO 1. 
 
 " been written about 1510, as the opinion of" many p^iiloso- 
 " phers in his age." 
 
 " We must add," concludes the Quarterly Reviewer, that 
 " the authorities adduced by Mr. Hallam fully bear out this 
 " splendid eulogy." 
 
 XLIII. 
 The embodied Voice within the wilderness. 
 
 The lovers of art who frequent the Tribune are not, per- 
 haps, aware, that a set of hirelings are employed, under " the 
 leaden Austrian," to preserve and to give reports of the state 
 of the pictures. One may imagine the devastation which 
 these harpies create wherever they alight ; they, being paid 
 so much for every new scouring. In the Tribune, for ex- 
 ample, there are two pictures of Venus by Titian : the one 
 is still worthy of that great master; the other has been 
 scoured, and, as a matter of course, all the finest and most 
 delicate touches wasted away, she appears like a coarse 
 courtesan. I saw another fine picture of Allori's totally 
 ruined. The works of Raft'aelle have been respected as yet. 
 The St. John in question, surely one of the finest works the 
 world ever beheld, remains untouched, looking as if he had 
 left it yesterday : but how long will this remain ? It is not 
 spared from tradition or from feeling— li^ turn has not yet 
 arrived. 
 
 " Some of his pictures," says Lanzi, " as this St. John, 
 " have been repeated three, five, and even ten times ; thus,
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 361 
 
 '• RafFaelle prepared the design, Julio painted the picture, 
 " leaving, however, to his master the last finishing touches, 
 " which he did with such exquisite nicety, that sometimes 
 " one might almost count the hairs of the head ; — then 
 " they were copied by his scholars, and these copies were 
 " again retouched either by the master or by Julio Romano. 
 " No one, however, at all conversant with the freedom and 
 " softness of Raffaelle's manner need fear confounding him 
 " with any of his school. " 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The Day and Night, suhlimest Ayujelo ! 
 
 The rough unadornment, and the look of antique majesty 
 m the Statue of the Day, fills the beholder with the impres- 
 sion of the sublime ; his attitude and general expression, 
 given in the text, will convey, I fear, even to those who have 
 beheld the group, but a faint impression of the original. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 Behold the tomb lohere Galileos Spirit : 
 
 " For my name and memory," says Galileo, " I leave it 
 " to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to 
 " the next ages." Castelli, recording his blindness, exclaims, 
 " The noblest eye is darkened which nature ever made, — an 
 " eye so privileged, and gifted with such rare qualities, that 
 " it may with truth be said to have seen more than all those
 
 362 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 " who are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all who are 
 " to come." 
 
 What a lesson of sublime resignation he himself teaches 
 in speaking of his misfortune : — " Alas ! your dear friend 
 " and servant, Galileo, has become totally and irreparably 
 " blind : so that this heaven," this earth, this universe, which 
 " with wonderful observation I had enlarged an hundred and 
 '' a thousand times beyond the belief of bygone ages, 
 " henceforward for me is shrunk into the narrow space which 
 " I myself fill in it. So it pleased God — it shall therefore 
 " please me also /" What an example, and from what a 
 man ! 
 
 Milton was in Italy in the year 1638 — " and there," says 
 he, " I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, and 
 " a prisoner in the Inquisition." What a fine " Imaginary 
 Conversation" might be formed between these two " fore- 
 most men of all the age" — a conversation on which the stamp 
 of reality might be fixed by the powerful impress of Mr. 
 Landor ! 
 
 Galileo was born on the day on which Michael Angelo 
 died ; and he died on the day in which Sir Isaac Newton was 
 born : thus philosophy rose from her ruins on the ruin of 
 the arts. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Happier than Angela, ivhose dust lies near : 
 
 The establishment of four primitive schools embraces like- 
 wise the golden age of Painting. How brief was the reign of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 36 
 
 lofty genius ! The same individual might have lived with 
 all the masters ; — " he might have survived them all ; be- 
 " holding the art in its infancy and in its manhood, lie might 
 " have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this 
 " within the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity 
 " in the duration of excellence existed also in the arts of 
 " Greece. Is it, then, the fate of the human spirit, like hu- 
 " man institutions, to fall away immediately on attaining a 
 " degree of perfection ? or rather, is not this evidence of 
 " powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their 
 •' activities — here on earth chilled, and cramped and broken ?" 
 
 Memes' History of Painting. 
 
 It appeared more advisable to throw various anecdotes of 
 Michael Angelo under one head, than to diffuse them in 
 parts ; nor do I think that the notices will be found length- 
 ened ; for, to whom they are familiar, their recollection will 
 be pleasing ; and surely they will be found interesting to 
 tliose who have not met them before. 
 
 The first group done by Michael Angelo in bas relief is 
 still to be seen at the house of the descendant of this illus- 
 trious man, who resides in the Via Ghibellina, Florence. The 
 subject was suggested to him by Politian — the Battle of the 
 Centaurs — and the whole position of the bodies is a contest 
 with the sculptor against the most pronounced difficulties ; 
 but, among many incorrections, there are marks in it of 
 admirable genius. Michael Angelo, when in his old age, 
 observed to those around him, while looking at this his first 
 essay, that he felt a mortal chagrin in not having devoted 
 himself wholly to sculpture.
 
 364 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 There are many anecdotes which mark in Michael Angelo 
 that thorough knowledge of what he was, that high self-re- 
 spect, and that uncompromising independence of character, 
 all of which are the certain indications of the master mind. 
 Pope Julius II. had ordered him to address himself directly 
 to him, at all times when he needed money for the carrying 
 on the work of his Mausoleum. The remains of the marbles 
 left at Carrera were arrived at the quay of the Tiber ; 
 Buonarotti had them disembarked, transported them to the 
 place of St. Peter, and then mounted to the Vatican to de- 
 mand the silver required to pay the sailors. They told him 
 that his Holiness was not to be seen ; he did not press the 
 interview, but went away. Some days afterwards he again 
 returned to the palace. As he traversed the antechamber, a 
 valet barred the passage, and told him that he could not pass_ 
 A bishop, who by chance stood b}^ hastened to reprove the 
 man, and demanded of him if he knew to wJwm he spoke. 
 " It is precisely because I do know very well to whom I 
 speak, that I do not allow him to pass," answered the valet — 
 " I acquit myself only of my orders." " And you will tell 
 the Pope mine also," replied Michael Angelo, slowly retiring, 
 " which arc, if henceforth he desires to see me, he will send 
 to find me." On that evening he left Rome, and slept at 
 Poggibonzi, a village some i^ew leagues from Florence ; and 
 it required all the efforts and entreaties of the Pope to recal 
 him. Their first reconciliation is so singular, that I cannot 
 resist one more extract from the work, which has so much of 
 interest."* The scene occurred at Bologna. Julius II. was 
 '•' Histoire de l;i Peinture en Italie, 2 vols.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 365 
 
 at table when his couriers conducted Buonarotti to his pre- 
 sence. On seeing him enter, he cried out in a transport of 
 wrath — " Thou oughtest to have come to us, but thou hast 
 waited until we should come to search for thee !" Michael 
 Angelo remained on his knees, and demanded pardon with a 
 loud voice. " My fault has not arisen from an evil nature, 
 but from a sentiment of indignation : I have not been able 
 to support the insults they offered me in the palace of your 
 Holiness." 
 
 Julius remained pensive, without replying to him ; his 
 head bent down, and his whole appearance discomposed ; 
 when a bishop, sent by the Cardinal Soderini, brother of the 
 Gonfalonier, in order to make up the misunderstanding, 
 broke the silence by representing that Michael Angelo had 
 erred through ignorance ; that all artists, presuming too 
 much on their genius, were always thus — on which the im- 
 petuous Julius, interrupting him with a sharp stroke of his 
 cane, cried — " Thou tellest him the injuries which we do not 
 " tell him ourselves ; it is thou who art ignorant ; take thy- 
 self away from my sight !" and as the officious prelate, in his 
 perplexity, did not hasten to obey the mandate, the valets 
 of the place, by dint of pushing and fisty-ciiffs, drove him 
 from the presence. Julius, having exhaled his choler, gave 
 his blessing to Michael Angelo ; made him approach his 
 couch, and commanded him never again to leave him, ex- 
 cepting with express orders from himself 
 
 It was the enemies of Michael Angelo who urged Julius 
 II. to make him paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in
 
 366 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 the Vatican. They knew that if he accepted not the office, 
 he would alienate from him the Pope ; and that if he at- 
 tempted those immense frescos, he must necessarily fall 
 beneath Raphael, which great painter was then employed on 
 the Vatican chambers, hardly twenty paces from the Sis- 
 tine Chapel. Buonarotti saw the snare, and at last 
 dared it ; he hired the best fresco painters from Florence ; 
 learned for the first time their art ; buried himself for twenty 
 months in the chapel ; and left it, at the age of thirty-seven, 
 an inimitable specimen of art, and in a line which he had 
 never chosen. 
 
 There is a wonderful similarity between the minds of Buo- 
 narotti and of Dante. Had the sculptor written a poem, he 
 would have created a Count Ugolino ; had the poet been a 
 sculptor, he would have created Moses. No man ever loved 
 and reverenced Yirgil more than Dante ; few have less copied 
 him. No sculptor reverenced the antique more than Mi- 
 chael Angelo ; no one has less imitated it in his works. Like 
 Dante, the sculptor gives no feeling of pleasure ; the imagi- 
 nation is too much strained to embrace his Titanic creations. 
 On turning from " the Moses," or from " the Day,'" any 
 softer object becomes grateful to repose on ; it raises one 
 from a sort of stupor. The force of our impressions has 
 mounted to pain ; their relaxation is a species of delight. 
 The pride of the sculptor is as unbending and as inflexible as 
 that which is represented so powerfully in the finest specimen 
 of his genius — in the frowning Moses, when he seems to be 
 exclaiming to the nations — " Think of your own interests —
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 307 
 
 " behold the God of Israel, who comes upon you in his ven- 
 " geance I" 
 
 I cannot resist quoting another extract made, while at 
 Florence, from a curious and quaint book written in the six- 
 teenth century, by an eye-witness ; he describes the sculptor 
 at his labours : — 
 
 " I can say that I have seen Michael Angelo, at the age of 
 " sixty, and with a body announcing weakness, make fly 
 " about more chips of marble in a quarter of an hour than 
 " would three of the strongest young sculptors in an hour ; a 
 " thinsr almost incredible to him who has not beheld. He 
 " went to it with such impetuosity and fury of manner, that 
 " I feared, almost every moment, to see the block split into 
 " pieces. Each stroke made fly about him chips of three or 
 " four fingers in thickness, and he applied his chisel so near 
 " to the extremes! line of contour, that if the piece driven 
 " out had advanced in the slightest degree, all had been lost. 
 " It would seem as if, inflamed with the idea of greatness 
 " which had seized him, this great man attacked with a sort 
 " of fury the marble which concealed the statue."* 
 
 In his sixty-ninth year Michael Angelo was employed in 
 his last work — a colossal group of The Deposition from the 
 Cross, which he intended to present to some church, on the 
 condition of its being placed on his tomb. This group, 
 among which the figure of Christ only is finished, was placed 
 in the cathedral of Florence, where it still remains behind 
 the great altar. It is the most touching of all his works. 
 * Blaise de Vigenere, Images de Philostrates, 85.5.
 
 368 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 The Florentines had done better to have fulfilled the last 
 request of this great man. It would have been a far more 
 characteristic tomb for him, and far more noble, than that 
 under which be reposes in Santa Croce. 
 
 Any comparison between RafFaelle and Michael Angelo is 
 irrelevant ; as forced and unnatural an alliance as that be- 
 tween Painting and Sculpture. Raffaelle was formed to ex- 
 press the living beautiful, the gentle, the tranquil, the affec- 
 tionate, in their every phase of change, in their every hue, 
 and light, and shadow of glory and expression. His genius 
 bore him on like a stream, leaving, Nile-like, images of fer- 
 tility, of richness, and of the noblest forms of grace and 
 beauty along its course. The other, the iEschylus of Sculp- 
 ture, represented man as he should be, not as he is. No 
 traces of ordinary humanity are perceptible in his creations : 
 all are forms of power of another era ; of an elder time ; im- 
 movable in their dignity, unshaken in their repose ; beings 
 who possess an endurance which nothing could overthrow ; 
 created to awe, to elevate, to abstract, to inspire. 
 
 Like ^schylus, he, too, dwelt among Titans : the one em- 
 bodied his Strength and Force ; the other, the Poet of the 
 Marble, those sublime abstractions, the Moses — the Day 
 and the Night. 
 
 The mind of Michael Angelo was always on the stretch ; 
 he ever tasked its powers to the uttermost. If he portrayed 
 human beings, they must be, as in the Sistine, Prophets in 
 converse with the Eternal ; or the inspired Moses, whose 
 frowning look was denunciation. If he threw his mind upon
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 369 
 
 architecture, unable to excel the Ancients, where he found the 
 Perfect, he could still fulfil his sublime boast ; and, when 
 called on to finish St. Peter's, he could still show his equality 
 of power, by raising the dome of the Pantheon, and suspend- 
 ing its foundation in the air. 
 
 " I will take the Dome of the Pantheon," said Michael 
 Angelo, with that lofty confidence of power that never yet 
 deceived the man who feels it — " and I will hang it upon the 
 air." He acted — and the cupola of St. Peter's became one of 
 the wonders of the world. 
 
 We contemplate the pictures of RafFaelle as we should 
 contemplate revealed Paradise, where the Angels, the Saints, 
 and the Virgin, are visibly manifested ; and where the Trans- 
 figuration itself is brought before our eye ; forms of divine 
 expression and of angelic purity encountering us at every 
 step. 
 
 We look up to the fame of Michael Angelo, as to some 
 gigantic and isolated cliff, naked, grand, unadorned, and fixed 
 in its eternity of elevation ; to endure, when, perhaps, the 
 divine forms and landscapes which flourished for ages round 
 its base, shall have faded away from their more perishable 
 canvass for ever. — Journal. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lonely, a wreck in age, thou didst shed tears : 
 
 Previous to his death, Michael Angelo had survived all 
 his rivals. Sangallo, the architect of St. Peter's, had died 
 
 B B
 
 370 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 in 1514, and, the greatest of all, RafFaelle, had fallen in his 
 prime, during the year 1520. He had overcome all the in- 
 trigues which beset his youth. But the victory was mourn- 
 ful ; in losing his rivals he had lost also his judges ; he 
 found himself standing alone in the world ; and we still have 
 recorded, the fond and passionate eulogy which he made on 
 Bramante. What are, indeed, the hopes and triumphs of 
 man ? How little is his foresight, how, less than all, his self- 
 knowledge, or of that which should most conduce to his own 
 happiness ! In the pride of youth, and in the confidence of 
 unbounded powers, what reply would Angelo have made, had 
 he been told, when working in the Sistine within twenty 
 paces of the rival whom he was straining every nerve to 
 excel in his own line, that the day would full surely arrive 
 when he should shed tears for Bramante, and even for Raf- 
 faelle himself? 
 
 LII. 
 Sits Dante throned : 
 
 Nothing can he more imposing than the whole appearance 
 of the colossal tomb of Dante, in Santa Croce, crowned by 
 his statue in a recumbent attitude — done by Ricci. At the 
 first glance, we quote, involuntarily, the sublime passage of 
 Milton, which it seems formed to illustrate : — 
 High on a throne of royal state. 
 
 The inscription beneath is a single line from his own 
 poem : —
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 371 
 
 Onorate I'altissimo Poeta. 
 
 The Academy of Florence sent deputies to Leo X., pray- 
 ing him to restore to their Country the ashes of the great 
 Florentine, which are still at Ravenna ; and here is the ear- 
 nest signature of Michael Angelo : — " I, Michael Angelo, 
 " Sculptor, address the same prayer to your Holiness, offer- 
 " ing to make for the divine Poet a Monument which shall 
 " be worthy of him." 
 
 LII. 
 
 Hate drove him forth from Florence : 
 
 Dante's last and happiest residence was at Ravenna with 
 Guido Novella Polenta. Here he enjoyed real repose, and 
 became the friend rather than the dependant of his enlight- 
 ened and virtuous protector. But this felicity endured not 
 long : failing in an important embassy to procure peace with 
 the Venetians, the grief of having been unable to serve his 
 friend and benefactor preyed on his mind, and so seriously 
 affected him, that he died soon after at the age of fifty-six. 
 Guido Novello performed his obsequies with great magnifi- 
 cence, and interred his remains before the gate of the Church 
 of the Minor Friars at Ravenna, habited in the " garb of a 
 poet and philosopher. After his death, the city of Florence, 
 desirous of possessing the sacred reliques of the great poet 
 they had expelled and despoiled while living, made many vain 
 overtures to the inhabitants of Ravenna to give them up : 
 but the spirit of Dante seemed to speak from his tomb, and 
 to exclaim with the indignation of the hero of ancient 
 Rome — 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 " Ungrateful country, my bones shall not rest with thee." 
 The acute Forsyth has drawn analogies between Shakspeare 
 and Dante, which have the energy of Johnson without 
 turgidity : — " Finding their native tongues without system 
 " or limit, each formed another language within his own : a 
 " language peculiar as their Creator's. Both have stood the 
 "■ obliterating waste of ages : have seen younger styles grow 
 " old and disappear ; have survived all the short-lived fop- 
 " peries of literature, and flourish now in unabated fashion, 
 '' inviting and resisting ten thousand imitations." 
 
 To name Dante, however, or any other human being in 
 the same breath with Shakspeare, the SMjoer-human, is 
 vain and irrelevant — all other writers, in whatsoever grade 
 they may be, when compared to him, are material : he, 
 alone, is the Immaterial. Least of all, perhaps, should 
 Dante be named against him, for, had the ^Eneid not been, 
 where had been the Inferno ? Thus he himself addresses 
 Virgil : 
 
 Thou art the guide and master of my thought : 
 
 Sole author thou, from whom the inspired strain 
 
 That crowns my name with deathless praise, I brought.* 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Then, when these hills in fires volcanic blazed : 
 
 The Apennines surrounding Florence, from their peculiar 
 conical shapes, and from the nature of their strata, have been 
 considered by geologists to bear incontestable marks of vol- 
 canic eruption.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 373 
 
 LX. 
 
 How the air breathes on me : 
 
 These Stanzas were composed in the Httle garden oehind 
 the Convent-church of St. Miniato, on one of those glo- 
 rious spring-days which only Italy can produce, when sky, 
 air, and earth, are one harmony ; and when the feelinff of 
 existence itself is a crowning and ineffable blessing ! Per- 
 haps the famous lines in the Prometheus occurred to me, 
 which, after the opening of the third book of Paradise Lost, 
 is surely the most sublime apostrophe ever poured forth 
 from Man to Nature, ft Sioq aW))'p, &c. 
 
 A paraphrase is subjoined which might convey some faint 
 idea of the original ; the ayrjpLduy yeXacrrja is, however, un- 
 translatable : 
 
 Ethereal Air ! and ye soft-winged Winds ! 
 
 Ye Rivers, springing from fresh founts, ye Waves 
 
 That o'er interminable Ocean ^vreath 
 
 Your azure smiles ! — all-generating Earth ! 
 
 Ail-seeing Sun — on you — on you I call ! 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Wlien barbaric hordes over Europe rolled : 
 
 " How rich in virtue was Italy," says Sismondi, " in the 
 
 " twelfth century ! when covered with republics, and when 
 
 " every city simultaneously fought for freedom I The pro- 
 
 " digies of this first-born of the fine arts — Florence — multi- 
 
 * Quoted from Quarterly Review.
 
 374 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 " plied in Italy : a pure taste, boldness, and grandeur struck 
 " the eye in all the public monuments, and finally reached 
 " even private dwellings ; while the princes of France, 
 " Germany, and England, in building their castles, seemed 
 " to think only of defence. About the same time, Cimabue 
 " and Giotto revived the art of painting, Cosella music, and 
 " Dante gave to Italy his divine poem, unequalled in suc- 
 " ceeding generations. History was written by Villani ; and 
 " Italy, ennobled by liberty, enlightened nations till then 
 " sunk in darkness." 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Ere called on to descend from that pure height. 
 
 Allusion to the exquisitely beautiful doctrines of Plato — 
 as developed in the Phsedo. " We are sunk down from the 
 " Stars, to dwell on earth as in a prison-house ; hence, the 
 " origin of our misery and depravity, It is only by rising 
 " above animal passions, and from sensible objects to the 
 " World of Intelligence, the Soul can be prepared to return 
 
 " to its original habitation." 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Dark Vallombrosa ! to thy halloived ground : 
 
 The courteous reception accorded to strangers who visit 
 Vallombrosa is still the same as when it drew forth the 
 praise of Ariosto. 
 
 Viillombrosa 
 
 Cosi fu noniinata una badia
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 375 
 
 Ricca e bella, un omen religiosa, 
 E cortese a chiunque vi venia. 
 
 The wildness and the beauty of the Vallombrosian scenery 
 impress the most indifferent observer. The plain where the 
 Abbey stands, embosomed in the Apennines, lies open to 
 the western sun, elsewhere enclosed by a simicirque of 
 mountains. Their acclivities, feathered mid-way with forests 
 of fir, oak, and beech, open on glades which break their uni- 
 formity, while the grassy downs along their summits com- 
 mand the Arno, and its storied vale, Florence, and the 
 Camaldoli. The sound of the wind among those grey forest 
 trees, venerable and splintered with the storms of perhaps a 
 thousand years, is solemn and awakening ; and the waste 
 channels of wintry torrents, clogged up with the fragments 
 of trees, and rifted rocks hurled down from overhanging 
 heights, add to the sublime impression. 
 
 But, to the reflective mind, the Master Poet who has 
 stamped the place for ever in his lines — who drew from it 
 images that will endure for ever as freshly as yesterday, al- 
 though Vallombrosa itself were swallowed up and forgotten, 
 is for ever present: 
 
 He called 
 His legions, Angel forms, who lay entranced 
 Thick as autumnal leaves that strewed the brooks 
 In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades. 
 High over-arched, imbower ; 
 
 The whole Scenerrj for the Masque of Comus was drawn 
 from hence, and some of the most magnificent imagery that
 
 •37(> NOTES TO CANTO 1. 
 
 fills the first and perhaps sublirner Book of Paradise Lost — ■ 
 a book which nothing but a higher Inspiration could have 
 embodied, so utterly is its range beyond the powers of or- 
 dinary Mind. I shall be thanked for recalling one ex- 
 ample in which it is impossible to decide which is the more 
 sublime — the subject, or the illustrating simile : 
 
 Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced 
 Of Heaven, and from eternal splendours flung 
 For his revolt ; jet faithful how they stood 
 Their glory withered ! as when Heaven's fire 
 Hath scathed the forest oaks, or mountain pines. 
 With singed top their stately growth, though bare. 
 Stands on the blasted heath. 
 
 Impressive images, that are everywhere presented on the 
 barren heights of Vallombrosa. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 As, while I gazing stand, yon Mountain s form : 
 
 The pure and eloquent language of Mr. Bell in his " Ob- 
 servations," applies well to the plains, but how often travellers 
 appear to forget the grander features of Italy — her Moun- 
 tains ! a truth, however, which all acknowledge on return- 
 ing through Switzerland, when heights, there, which were 
 before thought so imposing, sink into comparative insigni- 
 ficance. 
 
 And yet in the grandeur of the Italian Mountains consists 
 their least part of superiority ; it is in that last refinement
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 377 
 
 of beauty and expression which tliey possess ; it is in their 
 hues, in the purity and balmy softness of the atmosphere, 
 from which they draw half their character. 
 
 Other Mountains of the earth have, also, their hours of 
 expression, in their Storms, their Clouds, and their sun- 
 shine ; but these seem a very part of the Empyrean in 
 which they lie almost for ever buried ; we feel that there is 
 a pervading harmony reigning among them : the Soul of Na- 
 ture seems stamped on their features, responding to that 
 which fills and animates all Space : in the sublimest language 
 of the| great Hebrew Poet, — " They have neither speech 
 " nor language, hut their Voices are heard among them /" 
 
 Other Mountains are the rugged but magnificent steps 
 where the soul aspires to meet its Maker ; these, also, are 
 Altars to the same Being — not in his attributes of Power, but 
 of Love : the eye dwells upon them fondly ; while the heart, 
 ascending in imagination to their summits, pours itself away 
 in orisons. — Journal. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Doth not thy mind their types already tell ? 
 
 The manifold effects which the sublimer localities of Italy, 
 such as Vallombrosa, Fiesole, Vesuvius, &c., in building up 
 the mind of Milton, are felt by the reflective beholder. This 
 subject is again touched on in Notes to Canto V.
 
 378 NOTES TO CANTO I. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 This is the Vale of Shade. 
 
 Vallombrosa, i. e. the Valley of Shadow ; the lines to 
 Milton, being extraneous to the Poem, naturally fell into a 
 different rhythm. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 . . . inner rays were given. 
 
 " In the whole history of literature there is no passage 
 more egotistical or less selfish than the following : 
 
 " For the world, I count it not as an inn, but an hospital : 
 " and a place not to live, but die in. The world that I re- 
 " gard is myself. It is the microcosm of mine own frame 
 " that I cast my eye on: for the other, I use it, but like my 
 " globe, and turn it round for my recreation. Men that 
 " look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and for- 
 " tunes, do err in my altitude, for I am above Atlas, his 
 " shoulders." 
 
 Here follows the high excuse for this lofty self-exalta- 
 tion : 
 
 " The earth is a point, not only in respect of the heavens 
 " above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. 
 " The mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my 
 " mind. That surface that tells the heavens they have an 
 " end, cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to 
 " be above three hundred and sixty. Though the number 
 " of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 379 
 
 " mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or 
 " Httle world, I find myself something more than great." 
 
 "There is surely a piece of divinity to us — something that 
 " was before the elements, and owing no homage unto the sun. 
 " He that understands not thus much, hat knot his introductions 
 " or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man /" 
 John Milton. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 But then, as when before the gates of Death. 
 
 Dormir dans la couche de ses peres — Temoignage de I'in- 
 extinguible amour de la patrie. On le nierait en vain — il 
 y a sympathie, il y a affinite entre I'homme et la terre dont 
 il fut forme, dont il est sorti. II est bien, il est doux de lui, 
 rapporter a sa place ce peu de poussiere qu'on lui a eniprunte 
 pour quelques jours. JFaites que je donne aussi O mon 
 Dieu ! dans la terre, et avpres de la poussiere de mes peres ! 
 Such is La Martine : — how affecting is the eloquence which 
 comes from the heart ! 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Once, seat of a time-honoured Ancestry : 
 
 Barton- Court, near Abingdon, Berkshire ; it was burnt to 
 the ground by a Parliamentarian party, having been held, 
 until no longer tenable, by Sir Reginald Reade, with a band 
 of devoted retainers : the ruins are still distinctly traced.
 
 380 NOTES TO CANTO 1. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 On the rent deck hy giant force o erpoivered. 
 
 Allusion to the capture of our frigates by the American 
 line of battle ships during, let us fervently hope, the last war 
 that ever shall take place between two great countries ; 
 speaking the same language, of the same blood, and with 
 minds humanised and enlightened by the same arts and 
 sciences. A strife as unnatural as that between the father 
 and the son: the one, asserted his authoritative sway beyond 
 minority : the other, first appealed, then nobly resisted, and 
 finally — triumphed : the law of natural freedom and right 
 was recognised, and at length revered— Esto perpetua ! 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 But sun-like Freedom sits upon thy shore ! 
 
 The following burst of eloquence from Curran was com- 
 municated to me by a literary friend, to whom I am not a little 
 indebted : 
 
 " I speak, my lords, in the spirit of the British Law, 
 " which makes Liberty commensurate with and inseparable 
 " from the British soil : which proclaims to the stranger and 
 " the sojourner, the moment he sets foot on British ground, 
 " that the earth he treads is holy and consecrated by the 
 " Genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what 
 " language his doom may have been pronounced ; no matter 
 " in what disastrous battle his liberties may have been 
 " cloven down ! no matter what African sun may have burnt
 
 NOTES TO CANTO I. 381 
 
 " upon him ; no matter with what ceremonies he may have 
 " been devoted upon the Altar of Slavery — the instant that 
 " he touches the sacred shore of Britain, the Altar and the 
 " god sink together to the dust ! his soul icalks abroad in 
 " her own majesty ! his body sivells beyond the measure of 
 " his chains that burst from around him, and he stands re- 
 " deemed — regenerated — disenthralled!" I can recal nothing 
 from Demosthenes or Cicero that can claim one moment's 
 comparison with this affecting, this magnificent piece of elo- 
 quence and passion.* 
 
 C. 
 
 . . . . How it trembles loldle it turns to thee ; 
 
 Bella Italia, amate sponde ! 
 
 Pur vi torno a riveder. 
 Trema in petto e si confonde 
 
 L'alma oppressa dal piacer ! 
 
 Monti. 
 
 * It is worth our observance, in all overflowings of the mind, when 
 borne on by its enthusiasm, how the strict rules of composition are as 
 fearlessly as they are happily violated. Genius forms its own language ; 
 its march is everlasting progression, guided by the light of its own Star ; 
 it creates and forces for itself a path through difficulties which to more 
 timid minds appear insuperable, and in which so few dare to follow. 
 
 In the noble passage cited, we have the soul represented as both mas- 
 culine and feminine at the same time : who dwells on it ? who would 
 resolve these lightnings of the mind to the servile test of metaphoric 
 laws?
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 IV. 
 
 With the red Suns last glory oer them dying ! 
 
 It is impossible for any imagination to exaggerate the 
 appearance of Venice, as seen from the sea, when lying 
 under the last hues of an Italian twilight ; for, even in Italy, 
 the sunsets of Venice are proverbial. As, when standing 
 within the crater of Vesuvius, or on the " burning marie" 
 of Solfaterra, or on " the top of Fiesole,'' or buried amidst 
 the " Etrurian shades" of Vallombrosa, we see and feel the 
 true sources of half the sublimities and inspirations of the 
 divine Milton, — so, at the first sight of a Venetian sunset, 
 we understand how the spirit of their hues must have en- 
 tered into and impregnated themselves with the very soul 
 of Titian. 
 
 V. 
 
 miere silence reigns. 
 
 Poor Shelley — a name which should have been recorded 
 in brass, which is " written in water," seems to have loved 
 Venice as much as Maddalo (Lord Byron) detested it.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 383 
 
 If I had been an unconnected man, 
 
 I from this moment should have formed the plan 
 
 Never to leave fair Venice : for to me 
 
 It was delight to ride by the lone sea ; 
 
 And then the town is silent. 
 
 After the publication of " Cain the Wanderer," the writer 
 of this note received, on the same day, gratifying letters 
 from Goethe, and from Coleridge. A passage from the 
 latter is so characteristic of that extraordinary man, and so 
 full of his peculiar humanity, that I feel I shall be thanked 
 for preserving it ; nor will Dr. Southey be displeased at the 
 high testimony borne towards him : 
 
 " I think as highly of Shelley's Genius — yea, and of his 
 " Heart — as you can do. Soon after he left Oxford, he 
 " went to the Lakes, poor fellow ! and with some wish, I 
 " have understood, to see me ; but I was absent, and Sou- 
 " they received him instead. Now, the very reverse of 
 " what would have been the case in ninety-nine instances of 
 " a hundred, I might have been of use to him, and Southey 
 " could not ; for I should have sympathised with his 
 " poetico-metaphysical Reveries, (and the very word meta- 
 " physics is an abomination to Southey,) and Shelley would 
 " have felt that I understood him. His Atheism would not 
 " have scared me — for me, it would have been a semi-trans- 
 " parent Larva, soon to be sloughed, and, through which, I. 
 "should have seen the true Image; the final metamorphosis. 
 " Besides, I have ever thought that sort of Atheism the 
 " next best religion to Christianity — nor does the better
 
 384 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 " faith, I have learnt from Paul and John, interfere with the 
 " cordial reverence I feel for Benedict Spinoza. As far as 
 " Robert Southey was concerned with him, I am quite cer- 
 " tain that his harshness arose entirely from the frightful 
 " reports that had been made to him respecting Shelley's 
 " moral character and conduct — reports essentially false, 
 " but, for a man of Southey 's strict regularity and habitual 
 "self-government, rendered plausible by Shelley's own wild 
 " words and horror of hypocrisy." The rest of the letter 
 is a beautiful tribute to the Poems of his distinguished 
 Friend ; those Poems, which surely he is fortunate in hav- 
 ing lived to set his last hand to ; and which must endure as 
 long as Poetry and Nature are allied together. 
 
 VI. 
 
 When her devoted bands 
 Of patriots : 
 
 It appears to have been in the year 402, says Conder in 
 his Compilation, when Alaric, descending from the Julian 
 Alps, spread desolation before him, that the small islands of 
 the Venetian Gulph were first peopled by any considerable 
 body of refugees from the neighbouring Continent. When 
 Rome was taken and sacked shortly after, many of its wealthy 
 inhabitants here sought an asylum ; and each subsequent in- 
 vasion of Barbarians added to their numbers. 
 
 " Rialto, the chief of these," says the anonymous but ex- 
 cellent writer of " Sketches of Venetian History," " had long 
 " served as a port to Padua. All else was barren, desolate
 
 NOTES TO CANTO 11. 385 
 
 " and uncultivated ; but the safety which they might have 
 " vainly sought on a soil richly indebted to Nature, was to be 
 '- found by them, if anywhere, amid this wilderness of 
 " waters." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Daughter of Rome ! of thy great Sire, sole heir. 
 
 " Venice," using Sismondi, " witnessed the long agony and 
 " termination of the Roman empire ; in the west, the birth 
 " of the French power, when Clovis conquered Gaul ; the 
 " rise and fall of the Ostrogoths in Italy ; of the Visigoths 
 " in Spain ; of the Lombards, who succeeded to the first ; of 
 " the Saracens, who dispossessed the second. Venice saw 
 " the empire of the Khalifs rise, threaten to invade the 
 " world, divide and decay. Long the ally of the Byzantine 
 " emperors, she, by turns, succoured and oppressed them : 
 " she carried off trophies from their capital, she shared their 
 " provinces, and joined to her titles that of the mistress of a 
 " fourth and a half of the Roman empire. She saw the 
 " Eastern empire fall, and the ferocious Mussulman rise on 
 " its ruins. She saw the French monarchy give way ; and, 
 " alone, immovable, this proud Republic contemplated the 
 " kingdoms and the nations which passed before her. But, 
 " after all the rest, she sank in her turn, and the state which 
 " linked the present to the past, and joined the two epochs 
 " of the civilisation of the universe, has ceased to exist." 
 
 c c
 
 386 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 IX. 
 
 .... Thoui the Italian League supreme 
 Didst head, regenerator of Italy ! 
 
 When the Emperor Barbarossa felt himself strong enough 
 to re-enter Italy, the Venetians again adopted their wise 
 and ancient policy of discouraging, so far as in them lay, the 
 establishment of so dangerous a Power in their own neigh- 
 bourhood. For this purpose they united themselves to the 
 League of the Lombard cities against him, though not until 
 they had boldly asserted the cause of Alexander III. did 
 they involve themselves in positive hostilities. 
 
 Humbled on all sides, Barbarossa was anxious to treat, 
 and it was decreed that the claims of the Lombard Cities, 
 and the settlement of the Pontificate, should be ratified at 
 Venice. On June 24th the Emperor landed on the Piaz- 
 zetta of St. Mark, when the Doge, with all state, receiving 
 him, escorted him on to the Cathedral. There, surrounded 
 with all his ecclesiastical pomp, Alexander, severely tranquil, 
 awaited the approach of his no longer formidable enemy. 
 The Emperor, as he drew near, uncovered his head, cast 
 aside his purple mantle, and prostrating himself before the 
 Holy Father's throne, crept onward, that he might kiss his 
 feet. The wrongs of twenty years flashed across the re- 
 membrance of the Pope, and he may be forgiven if, in a 
 moment so trying to self-restraint, he was unable to sup- 
 press his strong feeling of exultation. Placing his foot on 
 the neck of the prostrate Emperor, he repeated the words of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO 11. 387 
 
 David : — " Thou shalt go upon the lion and the adder ; the 
 " young Hon and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy 
 
 " feet !" 
 
 " It is not to you, it is to St. Peter !" murmured the in- 
 dignant Prince, and the reply cost him a yet further humi- 
 liation ; Alexander trod a second time more firmly upon his 
 neck, exclaiming, " It is both to me and to St. Peter !" 
 
 XII. 
 
 Rome of the Ocean ! thou thy Carthage foe 
 Hadst also, and thy Dorian Hannibal : 
 
 So great was the consternation of the Venetians at the 
 destruction of their fleet by Pietro Doria, and at the storm- 
 ing and taking of Chiozza, before their eyes, that a blank 
 sheet of paper was instantly forwarded to Cai-rara, the Ge- 
 noese captain-in-chief of the army, to which, whatever 
 terms were proscribed, the Doge, Contarini, promised sub- 
 mission. Carrara hesitated ; but Doria coveted a far deeper 
 vengeance, and, fearful that the ancient rival of his country 
 might elude his grasp, he anticipated the answer of his ally, 
 and replied for both. The ambassadors, seeking to propi- 
 tiate him, had brought with them some Genoese prisoners, 
 ransomless : — 
 
 " Take back your captives," said he, " Ere many hours I 
 
 " shall deliver them and all their comrades. By God above, 
 
 " ye Signors of Venice ! you must expect no peace either 
 
 " from the Lord of Padua or from our Republic, till we 
 
 " ourselves have bridled the Horses of your St. Mark. Place 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 " but the reins once in our hands, and we shall know how to 
 " keep them quiet for the future." 
 
 It was this answer which drove the Venetians to that de- 
 spair whose energies, in many similar instances, have so 
 often prevailed. All Venice turned into the Arsenal, and 
 all demanded, with one voice, the liberation of the noble 
 Pisani, who had been confined by " the Ten," jealous of his 
 too great popularity. " Would to Heaven," said he before 
 them, " that I could bear to the holy task to which you invite 
 " me, and which I embrace with my whole soul, a vigour and 
 " an intellect proportioned to my desires ! Those, at least, 
 " are not likely to be wanting to Venice !" Amid the shouts 
 of the whole city of—" Pisani, viva Pisani!" — " Stop, stop, 
 " my friends," he said, gently reproving them, " the cry of 
 a true Venetian is, " Viva San Marco !" — What an answer, 
 and at what a time ! Well might Ilallam observe of this 
 noble Venetian, " He was equal in magnanimity and simple 
 " republican patriotism to the noblest characters of anti- 
 " quity."' The result of his operation, in alliance with Carlo 
 Zeno, were the retaking of the Chiozza, and the final anni- 
 hilation of the whole Genoese fleet and army. From that 
 hour Genoa declined, never to rise again ; " and even her 
 " own historian confesses, that God would not suffer so noble 
 " a city as Venice to become the spoil of a conqueror." 
 
 xni. 
 
 What deeds of heroism shone confessed : 
 Never, in the History of the World, had been exhibited
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 389 
 
 more splendid instances of individual sacrifice and self-devo- 
 tion, than those made by the Patriot Venetians. Where age 
 or infirmity rendered personal service impossible, entire for- 
 tunes were surrendered to the state : plate, jewels, and trea- 
 sure, were heaped into the public coffers : the Doge mort- 
 gaged his Revenues ; the Ecclesiastics bore arms. One of 
 the most touching offers was made by Faseolo, a citizen of 
 Chiozza, whose loss had reduced him to beggary. " If my 
 " estate,'' said he, " were such as I once possessed, all of it 
 " should be contributed to the public exigencies ; but life 
 " is now the only property which is left to me, and to these. 
 " Dispose of it as you think best. Employ us either by land 
 " or sea, and gladden us by a consciousness that, what little 
 " we still retain, is devoted to our Country." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Cyprus, Lepanto, Troy-like Candia ! Fame, 
 What couldst tJiou render more ? 
 
 For a detailed account of the famous siege of Famogosta 
 by the Turks, the sufferings of the besieged, the heroic 
 bravery and horrible martyrdom of Bragadino, the reader is 
 referred to that excellent work. Sketches of Venetian His- 
 tory ; a work which must surely take its place among the 
 standard works for the rising generation. The History of 
 Venice has been called a Romance ; it should, I conceive, be 
 rather termed an Epic Poem, but where there is nothing 
 over-strained, nothing theatrical or unnatural ; it is a picture
 
 390 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 of active human life, affording, in every leaf, the loftiest 
 practical examples of heroism and of virtue. 
 
 The conduct of the Venetians and their allies immediately 
 before the battle of " Lepanto," as recorded by an eye-wit- 
 ness,* is surely an interesting leaf from the History of Man. 
 
 " A general shout ran through the armament ; and each 
 " man invoked for himself the Eternal Trinity and the blessed 
 " Mother of God ; while the Priests and many of the cap- 
 " tives hastened from stem to stern, bearing crucifixes in their 
 " hands, and exhorting the crew to look to Him who had de- 
 " scended visibly from heaven to combat the enemies of his 
 " name. Moved and inflamed by ghostly zeal, this great 
 " armament assumed, as it were, one body, one spirit, and 
 " one will ; careless of death, and retaining no other thought 
 " except that of fighting for their Saviour : so that you 
 " might perceive on a sudden a strange mystery and a sin- 
 " gular miracle of the supreme power of God ; when, in one 
 " instant, all feuds and dissensions, all hatred and malice, 
 " however inveterate, and arising from whatever bitter in- 
 " juries which hitherto neither the mediation of friends nor 
 " the terror of authority could allay, were, at once, extin- 
 " guished. Those who had mutually inflicted or suffered 
 " wrong embraced as brethren, and poured out tears of affec- 
 " tion while they clasped each other in their arms ! 
 
 " O blessed and merciful omnipotence of God, how mar- 
 " vellous art thou in thy operations upon the faithful !" 
 
 * Coiitariiii.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. :i})l 
 
 Troy-like Candia. 
 
 When the Venetian garrison marched out from the walls 
 which had cost the Uves of thirty thousand Christians, and 
 four times that number of Infidels, its general condition may 
 be estimated from that of a single corps. " The regiment of 
 " Negron, which I commanded," says Philibert de Jarry,* 
 *' numbered, at the beginning of the siege, two thousand five 
 " hundred men, and I had received, during its course, four 
 " hundred recruits. We quitted the city, officers and soldiers 
 " together, but seventy men in all, of whom forty were 
 " cripples !'' 
 
 The keys of Candia were presented to the Vizier Kiupe- 
 
 regH on the 27th of September, 1669 Perhaps no 
 
 clearer image can be conveyed of the profound impression 
 stamped upon the Venetian mind by the remembrance of the 
 terrors of this desperate struggle, than by stating, that even 
 to this hour, after the lapse of more than a century and a 
 half, if a Venetian wishes to imply a " W^ar to the Knife," he 
 proverbially terms it — 
 
 UNA GUERRA Dl CANDIA ' 
 
 So from her zenith did she sink : 
 
 Since that eventful day which announced to Venice the 
 storming of the Chiozza, no disaster had befallen her which 
 struck grief so profound into her citizens, or awakened in 
 them so justified a terror, as the battle of Agnadello, a. d. 
 1509, lost by their generals D'Alviano and Petigliano against 
 * Histoire de Siege de Candie, cited by Dam.
 
 3J>2 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 France at t!ie head of the League of Cambrai — formed by 
 the extraordinary jealousy excited against her by her grow- 
 ing powers and immense resources. A single blow had 
 shattered in pieces the goodly fabric of continental dominion 
 which it had cost Venice the toil of a century to erect ; 
 but it seems, throughout the History of this most singular 
 people, that their seasons of deepest calamity were those 
 which produced, also, the most overflowing harvests of glory. 
 
 In a spirit similar to that which animated the Romans 
 after their overthrow at Cannse, they despatched messengers 
 to Petigliano, expressing thanks for his great constancy. 
 Then, by a stroke of master policy, of which we know not 
 whether most to admire the wisdom or magnanimity, they 
 issued a decree releasing the endangered provinces from all 
 obligation of fidelity to a state no longer able to afford them 
 protection.* 
 
 I cannot do better than to add to these notices of Venice 
 the eloquent remarks of an article in the Quarterly,t whose 
 only fault is being anonymous. " The achievements of Venice 
 " in the east are as a silken thread of romance, continually 
 " interwoven in the long tissue of her annals. Her whole 
 " history is invested with a peculiar and striking character. 
 " Her deadly and protracted rivalry with Genoa ; her heroic 
 " defence against that republic in the desperate war of Chi- 
 " ozza ; the singular career in which, with a native population 
 " composed only of marines, she extended her sway over a 
 " great part of Lombardy, and held the political balance of 
 * Sketches of Venetian History, vol. ii. + No. xxxiv.
 
 NOTFS TO CANTO II. 393 
 
 " Italy ; tlie envy and hatred which she excited in other 
 " nations ; and the general coalition of Europe which she pro- 
 " vokedand repelled ; — all these are circumstances of the very 
 " highest historical attraction. But even these yield in in- 
 " terest to the fearful and imposing spectacle which Is offered 
 " by the institution and policy of her government — the 
 ** gloomiest fabric of real despotism ever erected for the pre- 
 " tended security of republican freedom. History has no 
 " parallel to that silent, mysterious, inexorable tyranny." . . . 
 " . . . . And yet how many lamentations have been poured 
 " forth over the lost independence of Venice ! Such a charm, 
 " then, has the empty name of a Republican constitution, that 
 " it can blind the judgment to the horrors of the foulest system 
 " of assassination and tyranny, the most deliberate violation 
 " of the laws of God, and the obligations of morality, that 
 
 " ever assumed the shape of human government!" 
 
 * * # * 
 
 " If the state had not been perfidiously overthrown by the 
 " French, the epoch had arrived when it must have sunk 
 " under the weight of its own corruption ; and our detesta- 
 " tion of the tyranny of its betrayers, is mingled with the 
 " conviction, that humanity has, at least, nothing to regret 
 " in the catastrophe." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Yet wherefore wert thou crushed at once ? 
 
 In the political storm which followed the French Revolu- 
 tion, the Rcpubhc maintained a cautious neutrality. But
 
 394 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 this moderation, dictated by a sense of weakness, could nei- 
 ther engage respect nor secure independence : — " The sea-girt 
 " metropolis," says Simond, " might easily have been de- 
 " fended ; it was the pusillanimity of the nobles which 
 " gave confidence to the party opposed to them. They be- 
 " trayed themselves into the hands of an enemy, whom they 
 " had first provoked by an imprudent display of hatred, and, 
 " when threatened, had encouraged by their submissiveness. 
 " Accustomed to a life of mere sensual gratifications, the 
 " noble Venetians could not endure the idea of losing the 
 "revenues of their estates on the Continent, and of enduring 
 " the dangers of a protracted war with such a man as Na- 
 " poleon. Finally, they suffered a small force of five thou- 
 " sand men to traverse the Lagune in boats, and, without a 
 " shadow of resistance, take possession of a city till then im- 
 " pregnable. The French general, Baraguay d'Hilliers, was as- 
 " tonished at his conquest. On the very day of his arrival, May 
 " 15, 1797, the ancient government of Venice, self-deposed, 
 " proclaimed, as " its last official act, the instalment of demo- 
 " cratic municipality, which, they declared in a public mani- 
 " festo, was to give the last degree of perfection to the 
 " republican system of government : intimating, besides, that 
 " the French general, in paying them a friendly visit, meant 
 " nothing but the greatest glory and prosperity of the Re- 
 " public !" 
 
 Napoleon was justified in saying of them, " Ce'st une 
 " population ineptc, lache, et nullement faite pour la liberte : il 
 
 * Simond, pj). '25, 5a.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 395 
 
 " paroit ruiturel qu'elle soit laissee a ceux a qui nous clonnons 
 " le continent, nous prendrons les vaisseaux, nous depouille- 
 " rons I'arsenal, nous enleverons tous les canons, nous de- 
 " truirons la Banque, etnous garderons Corfu et Ancone !" — 
 A strange contrast to his professions to the deluded Vene- 
 tians ! — and an impressive warning to all degenerated nations 
 that their liberty must be retained, as gained, by exertion : 
 that prostration entails contempt, which, of itself, provokes to 
 insult ; but that a vanquished resistance always commands 
 respect, and almost always attains success and honour. " In 
 " the ultimate crisis of Venetian liberty," says Hallam finely, 
 " her solemn mockery of statesmanship was exhibited to 
 " contempt ; too blind to avert danger, too cowardly to with- 
 " stand it, the most ancient government of Europe made not 
 " the least resistance ; the peasants of Underwalden died 
 " upon their mountains ; the nobles of Venice clung only to 
 
 " their lives." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Pause ere ye condemn : 
 
 .... That hereditary Aristocracy — so prudent, so jea- 
 lous, so ambitious — which Europe regarded with astonish- 
 ment ; immovable in principle, unshaken in power ; uniting 
 some of the most odious practices of despotism with the 
 name of liberty ; suspicious and perfidious in politics ; san- 
 guinary in revenge; indulgent to the subject ; sumptuous in 
 the public service, economical in the administration of the 
 finances ; equitable and impartial in the administration of 
 * Sketches of Venetian History.
 
 396 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 justice ; knowing well how to give prosperity to the arts, 
 agriculture, and commerce ; beloved by the people who obeyed 
 it, while it made the nobles who partook its power tremble.* 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Greek — the Goth — the Saracenic joined : 
 
 " Though most of its materials come from Greece, their 
 " combination is neither Greek, nor Gothic, nor Basilical, 
 " nor Saracenic, but a fortuitous jumble of all. A front 
 " divided by a gallery, and a roof hooded with mosquish cu- 
 " polas, give it a strange unchristian look. Nowhere have I 
 " seen so many columns crowded into so small a space. Near 
 *' three hundred are stuck on the pillars of the front, and 
 " three hundred more on the balustrades above. A like pro- 
 " fusion prevails in the interior, which is dark, heavy, bar- 
 " barous, nay poor, in spite of all the porphyry, and oriental 
 " marbles, and glaring mosaics that would enrich the walls, 
 " the vaults, and pavements. In fact, such a variety of 
 " colours would impair the effect of the purest architec- 
 •' ture." 
 
 In despite of these severe but just censures of Forsyth, 
 whose pen, when touching on the arts, is ever polished by 
 the finest taste, neither he nor any man ever surveyed the 
 front of St. Mark, and seriously wished one stone of that 
 grotesque edifice different from what it is : it is a part of 
 Venice, the crowning point of the marvel which crowns the 
 whole. 
 
 * Sismondi.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO 11. 397 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But oh, what groups yon casement's light reveals. 
 
 No impressions are more solemn or awakening than those 
 which are inspired in us by the grandeur, the gloom, and the 
 silence of a Catholic church ; and these are heightened, by 
 the life coming and departing, silently and voicelessly, of those 
 who are grouped around you. Unlike our own churches, 
 most disgracefully, ridiculously, and, reflecting on it in a 
 moral sense, most irreligiously opened only just once in seven 
 days, and even then closed, excepting during the hour or 
 two doled out for Divine Service ; even then, the aisles, 
 wherever there are any, traversed by beadles— snrWXy and 
 coarsely forbidding any reflective loiterer to pause before any 
 tomb or work of art;— the Catholic Church is the home, the 
 resort, and the sanctuary of the weary in body or in spirit : 
 of the good and the bad, of the strong and the infirm, of 
 youth and of age, of the fatherless, the widow, and the 
 orphan. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Wlien the Tale-teller hath his circle found. 
 
 These legitimate descendants of the Minstrels of old are 
 a common sight of an evening in the Piazza — and most pic- 
 turesque and striking are, at times, the groups gathered 
 round them. Their action is often admirable ; and the in- 
 terest their romantic love-tales create, will sometimes fix 
 their circle for hours. One cannot regard them without
 
 398 NOTES TO CANTO 1 1. 
 
 smiling to think how all their oratory would be thrown away 
 at Cheapside, or on the Strand ! — As a matter of com*se , 
 they would be " taken up" as lunatics. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Titian, the soul of colours ! 
 
 Extract from a familiar letter to a private friend : — 
 " Most gracious, pleasant, and excellent Niccolo ! it is the 
 " opinion of our Titian, the soul of colours, — and of Sanso- 
 " vino, the breath of marbles — that it would be ungrateful of 
 " me," &c. &c. 
 
 The noble Palazzo Barberigo, adjoining the Pisani, in 
 which this great man passed the last years of his life, is 
 fronting the Canal Grande, and his room is shown where he 
 is reported to have painted his best pictures ; the ceiling is 
 channelled, and the walls are of light green; its windows 
 open (no unimportant remembrance for an artist) on a 
 southern aspect. 
 
 It was while painting the portrait of Charles V. that the 
 anecdote is preserved of his dropping his pencil, when the 
 Emperor, stooping, picked it up, and returned it to hira, ob- 
 serving, 
 
 " Titian is worthy to be served by Cfesar," 
 
 Venice was ever alive to the merits of her consummate 
 artist. When, during his lifetime, in 1 535, the Republic was 
 arming against the Turks, and a poll-tax was levied upon 
 her citizens by an edict not less honourable to herself than 
 to the individuals whom it concerned, " special exceptions
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 399 
 
 " were made in favour of Titiano and Sansovino, on account 
 " of their excellence." When, on another occasion, the 
 Fraternity of SS. Giovanni e Paolo had sold a chef-d'ceuvre 
 of the great Painter, " The Martyrdom of St. Peter," for 
 eighteen thousand crowns, the ready arm of " the Ten" in- 
 terposed, annulled the bargain on pain of death, and retained 
 the Picture in the Church which it still adorns.* 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 ' Twas this, which poured along his pictures. 
 
 " Titian," observes Lanzi, " was eminently happy in ex- 
 « pressing the precise time of day when the incident, pro- 
 " posed to be represented, occurred ; most commonly making 
 " choice of the period of sunset, and drawing from it the most 
 «' beautiful accidents of light:' The latter part of the stanza 
 is in allusion to a picture of Antiope feigning slumber, 
 while Jupiter is watching her. 
 
 Even at the advanced age of ninety-nine, one year before 
 the plague terminated his existence, he could not be made 
 aware of the weakness peculiar to age, nor of his deteriora- 
 tion, nor did he refuse orders to his latest hour. 
 
 The following anecdote is surely touching : — '' At St. 
 " Salvatore," says Lanzi, " there is an Annunciation of his, 
 " in which there is nothing to arrest the spectator's attention 
 *'• except the great name of the author ; and because some 
 " persons had asserted that it either ivas not, or, at least, 
 
 * Venetian Sketches.
 
 400 NOTES TO CANTO 11. 
 
 " did not appear to be his, he felt irritated, and, witli a 
 " kind of doting indignation, affixed to it the following in- 
 
 " scription : 
 
 Titiauus fecit — fecit .'" 
 
 Lanzi observes, however, that much may be learnt from his 
 latest works, just as poets, when speaking of the Odyssey, 
 pronounce it indeed the production of okl age — but of the 
 old age of Homer. 
 
 It may be observed, for conclusion to this note, that when 
 other Schools of Painting were copying inferior masters, 
 Venice had a school of her own ; peculiar, but always 
 original. Palladio was born there ; and, in her degenerate 
 days, she gave birth to the undoubted Phidias of modern 
 ages — Canova ; whose Daedalus and Icarus, his first effort, 
 (touched with that mannerism which never left him except in 
 his Wrestlers,) is still shown in the Pisani Palace. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Arcadian LaJidscape : 
 
 Titian, says Lanzi, saw further into Nature, and copied it 
 more correctly, than any one else ; he was of all painters the 
 greatest confidant of Nature — a sort of universal Master, 
 who, in all that he undertook to treat, whether the human 
 figure or landscapes, invested them with the strictest cha- 
 racter of truth. Vasari quotes Michael Angelo as having 
 looked at Titian's Leda, exclaiming, " that it was a pity the 
 " Venetian Artists were not taught to design accurately
 
 MOTES TO CANTO li. -lUl 
 
 " from tlie first ;" his admiration for other parts of the work 
 was unbounded ; and Tintoretto, although his rival, affirmed 
 " that Titian produced many things which made imitation 
 " hopeless, but that some of his works might have been more 
 " correctly designed.'' Among his very best, he might 
 well have placed the Martyrdom of St. Peter, " in which," 
 says Algarotti, " the greatest masters have confessed them- 
 " selves unable to discover even the shadow of a defect." 
 The Bacchanal might, also, be added, in the cabinet of the 
 Dukes of Ferrara, which Caracci pronounced to be a wonder 
 of the art, and the finest picture in the world. 
 
 It is very pleasing to find an opinion hazarded, sanctioned 
 by the authority ofLanzi. After having written the above 
 stanzas, I found, and quote, the following passage from 
 him : — 
 
 " In his landscapes he is unrivalled ; although he never 
 " introduced them for the sake of ornament. Titian always 
 " makes them subordinate to the story, as in St. Peter the 
 " Martyr, where the gloom of the forest adds so much to the 
 " horror of the scene ; or else he makes it contribute to give 
 " his figures greater effect, as in those pieces where the 
 " landscape is thrown into the distance." With what spirit 
 and truth he represented the various effects of light, is seen 
 in the Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo, in the Church of the 
 Jesuits at Venice, when he " expressed, in a manner so 
 " different, the brightness of the fire, the flaring of the 
 " torch, and the supernatural light which falls on the 
 " Martyr.' 
 
 D u
 
 402 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 XXXVL 
 
 Thou, 'Byron, still thy deathless course shalt run. 
 
 " This man of genius,'' says the elder D'Israeli, " was a 
 " moral phenomenon, which vanished at the moment when, 
 " by its indications, a change was silently operating on the 
 " most ductile and versatile of human minds. I consider 
 " that, hadlie lived, the complete developement of his power- 
 " ful capacity, the elevation of his generous temper, in a 
 " word, the perfect formation of his character, would have 
 
 " been the necessary consequence of his nature 
 
 " The man who, independent of a constant struggle after 
 " intellectual truth, perceptible in all his writings, had the 
 " power twice completely to revolutionise his principles of 
 " taste, and his style of composition, and, at each great 
 " change, attained greater excellence, — this man can only 
 " be classed among the very highest and most capable intel- 
 " lects. The culture of Lord Byron was imperfect, but it 
 " could only have been perfected by his own solitary exer- 
 " tions, and that this perfection would have been consum- 
 " mated, is, to me, not a matter of doubt. 
 
 " If the mind of Lord Byron were disorganised and un- 
 " settled,* so also was it searching and inquisitive. His 
 " opinions, indeed, were already greatly changed — his self- 
 " knowledge much increased — his knowledge of Nature 
 " much more just — his knowledge of mankind much more 
 " profound. Already had he discovered that misanthropy is 
 
 * " Now, if I know myself, I should say, I have no character at all." — 
 Moore's Life.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 403 
 
 " impossible, and that sublime selfism, which would exist 
 " without the sympathies of life, only gratifies our vanity 
 " without satisfying our feelings. Another step, and he 
 " would have discovered that Virtue is a reality, and happi- 
 " ness a positive existence. He would have found that the 
 " ' hum of cities ' is not torture : that society is not a 
 " peopled desert ; and that this world is only a place of strife 
 " and agony to those who are hostile and, therefore, ago- 
 " nised 
 
 " In the pride of his eloquence the poet has proved the 
 '• strength of human intellect, even when he has cursed, 
 " rather than deplored, its weakness. We must show that 
 " there is no strength where there is no order ; and that 
 " existence, the objects of which were to him a source of 
 " doubt or dissatisfaction, is neither doubtful nor unsatisfac- 
 " tory, when, in the study of our nature, we become ac- 
 " quainted with its wants and its capacity 
 
 " It was, indeed, not without truth, said of him by Goethe, 
 " that he w^as inspired by the Genius of Pain ; for, from the 
 " first to the last of his agitated career, every fresh excite- 
 " ment of his faculties was imbibed from that bitter source. 
 " It is strange," says Lord Byron, " but agitation or contest of 
 " any kind gives a rebound to my spirits, and winds me up 
 " for the time." 
 
 Time has already begun to render him justice. The 
 world saw the dishonesty of the endeavour to identify the 
 Poet with the characters he has drawn, and his opinions by 
 the language they utter, without admitting that it would be 
 
 DD 2
 
 404 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 as just to pronounce Milton his own Satan. In fine, what- 
 ever may have been the noble Poet's errors, hypocrisy was 
 not one of them. Had he possessed but a tithe of that 
 average proportion among men of that most common and 
 convenient vice, his errors would have appeared venial, or 
 remained unknown, or uncommented upon : but " all the 
 " cants of this canting world" have been poured out upon 
 him by the unprincipled and by the prejudiced. 
 
 In despite of his domestic misfortunes, which gave him 
 an additional interest in the eyes of the world, and to which 
 the world gave him credit in not attaching much importance, 
 — for no man who really loved, or even respected a woman, 
 or considered only what was due to her feelings, or to society, 
 could write pttblic verses to her on private annoyances where 
 the heart was much concerned ; — and, still less, hold her up 
 to ridicule afterwards ; for, love becoming " blighted," &c. 
 is inanest poetry : love is the great master-passion ; and 
 he who has once loved, cannot eradicate the feeling ; it may 
 cool — decay — but, in every honourable bosom, the ashes 
 of its memory should lie sacred and undisturbed ! 
 
 In despite, then, I say, of domestic grievances, I consider 
 Lord Byron as the most fortunate of men ; he stood, ac- 
 knowledged, the literary Achilles of his day ;* while living, he, 
 
 * How chivalrously, and characteristically, has Scott awarded his riglit 
 to him ! [the passage is quoted from memory :] " He had none of that 
 " petty anxiety common to lesser authors in what is called ' taking care 
 " of their fame.' Lord Byron let his fame take care of itself. His foot
 
 NOTES TO Canto ii. 405 
 
 too, had his tried friend, ever ready to counsel or defend him ; 
 and when he died before his time, how more than fortunate 
 was he in that friend, coming forward as he did ; and while 
 recording, in his own graceful style, his life and actions, en- 
 twining his own fame inseparably with that of his friend. 
 
 The Life of Lord Byron by Moore, as that of Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott by Lockhart, are surely the most graceful and 
 finished pieces of biography in the English language. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Thou, who restor'dst Home's Empire for an hour. 
 
 At the commencement of the fifth century, Ravenna was 
 made the capital of the western empire by the weak Ho- 
 norius. Afterwards the noble Ostrogoth Theodoric held 
 his court there, and embellished the city, throwing a kind of 
 lustre over it from his own deeds. It was still considered 
 the capital, until the eighth century. Dante finally took up 
 his abode, and died here in 1321 ; his third and most mag- 
 nificent monument was constructed in 1786, at the expense 
 of the most noble the Cardinal Gonzaga. 
 
 " was always in the arena : his shield hung always in the lists ; and 
 " though his own gigantic renown increased the difficulty of the contest, 
 " he 'came off always with honour — almost always with complete 
 " triumph." 
 
 Such are the testimonies which only one great mind can bear to 
 another !
 
 406 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 XLV. 
 Behold the Pass of Fiirlo 
 
 The Pass of Furlo is a defile in the mountains south of 
 Urbino, — the road being cleft through the rock ; its ancient 
 name was Petra pertusa. The branch of the Flaminian road 
 commences at Fano, and follows the Metaurus to Fossom- 
 bron^ — the Forum Sempronii. This great battle was fought 
 along the left bank : the Monte Asdrubale, pointed out by 
 the guide, marks part of the spot; but a vast extent of 
 ground must have been occupied by the retreating, rallying, 
 and fighting of one hundred thousand men. 
 
 La Martine — that elegant French Poet's remarks on Han- 
 nibal are too amusing to be omitted : " Je n'ai jamais pu 
 " prendre le moindre interet de occur a Carthage, malgre ses 
 " malheurs et sa gloire. Annibal nem'a jamais ^iaxviqiiun ge- 
 " neral de la Comjiognie des Indes ! faisant une campagne 
 " industrielle, une brillante et heroique operation de com- 
 " merce dans les plaines de Trasimene !" Nobody will imi- 
 tate him : the last idea co^dd only have occured to a French- 
 man ; Hannibal a commercial man ! — not only the greatest, 
 but the most thoroughly disinterested and Spartan soldier 
 that ever existed ; — the only precious metal ever known to 
 him, being the iron harness in which he may be said to have 
 been born.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 407 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Stamping Carthage ' doom : 
 
 The victory of Nero was, if not the most glorious, the 
 most important victory, in its effects, ever gained by the 
 Romans ; which saved Rome itself, by depriving Hannibal 
 of the strength which would have made all resistance hope- 
 less, and which thus anticipated the fall of Carthage. The 
 hill still retains, and will for ever, the name of that unfortu- 
 nate leader, who, having done all that valour could achieve 
 to recover the day, fell there, bravely fighting to the last. 
 
 Horace, alone, seems to appreciate the immense debt his 
 country owed to the Consul Nero : 
 
 Quid debeas, O Roma, Neronibus, 
 Testis Metaurum flumen, et Asdrubal 
 Devictus, &c. 
 
 CaRMINUM IV. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lo, how yon red banks stamp its waters' name, 
 The Rubicon. 
 
 Between Ravenna and Rimini, having traversed the 
 Pineta, and about eight miles from the latter city, and one 
 from the sea, rolls the Rubicon. Conflicting opinions on its 
 site have, of course, been maintained, but Dr. Cramer ap- 
 pears to have reconciled them. " The Rubicon is formed 
 " from several small streams, which unite about a mile from
 
 408 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 " the sea, assuming the name of Fiumicino. Caesar, com- 
 " ing from Ravenna along the coast, would cross the Rubi- 
 " con near its mouth : had he proceeded along the Via 
 " A^niUia, he must have crossed the three rivulets called 
 " Rugone, Pisatello, and Savignano, whose junction forms 
 " Fiumicino." 
 
 The Riminians tenaciously assert the claims of their own 
 stream — claims which are admitted by the very highest 
 authorities of Cluverius and d'Anville, as an intelligent na- 
 tive remarked to me during my sojourn there. The classi- 
 cal reader will remember the sublime passage of Lucan, 
 describing Rome herself appearing on this spot to her rc" 
 bellious son. 
 
 LII. 
 Before — his foe's stern smile — 
 
 It was at Ravenna where Caesar awaited the final answer 
 of the Senate (made by him through the Tribunes) to his 
 offers, that the other generals also should lay down their 
 arms, and that he would give up eight of his ten legions. 
 The refusal of these were his pretexts for war against his 
 country ; but it was Pompey"s opinion that, finding himself 
 unable to extricate himself from his enormous debts,* or finish 
 the vast works he had begun, or satisfy the public expecta- 
 tion, he wished to embroil all things. Others considered it 
 his dread of being called to an account for all his unau- 
 
 * Caesar's debts amounted to 1,300 talents: i. e. ^565,000: the 
 ground-plot of his Forum alone cost him one liundred million of ses- 
 terces, or ^800,000. Suetonius.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 409 
 
 thorized actions whilst Consul ; his buildings, and loan of his 
 troops to other powers, as if he were already Dictator : his 
 observation on the slaughtered enemy at Pharsalia seems to 
 confirm this :• — " This they hitended : I, Caius Caesar, after 
 " all the great achievements I have performed, must have 
 " undergone a sentence of condemnation, had I not turned 
 " to the assistance of my army."* 
 
 LV. 
 
 Those forms of usage slighted : 
 .Suetonius tells them : " \Ahat brought upon him the greatest 
 " and most invincible odium, was his receiving the whole 
 " body of the Senate sitting, when they came to wait upon 
 " him before the temple of Venus Genitrix, with many ho- 
 " nourable decrees in his favour. Some say, as he attempt- 
 " ed to rise, he m as held down by Balbus ; others, that he 
 " did not attempt it at all, but looked displeased at Trebatius, 
 " who put him in mind of standing up." This was one of 
 those personal insults which, offered on a public as on a pri- 
 vate character, are never forgotten. Augustus possessed all 
 the phlegm of which Caesar had no particle, and, while he re- 
 moved the very shadow of liberty, he carefully preserved all 
 its externals : those toys which Csesar coveted, such as 
 wreaths, coronets, &c. Finally, Caesar but placed the sovereign 
 chair in which Augustus sat for half a century ; men's minds 
 had become reconciled to his mildness and urbanity, which 
 never could have been the case under the restlessness of 
 Caesar : the one, in constant wars, would have revived the 
 
 * Suetonius.
 
 410 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 age of iron — for where could his ambition have been satis- 
 fied ? the other so gilded the time with his utilities, that the 
 golden or Augustan age has become a proverb and a hope 
 amongst mankind. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 A warning to eartlis tyrants : 
 
 " If Caesar was really a tyrant," says Cicero, hesitatingly, 
 " as I tlmik he was." Rome was in a state of anarchy when 
 Caesar usurped the command ; he was, to a great extent, the 
 author and fomenter of that anarchy — so that absolute au- 
 thority, in some one, was become a necessity. This makes 
 the verdict on Caesar easy : but how is Cicero to be ac- 
 quitted, who reviled that man dead, of whom he was the 
 most servile flatterer while living ? 
 
 LXI. 
 
 The very crimes attest the dignity 
 Of an immortal nature : 
 
 Young's lines on our love of fame are too fine to be omitted 
 here. 
 
 We wish our names eternally to live : 
 
 Wild dream, which ne'er had haunted human thought, 
 
 Had not our natures been eternal too. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 And thou, Ariminum ! the first to hail : 
 Rimini is memorable as being tiie first town that saw
 
 NOTES TO CANTO H. 411 
 
 Caesar in arms against his country. After having ha- 
 rangued his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, and made the 
 last appeal from the laws to the sword, he advanced with 
 that rapidity so peculiar to himself, (adopted with such suc- 
 cess in our day by Napoleon,) and appeared at day-break, 
 surrounded with his cohorts, in the Forum of Rimini or 
 Ariminum. The clang of his trumpets — the shouts of the 
 excited soldiery — the alarm and confusion of the citizens — 
 and the inflamed aspect of Caesar himself — are points which 
 the historian leaves to the poet, and Virgil himself can pro- 
 duce few finer descriptions than that of Lucan, which will 
 be recalled by the scholar. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 The passionate harangue, the tears poured forth : 
 
 " Coming up with his troops to the Rubicon, the boundary 
 ♦' of his province, he made a halt ; when, revolving in his 
 " mind the greatness of his attempt, he turned to those 
 " behind him — ' We may still retreat,' said he ; ' but if we 
 " pass this little bridge, we must make our way by force of 
 
 " arms. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " Attended by the Tribunes of the Commons, who were 
 " around him, he, at the head of his troops, with tears in his 
 " eyes, and his garment rent from his breast, implored their 
 " protection. His agitation was, here, unfeigned : for, ob- 
 " serves Montesquieu, — 'L'on declaroit sacrilege et parricide
 
 412 NOTES TO CANTO II, 
 
 " quiconque avec une legion, avec une armee. ou avec une 
 " cohorte, passeroit le Rubicon.' " 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Which the soft Roman shivered but to name : 
 
 How exactly do the words of Tacitus apply, written nearly a 
 thousand years since ! — " The climate of Britain is unfavour- 
 " able ; always damp with rains, and overcast with clouds. 
 " It is otherwise fertile, and yields corn in plenty. Vegeta- 
 " tion is quick in shooting up, and slow in coming to 
 " maturity. Both effects are reducible to the same cause — 
 " the constant moisture of the atmosphere, and the damp- 
 " ness of the soil." — Life of Agricola. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 If false, its oion reward was bliss supreme ; 
 
 " Poetry has been to me," says Coleridge, " its own ex- 
 " ceeding great reward : it has soothed my afflictions ; it 
 " has multiplied and refined my enjoyments ; it has endeared 
 " solitude ; it has given me the habit oftvishing to discover the 
 " Good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds »?e." 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Yon hill-hound lahe expands its azure vast. 
 
 From Torricelii the r(uid winds along the margin of the 
 lake to Passignano, a village occupying a narrow ilefile,
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 413 
 
 closed on one side by the lake, on the other, by a precipice. 
 Beyond this, the road crosses a plain, bounded by the lake 
 on the left, and, on the right, by a semicircular ridge of 
 mountains. This ridge, receding in the centre, and ad- 
 vancing on its sides, closes on the lake at Passignano in a 
 precipice, and at Borghetto in an acclivity. The enclosed 
 plain is in length six miles, from the former to the latter of 
 these places, and nearly four miles in breadth, from the lake 
 to the mountains. Hannibal could not have imagined a finer 
 ambush. He encamped in the plain's centre, at the head of 
 his Spanish and African troops : the light-armed forces he 
 placed in the hill's recesses, and his cavalry occupied the 
 defile in the Roman rear, after they had passed through it. 
 Flaminius entered Borghetto with his characteristic impe- 
 tuosity, hastening on to attack Hannibal, whom he saw full in 
 his front : shouts from every height then told him he was 
 surrounded : a mist, rising from the lake, obscured the air ; all 
 was confusion — anarchy — noise, and desperation ! Cleft 
 down, and slaughtered, at once, in front, flank, and rear, the 
 Romans resisted for upwards of three hours — till, at length, 
 the plains covered with their bodies, and the lake dyed with 
 their blood, a portion only of their army fought their way to 
 the neighbouring hills — the ranks of the enemy voluntarily 
 opening to afford those brave men their passage. The 
 streamlet of Sanguinetto is supposed to be about the spot, 
 where, after having performed every duty of the general 
 and the soldier, the gallant but unfortunate Flaminius fell.
 
 414 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 LXXIL 
 
 And this was Tlirasymene ! 
 
 The waters of the lake, when I stood by its side, were 
 breaking on the shore hke the waves of an agitated ocean : 
 the whole scene was one which would have taxed the 
 powers of a " savage Salvator" to their uttei-most. At 
 Ossaia, so called from the bones found there, (its name imply- 
 ing it,) I copied the distich from a house in the street ; 
 
 Nomen habet locus hie Ursija, ab ossibus illis 
 Quffi dolis Annibalis fudit et hasta simul. 
 
 In the plains below the nobly situated town of Perugia, I 
 observed an ancient column, bearing the inscription 
 
 Ad Gladiatores et ad Viatorem. 
 Much was illegible, but evidently of the Constantine era, 
 erected by the Christians— as a sort of post warning to those 
 who were profane enough to frequent and to enjoy gladia- 
 torial exhibitions. The world has ever been the same ; our 
 more " serious" people cover the Ascot and Newmarket 
 roads with " tracts," with, perhaps, the same effect. Near 
 the same spot, I copied another inscription in honour of some 
 great one of his day : 
 
 Romano Callimacho. 
 En ubi scandentes arces 
 Ubi vertice murus : 
 Murus ab ingenio 
 Notior ille tuo. 
 
 .Journal.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 415 
 
 LXXVI. 
 O'er yon green hank, Clitumnus rears his shrine ; 
 
 "■ Have you ever seen the source of the CHtumnus ?" says 
 Pliny, in one of his dehghtful letters. " It is but lately 
 
 indeed I had that pleasure, and I condemn myself for not 
 " having seen it sooner. At the foot of a little hill, covered 
 " with venerable and shady cypress trees, a spring issues 
 " out, which, gushing in different and unequal streams, forms 
 " itself, after many windings, into a spacious basin, so ex- 
 " tremely clear, that you may see the pebbles, and the little 
 " pieces of money which are thrown in it, as they lie at the 
 " bottom.* The banks, on each side, are shaded with the 
 " verdure of ash and poplar trees, as clearly and distinctly 
 " seen in the stream, as if they were actually sunk in it ; 
 " the water is cold, and as white as snow. Near it stands an 
 " ancient and venerable temple, wherein is placed the river 
 " god Clitumnus, clothed in a robe, whose immediate pre- 
 " sence the prophetic oracles here delivered sufficiently 
 " testify .... Several villas, attracted by the beauty of this 
 " river, are situated upon its borders : in short, every object 
 " affords you delight." 
 
 * The heads of consideralile rivers were esteemed sacred among tlie 
 Romans, and cultivated with religious ceremonies. " Magnorum flumi- 
 num (saj'-s Seneca) capita reveremur ; suliita et ex abdito vasti amnis 
 eruptio arashabet." It was customary to throw small pieces of money into 
 those lakes which were held sacred, as a mark of veneration, and to render 
 propitious the presiding deities.
 
 416 NOTES TO CANTO II. 
 
 How Strange it appears to us to read — almost to hear the 
 words of one who has been dead eighteen hundred years, 
 describing the spot almost as correctly as if he had just 
 turned aside from it, and was familiarly telling us his impres- 
 sions ! 
 
 In his impassioned praises, of Italy Virgil, also, does not 
 forget Clitumnus. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 The breasting road hewn round the giant hill : 
 
 There is no part of Switzerland, not the wildest or the 
 most beautiful, which can at all compete with the moun- 
 tainous approach to Terni ; so infinitely spreads the land- 
 scape far away beneath the eye, so abruptly and toweringly 
 rise the craggy mountains by which the ascent is made. 
 Having entered this extraordinary pass, I felt assured that 
 the cataract would fall below my highly excited imagina- 
 tion ; the day, also, added to the scene : for it was lowering 
 and stormy, and invested the chaos of rocks above and 
 below with a more wild and savage appearance. The roar 
 of the distant waters first prepares the mind, which the 
 clouds of mist rising from it, as yet unseen, assists : the mind 
 becomes excited to the uttermost — but who ever saw those 
 waters, and felt disappointed? Journal. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 The Terni Water's falls are here : 
 Wilson's exclamation when he first saw the falls of Terni
 
 NOTES TO CANTO II. 417 
 
 may convey perhaps the impression it could make, more than 
 the most elaborate description ; it was overheard (so I have 
 somewhere read) by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who stood by him 
 at the time. For a moment or two, Wilson stood in mute 
 astonishment, absorbed in the sublimity of the scene, till at 
 length, he unconsciously exclaimed, " Well done water ! 
 by G— d I" 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Lo, how like Time in his immortal youth ; 
 
 " As Time is always passing by, and leaves of its former 
 " existence no relics, and, as new time has no permanence, old 
 " time is only a figure of speech ; for Time, not able to last, is 
 " not able to gi'ow old. Time existing, is ever new, young 
 " and fresh. The very hour of its birth is tliat of its demise. " 
 
 Hope's Prospects of Man. 
 
 E E
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 II. 
 
 He sinks exhausted on the sickly waste : 
 
 Both Strabo and Horace represent the Campagna as hav- 
 ing been always unhealthy. " PHny can hardly convince 
 " me," says the acute Forsyth, " that the present marshes 
 " contained thirty- three cities ; even admitting that the 
 " Volsci were a populous nation, and the marshes once 
 " healthy and dry. But healthy they were never : nor does 
 " any record prove that, from the time of Appius Claudius 
 " to Braschi, one half of them was ever habitually dry. 
 « Virgil found them ' a black bog,' and Silius describes them 
 " as they are." 
 
 III. 
 
 She, whose gigantic Shadow stretched around 
 The world : 
 
 The line recalled to me the noble paraphrase from tlie 
 ^neid, in Dryden's masterly version : 
 
 " Rome — whose ascending towers shall heaven invade, 
 " Involving earth and ocean in her shade /" 
 
 " The Romans," says Livy, (speaking his own sentiments 
 through another,) " are a race who know not how to sit
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 419 
 
 " down under defeat ; any scar which the present necessity 
 " shall imprint on their breasts, will rankle there for ever> 
 " and will not suffer them to rest, until they have taken 
 " amplest vengeance." Never, for example, was there a 
 more arduous struggle, or a display of ^more heroic virtues 
 than during the Punic War, or which presents nobler views 
 of human nature ; every page, a record of some noble action, 
 should be the study of the youth of all ages ; how to live — 
 how to fight — how to die for freedom. 
 
 Montesquieu illustrates this subject with his finest acu- 
 men, and with a truth which is attested by every page from 
 the history of that extraordinary people. 
 
 " Mais rien ne servit mieux Rome que le respect qu'elle 
 " imprima a la terre. EUe mit d'abord les rois dans le si- 
 " lence, et les rendit comme stupides. II ne s'agissoit pas 
 " du degre de leur puissance ; mais leur personne propre 
 " etoit attaquee. Risquer une guerre, c'etoit s'exposer a la 
 " captivite, a la mort, a Tinfaraie du triomphe. Ainsi des 
 " rois qui vivoient dans le faste et dans les delices nosoient 
 '•'■ Jeter des regards fixes sur le peuple romain ; et, perdant le 
 " courage, ils attendoient de leur patience et de leurs bas- 
 " sesses quelque delai aux miseres dont ils etoient me- 
 " naces." — Grandeur des Romains. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Hvre ihc Titanic aqueduct displays 
 Its lengthened arches. 
 Nothing impresses on the mind the consciousness, the 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 NOTES TO CAMTO III, 
 
 palpable feeling of Roman power and grandeur, more 
 than that first object presented to the stranger on the Cam- 
 pagna — her Aqueducts. It seems as if we saw embodied 
 before our eyes, the gigantic strides with which she over- 
 ran the Universe, making a mockery alike of space and time. 
 The eye tracks their spanning arches with amazement along 
 the waste solitudes where they are only bounded by the ho- 
 rizon ; their mighty outlines shattered, but too vast to be 
 overthrown, and the desolate, and, apparently, infinite space 
 around them, impress on the mind, through the eye, inner 
 lessons of decay and mutability, which are not forgotten. 
 Journal. 
 
 XT. 
 
 Mecca of Pilgrimage, to every heart 
 Whose feeling is religio)i ! 
 
 One truth, I think, may be ventured as an axiom, not to 
 be controverted by any sophistry : — that no man or woman 
 ever entered St. Peter's Church, without leaving it " sadder 
 and wiser" than before; without feeling impressed, in a 
 far higher degree than heretofore, with a sentiment of the 
 dignity, and even of the grandeur and sublimity of our hu- 
 man nature ; of the men who could conceive, transmit 
 from generation to generation, and, finally, embody forth so 
 mighty a Design : compared to which all the Temples that 
 have ever been reared from earth to heaven were as nothing 
 in the scale— this truth we hnmv. The Mind takes, as it 
 were, a leap 
 
 '^ From this bank and shoal of time,"
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 421 
 
 and receives an expansion and a sense of sublimity from the 
 fabric, which impression is never afterwards contracted or 
 forgotten ; surely, then, on this sole argument, it is worth 
 coming from the farthest ends of the earth to see St. Peter's 
 alone." Journal. 
 
 XII. 
 Thy cause is ours — 'tis freedom. 
 
 " There is nothing unnatural in our interesting ourselves 
 " in the fortunes and cause of Rome, as in that of our own 
 " country — with energy and with passion. Rome has, in- 
 "deed, under Providence, been the instrument of bestowing 
 " on us, the great triad blessings of humanity — civilisation — 
 " science — and relir/ion.'' The reader is earnestly referred to the 
 tenth chapter of the first volume of Eustace, in which these 
 claims are eloquently and beautifully enforced. Far be it 
 from the writer of this note to underrate Eustace, as it has 
 been the fashion to do of late years ; incorrect in minor de- 
 tails he sometimes is, and slightly bigoted, perhaps ; but 
 the broad outlines of his Work are indestructible, and in 
 style and composition what traveller has excelled him ? 
 How natural, then, is the emotion of the traveller when he 
 first beholds the distant domes of a city of such figure in 
 the history of the Univei'se, of such weight in the destinies 
 of mankind, so familiar to the imagination of the boy, so 
 interesting to the feelings of the man ! And if, indeed, a 
 distant view of iEgina, and of Corinth, could so melt the 
 soul of an ancient Roman, as to absorb all his own private 
 sorrows, causing him to break out in that passionate apos- 
 trophe whose natural eloquence has made it immortal, what
 
 4t>2 NOTES TO CANTO III, 
 
 should oiir emotions be in contemplating ruins, to which, 
 they — compared — are as " a wart to Ossa ?" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 That wall was Troy ■like Veil ! 
 
 " Veii," says that careful writer, Burton, " seems now to 
 " be very satisfactorily placed at L'isola Farnese, not far 
 " from La Storta, the first post on the road to Perugia. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 What Jires have blazed from that off -taken Troy ! 
 
 In the five sackings of Rome (from 536 to 552) in which 
 she was both attacked and defended by Barbarians, it is im- 
 possible but that most of the architectural monuments of the 
 city must have been utterly ruined or overthrown ; the very 
 anxiety which, according to Procopius, Narses displayed to 
 restore, in some measure, its injuries, is a proof of their im- 
 mense extent. 
 
 " The golden Capitol has lost all its splendour," (says 
 Jerome,) " the temples of Rome are covered with dust and 
 " cobwebs, the very city is moved from its foundations, and 
 " the overflowing people rush before iY^e half torn up shrines, 
 " to the tombs of the martyrs." Again, another ecclesias- 
 tical writer, Theodoret ; " The destruction of the idolatrous 
 " fanes was from their foundation ;" and so complete, that his 
 cotemporaries could not perceive a vestige of the former 
 superstition ; lastly, in much stronger language — " Their 
 " temples are so destroyed, that the appearance of their form
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 423 
 
 " no longer remains, nor can those of our times recognise the 
 " shape of their altars : as for their materials, they are dedi- 
 " cated to the fanes of the martyrs." We read of fifty-six 
 churches built upon the sites, or supposed sites, of temples 
 despoiled by the zeal of the early Christians ; and their ma- 
 terials employed to the honour of their triumphant religion ; 
 so true are the lines of the most correct of poets : 
 
 " Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age, 
 " Some hostile fury, some religious rage : 
 " Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire, 
 '• And Papal piety, and Gothic fire." 
 
 Pope's Epistle to Addison. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Spirits of forty Ages ! answer me : 
 
 " Soldiers !" exclaimed the modern Conqueror of Egypt 
 and of half the world — " from the heights of those Pyramids, 
 " the Spirits of forty ages look down upon your actions !" 
 After such an appeal — at such a time — and on such a spot, 
 what soldier could fail ? — the proclamation, no doubt, a cal- 
 culation founded on his profound knowledge of character, 
 that is, of a Frenchman's character, insured the victory. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Thrown to the ivealthier wretch : 
 
 Sought by Didius, as the best bidder, at the .Unction of 
 the Roman Empire ; the infamous transaction is admirably 
 pictured by Gibbon, in his most graphic style.
 
 424 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Immortal Trajan ! thou : 
 
 Trajan [I quote Montesquieu] prince le plus accompli 
 dont I'histoire ait jamais parle. Ce fut un bonheur d'etre ne 
 sous son regne .... enfin I'homme le plus propre a honorer 
 la nature humaine, et representer la divine — such is a part 
 only of his fine and just panegyric. 
 
 " Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved himself a rival 
 " not unworthy of Trajan ; nor did he despair of his own and 
 " the public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, 
 he had exhausted every resource both of valour and policy.'' 
 Gibbon. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 As stands thy Column : 
 Ammianus records that when the Emperor Constans enter- 
 ed Rome A.D. 356 — " and came to the Forum, a structure 
 " unique in the world, he was struck with amazement by its 
 " gigantic edifices. Giving up the idea of attempting a 
 •' similar work, he observed, that the only object he would 
 " imitate, should be the Emperor's horse. Upon which, 
 " Hormisdas, — of the royal family of Persia, who was near 
 " him, — said : — ' First, order a similar stable to be built for 
 " him if you have the means : may the horse which you de- 
 " sign to form, command as much admiration as that which 
 " we behold.' " It is certain that neither Alaric nor 
 Genseric destroyed this forum, for, Cassiodorus, who wrote
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 425 
 
 about the year a.d. 500, observes — " The Forum of Trajan 
 " is a perfect miracle, if we inspect it even with the utmost 
 " minuteness." 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But Luxury crushed Law : 
 
 The master-hand of Tacitus has admirably developed this 
 subject in his annals ; and, in a modern day, Montesquieu 
 has brought to it his acute discrimination. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Yet, ere we enter, gratitude be given : 
 
 It would be an injustice to Eustace not to recal the fol- 
 lowing tribute, as true as it is eloquent : " The name of 
 " Rome echoes" in our ears from our infancy ; our earliest 
 " years are passed with her orators, her poets, and her 
 " historians — such impressions are indelible. Wherever 
 " her eagles flew, schools were opened : aqueducts and 
 
 " bridges, temples and theatres arose in every town 
 
 " Compare Gaul, Spain, Britain, covered with sumless 
 " cities, with their forests, swamps, and huts, and naked 
 " savages, previous to their subjugation. When, in the two 
 " succeeding ages, she was stripped of her honours, when 
 " the scenes of her cultivation, peace, and improvement, 
 " were ravaged by barbarian hordes, she sent out — not con- 
 " suls and armies to conquer — but apostles and teachers to 
 " reclaim the savages who had wasted her empire ; and, dis-
 
 4-26 NOTES TO CANTO HI. 
 
 " playing in the better cause, all the magnanimity and per- 
 " severance which marked her former career, she triumphed, 
 " and diffused Christianity over the world." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 So rears Earth's mightiest shrine of worshipping .- 
 
 Three hundred years rolled away, and thirty-five Pontiffs 
 lived and died, from the commencement, to the termination 
 of this Wonder of the Earth. The greatest architects, im- 
 mortalizing their names in adorning it, passed away in the 
 same rapid succession, unwillingly leaving their pride and 
 glory unfinished to their successors. Bramante, Raffaello, 
 Vignola, Maderno, Bernini, and, " the greatest is behind," 
 Michael Ingelo, — have here left the proofs, greater or less, 
 of their congenial spirits. Eustace is eloquent on his sub- 
 ject; it is worth observing that he will not have a fault 
 hinted at, by any but himself; nothing, however, can be ab- 
 stracted from his evidently fond enthusiasm. 
 
 In quoting his most graphic description, let it be borne in 
 mind that it should not fatigue those to whom the sight was 
 familiar ; while it must for ever interest that far larger class, 
 to whom St. Peter's is still " a Vision among the things to 
 come." 
 
 " At the first entrance of the area before St. Peter's, 
 " what a startling effect on the mind has the fourfold row of 
 " pillars of the Colonnade sweeping away to the right and 
 " left, in its bold, and graceful, and magnificent semicircle !
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 427 
 
 " The eye, then, glances, rather than rests, on an Egyptian 
 " Obelisk raised in the centre of that vast area : — one solid 
 " piece of granite spiring to the height of one hundred and 
 " thirty feet, dug from the sands of Egypt, to begin again 
 " its measurement of endless duration. These are glanced 
 " on but for a moment ; behind them, raised above three 
 " successive flights of steps, the eye and mind are filled 
 " with the imposing front of the Basilica itself — stretching 
 " in length, four hundred feet, and towering upwards to one 
 " hundred and eighty — supported by a single row of enor- 
 " mous Corinthian pillars and pilasters, and surmounted with 
 " an attic, a balustrade, and thirteen colossal statues. Far 
 " behind it — and, perhaps, not far enough above it — rises the 
 " Wonder of the Universe ; and, certainly, the colonnade of 
 " coupled pillars that surround its base — the attic that sur- 
 " mounts it — the expansive swell of the dome itself, and the 
 " pyramid, based on a cluster of columns, bearing, as it were, 
 " the ball and cross to the skies, form the most sublime ob- 
 " jects of art ever contemplated by man. The interior of 
 " this Portico itself is, in its dimensions, equal to the most 
 " spacious Cathedrals ; — away, then, with the littleness and 
 " presumption of connoisseurship — so blind in detecting 
 " faults, so ' high gravel blind ' in appreciating beauties. 
 " Greatness can never be little, and this alone would redeem 
 " the Portico from all idle and fantastic charges."
 
 428 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 In dazzling light expands the dome. 
 
 Eustace dwells on his subject like a miser over his trea- 
 sure : his full description of the Dome will not be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 The observations of Forsyth prove how even his fine 
 judgment could, at times, be tinctured with a just enthu- 
 siasm. " The cupola is glorious. Viewed in its design, its 
 " altitude, or even its decoration, as a whole, or as a part, it 
 " enchants the eye ; it satisfies the taste, it expands the 
 " soul. It leaves us nothing but the sublime to feast on ; 
 " a sublime peculiar to the genius of the immortal Archi- 
 " tect, and comprehensible only on the spot.'' If it be remark- 
 ed that Forsyth, as Eustace, is in every one's hand, my reply 
 would be, (as I have observed in the Preface) that one of 
 my cherished aims is to make " Italy," as famihar as a guide- 
 book, or, at least, as a book of reference, — and what guide, 
 what authority can equal Forsyth ? 
 
 XL. 
 
 From Alp-like Columns. 
 
 The four pillars supporting this enormous Cupola are 
 stupendous masses of Architecture .... No better no- 
 tion can be conveyed of their prodigious dimensions than by 
 stating, that there is a Church in the Via ddle 4 Fontaue^ 
 called S. Carlo, which is exactly the same height as one of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 429 
 
 these pillars ; nor does the Church appear particularly small 
 within. 
 
 As if to kiss that foot could errings heal : 
 
 The subject recals to mind the remark of Cicero, v/hilst 
 describing the Statue of Hercules at Agrigentum ; he says 
 " that his moxith and chin were much worn, because in their 
 " prayers and thanksgivings they were accustomed not only 
 " to worship but to kiss it" — Cicero means the. women, of 
 course ; the world is everywhere the same . 
 
 I close the note with Matthews ;— " The Catholic laughs at 
 " the Mussulman — we laugh at the Catholics — the Deist 
 "laughs at us — and the Atheist (^s there such a thing?) 
 <' laughs at all. What is truth ? we must wait for an answer ; 
 " but, let us repose our hopes in the promises of Christianity : 
 " not as it appears disfigured at Rome, but, as it is re- 
 " corded in that sacred volume, which, in the words of the 
 " immortal Locke, has God for its author — Salvation for its 
 « end, and Truth, unmixed with error, for its matter." 
 
 XLII. 
 
 The crowds rvithin the Sis tine-Halls are still. 
 
 I went yesterday to the Sistine to hear the far-famed 
 " Miserere." The pressure of the crowd was so great, that, 
 nothing less than the long anticipated reward, could have 
 induced me to remain. After listening for an hour, which 
 literally appeared an age, to the opening chorus, whose na-
 
 430 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 sal twang was an infliction, I perceived that all I had read of, 
 was about to ensue. The lights were gradually extinguished ; 
 and, as the twilight had mingled with the red gleam cast over 
 the Chapel by the flambeaus, the darkness commenced. If 
 one could be allowed repose, which from the crowds, the 
 noise, and the heat, is impossible, the time and place were 
 striking from their effects on the imagination. The huge 
 Figures of the pictured Prophets on the ceiling, assumed 
 more of mystery from their obscurity, and became more life- 
 like ; and the Last Judgment created awakening impres- 
 sions. 
 
 Finally, the last light was extinguished ; and then, should 
 have been, and during a moment or two, there was, that 
 dead Silence which, among crowds, is always so impressive ; 
 and then opened the " Miserere," which, in its opening, was 
 indeed superhuman. I use that term, reflectively, because I 
 had not the faintest conception of what a combination of har- 
 monious Voices, some of them unnaturally formed, could 
 effect. No organ, or musical mstruments whatsoever, in 
 their deepest, mellowest tones, could produce sounds so per- 
 vading, yet so penetrating withal ; and there rose, at times, 
 among " this mingled world of sound," tones of silvery 
 sweetness, of which no instrumental combination could con- 
 vey an idea. Something of additional effect, " though that's 
 not much," was given to the Choristers from their being un- 
 seen ; by the utter darkness resting on the lower end of the 
 Chapel : and by the dull red light cast by the flambeaus over 
 the heads of the multitudes in front.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 431 
 
 From the depths of that darkness, these superhuman 
 sounds poured forth, fiUing the air with their expression. 
 To an imaginative ear they might resemble the Choirs of 
 the AngeHc hosts imploring mercy for mankind — for implor- 
 ing was their character, and to such an intensity, that the 
 Voices thrilled through, and made vibrate and accord again, 
 every nerve of the human frame, creating that sense of 
 languor and of depression which opens, at length, the flood- 
 gates of the heart. At times, notes of profound pathos 
 mingled with the strains : they seemed like the Lament of 
 the Condemned about to be cast forth for ever : so deep — 
 so hopeless — yet so calm ! 
 
 Let the truth, however, be told, which never is told in 
 books. The enjoyment of a few scattered minutes, here and 
 there, of this marvellous singing, scarcely repays him who 
 visits the Sistine for the endurance of two hours chaunting of 
 the most dismaying nasal twang ; — for being stifled with the 
 heat and the close atmosphere ;— and for being almost lite- 
 rally crushed by the pressure of noisy and contentious 
 crowds ; the one half of which assembled there, would ren- 
 der any feeling of comfort, or of the quiet enjoyment of 
 Music, wholly out of the question. It was with a feel- 
 ing of regret that I observed the most noisy, the most con- 
 tentious, and the most coarse of these, were, invariably, my 
 own countrymen. 
 
 I may close this, I trust, not irrelevant note, by recalling, 
 it was while standing in this crowd, where the effort of even 
 standing, required, occasionally, some slight personal exer-
 
 432 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 tion, that the Stanzas on the subject were composed ; for, 
 it occurred to me, during that hour, how impossible would be 
 the task to write from any source excepting that of immedi- 
 ate impressions. 
 
 More than once during the melodies of the Miserere, 
 Milton's lines were recalled ; being, surely, one of the finest 
 illustrations of the effects of Music on the heart, ever at- 
 tempted by Poetry ; — everywhere in his works, Milton shows 
 how deep was his feeling for harmony. 
 
 . . . a soft and solemn breathing sound 
 Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes. 
 
 And stole upon the air, that even Silence 
 Was took ere she was 'ware, and wished she might 
 
 Deny her nature, and be never more, 
 Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 
 And took in strains that might create a soul 
 Under the ribs of Death. 
 
 COMUS. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 See how yon pictured Prophets. 
 
 " It is here we behold," says Lanzi, " those august and 
 " finely varied figures of the Prophets and Sibyls of An- 
 " gelo, the best the world has ever seen ; — their very atti- 
 " tudes, whether representing rest or motion, all announce 
 " a race of mortals to whom the Deity reveals the future, 
 " and whom he inspires. " 
 
 The Last Judgment is too much injured by time, ill-usage, 
 and neglect ; it is too far gone — stat magni nominis umbra :
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 433 
 
 nothing but the sublime coucfptiuii is tangible, and, to add to 
 its misfortunes, an unsightly Canopy covers the best part of 
 the fresco, under which the Pope may sit with the well- 
 merited attributes of Midas. 
 
 Speaking of the marvellous figures on the ceiling, Lanzi 
 observes, " It was a received opinion that Angelo had no 
 " taste for beauty or for grace ; and yet the Eve, who, at 
 " her creation, turns round to offer up her thanksgiving to 
 " her Maker, is made to do it with an air so lovely and en- 
 " gaging, that it would be wo discredit to Raffaelle him- 
 " self." 
 
 I think, I must confess, that this is hardly praise enough ; 
 for myself, oftentimes lying along the benches of the Sistine, 
 I have looked at that single figure of Eve for an hour at a time : 
 so flowing and so exquisitely graceful a conception did I 
 feel it to be. 
 
 Among the other chief frescos, are seen the Almighty, 
 casting the world floating from Him like a Ball, and Darkness 
 receding into Chaos — the conception and execution, alike 
 sublime. The Almighty, awakening Adam into form and 
 life with his touch — the mortal and his Creator, confronted 
 together. Journal. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Turn, u-hcre apart i/oii darkli/ rurtalited tent : 
 
 In one of the angles of the Ceiling, I observed his Judith 
 and Holofernes, it is indeed all his own. In the dark back- 
 
 F F
 
 434 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 ground rises the tent, on the couch of which is stretched the 
 decollated corpse of the warrior ; his arms and one of his 
 legs are drawn upward, as if from the last wrenching agony. 
 The Murderess has hastily passed over a plank which divides 
 the tent from the foreground, and, while giving the head to 
 her attendant, her face is half averted, with an expression of 
 scorn, on hearing the motion which might have been caused 
 by the last spasmodic convulsion ; a Shakspearian concep- 
 tion — of the same tone and character of genius which created 
 " the listening fears" of Lady Macbeth. Of the character of 
 the Prophets and Sibyls around the ceiling, it would be super- 
 fluous to speak ; the whole attitude of Isaiah, for example, is 
 perfect ; and an anticipation of " the Moses" from the same 
 hand. After finding fault with the Prophets in the Sistine 
 as being at too great a height " to distinguisii the faces as ac- 
 " curately as one could wish," (an effect the very reverse of 
 which was designed,) Hazlitt observes — " Nothing can be 
 " nobler or more characteristic than the figure of the Pro- 
 " phet Jeremiah, which droops and hangs down like a majestic 
 "■ tree surcharged icith showers.^^ — How just and fine the 
 analogy — how beautiful its expression ! — O si sic omnia !* 
 
 * This character of imposing majesty is most striking in the figure of 
 Isaiah, who, reading the Book of Law, has placed his hand in it to mark 
 the passage, and his head leaning on his other, he has delivered himself 
 up to his high thoughts, when he is called by an Angel : far from be- 
 ing betrayed into any hasty movement by the voice of the Inhabitant 
 of Heaven, the Prophet slowly turns* his head, and seems to give atten- 
 tion, almost with regret. 
 
 * Histoire (it la Peinliire en Italic. 2 vols.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 435 
 
 LII. 
 What Temple frowns before me in my path ? 
 
 Whether the Pantheon was designed for a Temple to all 
 the gods, following Dion, or a calidarium, a single, or a 
 double building, the Ancients spoke of it with rapture, as 
 one of the wonders of Rome, " whose vault was like the 
 " heavens, and whose compass was that of a whole re- 
 " gion." 
 
 " Twenty ages have now rolled over the Pantheon," (says 
 Forsyth in his best manner,) "and if they have not crushed its 
 " dome, they have, at least, left their traces in sullen grandeur 
 "on its walls : they have left all its primeval proportions, but 
 " have gradually stript it of its ornaments, its leaves of acan- 
 " thus, and its glossy colours. These venerable tints, that 
 " time alone can shed, rather increase its majesty, by adding 
 '' the charms of recollection, and the united interest of age 
 " and disaster.'' 
 
 Nor can the poetry of Goethe on the Pantheon be resisted : 
 " How glorious must have been the effect of this proudest 
 " of all the temples of Pantheism, when the deities of the 
 " heathen world filled every niche with pale and silent 
 " beauty ! when the lofty Caryatides relieved the attic, and 
 " the majestic hemisphere above glittered with bronze and 
 ' silver. The beauty of the existing edifice is of that digni- 
 " fied and serious character which succeeds the bloom and 
 " the brilliancy of youth: but it is still beauty; and of that 
 
 F F 2
 
 436 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 " high and genuine order which bids defiance to all criticism^ 
 " and to all changes of architectural rule and fashion ." 
 
 LVII. 
 
 / stand upon the Capitol. 
 
 " Ruin and restoration," says Hobhouse, " have entirely 
 " effaced every vestige of the domicile of all the gods. The 
 " greatest uncertainty hangs over this hill. On which side 
 " stood the Citadel, on which the great temple of the Capitol ? 
 " and did the temple stand in the Citadel ? Read everj^thing 
 " that has been written on the topography of a spot four 
 " hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth, and 
 " you will know — nothing. Four temples, fifteen chapels, 
 " three altars, the great rock, a fortress, a library, an athe- 
 " naeum, an area covered with statues, the enrolment office, — 
 " all these are to be arranged in the above space : and of 
 " these, the last only can be with precision assigned to the 
 " double row of vaults corroded with salt, where the inscription 
 " of Catulus was discovered." 
 
 LIX. 
 
 The dungeons of the Mamertine beneath. 
 
 The executions took place in a prison beneath the Ma- 
 mertine, called the Tullian prison ; it was sunk twelve feet 
 beneath the natural surface. Criminals were thrown into it 
 through a hole, still visible in the centre of the vault. Those, 
 therefore, imprisoned in the Mamertine, heard the cries.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 437 
 
 and saw the agonies of those who were tormented and ex- 
 ecuted in the Tullian ; — this was, indeed, feeling what 
 has been so emphatically termed " the bitterness of death," 
 Our memories suggest to us many celebrated names who 
 thus miserably perished. Here Jugurtha was starved, after 
 having endured the most infamous insults. All the Catiline 
 League were here strangled by Cicero's order. The crafty 
 Sejanus was here slain by order of Tiberius ; and Simon, 
 chief leader of the Jews, made captive by Titus, here, also, 
 met his punishment. From a passage of Josephus, it appears 
 that the deaths of the chiefs and princes of the vanquished 
 nations took place in the prison beneath, at the moment 
 while the triumphal Conqueror was passing above to sacrifice 
 to Capitoline Jove. Such was their religion ; and such was 
 the mercy and the feeling of the lords of the Western world 
 towards their self-made enemies, whose only misfortune it 
 was to be vanquished by them. Journal. 
 
 LXII. a 
 
 ' Behold the Priest who sacrijiced his son : 
 
 Tile humane Virgil has accorded his full approval of the 
 
 deed in one of his finest lines : 
 
 Vincet amor patria?, laiidumqiie immensa cttpido .' 
 
 LXV. 
 
 But thy misgiving mind itself betrayed : 
 Montescjuicu has penetrated to its depth the character of
 
 438 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 Pompey : Mais comme il avoit souverainement le foible de 
 vouloir etre approuve, il ne pouvoit s'empecher de preter 
 I'oreille aux vains discours de ses gens qui le railloicnt ou 
 I'accusoient sans cesse. 
 
 The Statue of Pompey, in the Spada Palace, is colossal in 
 its fullest proportions. His right arm is extended ; in his 
 left hand he holds a globe, supposed to be typical of his 
 having made the Eastern world tributary to Rome.* He is 
 not nude, for the pallium sits close to his form. Nothing 
 can well be conceived more imposing than the attitude and 
 whole appearance of this Statue ; it is majestic to the last 
 degree. But there is nothing austere or stern in the fea- 
 tures ; on the contrary, they exactly illustrate his character 
 as dilated on by Plutarch, as hinted at by Cicero. They are 
 full and regular : preserving that beauty of outline which he 
 retained through life. The lips are depressed ; the eyes are 
 full and opened: the forehead unusually high, expressing 
 much of what, I believe, the craniologists call " veneration ;" 
 there is an august character. Indeed, about the whole head, 
 inspiring, in marble, that sense of reverence which he im- 
 pressed in life. I especially noted two deep lines furrowed 
 in the forehead, faithfully copied no doubt. I observed that 
 the mouth was depressed; it occurred to me, also, that there 
 was a general air of depression in the whole character of the 
 face, as if it seemed to prophesy the future, while evincing 
 the indecision of will which hastened it. 
 
 The ever-varying Cicero did not always speak of Pompey 
 
 * VVinkleman.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO HI. 439 
 
 with the same reverence : " Was there ever a more absurd 
 " mortal tlian your friend Pompey, to act in so trifling a 
 " manner, after having raised such terrible commotions ?"* 
 
 Touching the patriotism of Cicero — " As long as our 
 " country's dissensions are confined to debate, we ought to 
 " join with the more righteous side ; but, as soon as the sword 
 '' is drawn, the strongest party is always the best." Such prin- 
 ciples defend the most abandoned prostitution and desertion 
 in political conduct. It were to be wished that every man 
 who embraces this maxim were as little scrupulous in con- 
 fessing it ; for, of all noxious creatures, a knave, without a 
 mask, is by far the least dangerous. Journal. 
 
 In vain his face while falling he ivould cloke. 
 
 The event is well told by Suetonius— Caesar fell at the 
 base of Pompey's statue. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 And this was the hill Palatine. 
 After all one has heard of the Palace of the Carsars, the 
 rirst impression on beholding it, must be one of disappoint- 
 ment ; its traditions and memories retain their influence ; 
 but time and havoc have done too much — they have gone 
 too far. To look upon the hill of fable, fame, and luxviry — 
 the three epochs of nations — without the deepest feelings, 
 would be impossible. This was the cradle of Rome's 
 infancy, and her final burying-place : the first and last object 
 
 * Cicero's Letters.
 
 440 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 of every pillager or destroyer. Luxury was for ever here 
 employed to create or to beautify : and, as often, caprice or 
 rapine followed her, to despoil or to overthrow. The five 
 first Kings lived on or around it ; and, when regal power was 
 overthrown, Publicola rased from hence the house he had 
 erected, from seeing that, in despite of his known patriotism, 
 it excited popular mistrust ; how great was the man, and the 
 people, at that time ! and how altered they rapidly became, 
 dating always from the fall of Carthage. Journal. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Fame left the hill with Ccesar. 
 
 The most illustrious men of Rome inhabited the Palatine 
 and beheld from its many points the same prospect as 
 presented now — for the hills and the sky are unchangeable. 
 Cicero, Antony, Hortensius, and many others, had villas 
 here ; here, also, was Augustus born. The Palace was 
 enlarged or lessened to the caprice of different Emperors. 
 Burnt down in the year A. C. 64, Nero erected from its 
 ruins his golden Palace, to which our friend Aladdin's was 
 a mere hovel, judging from the /ac# alone, that the columns 
 of the portico amounted to three thousand, before which 
 stood the Emperor's colossal Statue of one hundred and 
 twenty feet in height. Genseric was the first who sacked 
 it : Totila followed — and we may guess how much the Goth 
 cVjoarec? of that which the Vandal left behind him. Heraclius, 
 however, we know, lived in it during the seventh century ; 
 during the eighth also, a great part of it remained.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 441 
 
 At present — one mass of ruins — the very bones of the 
 skeleton he scattered far distant ; and aU form is indefinable. 
 Roofless halls, arches half-fallen, some above, others below, 
 wrecks of porticoes and chambers, huge trees rising among 
 them, together with whole orchards and gardens in full 
 bloom, round towers, their hollow windows, or shapeless 
 holes, yawning open to the sky, and their ribs crushed through 
 on every side, wild flowers, thick myrtles, young cypresses 
 and aloes, making " a wilderness of sweets," cover and hide 
 the rank soil in every direction. Some of the sweetest wall- 
 flowers I ever gathered were from hence : I only wished for 
 some means to preserve them, feeling them the sacred re- 
 liques which they were. Journal. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Till Cato fires me with his patriot heat. 
 
 The characters of Cato and Cicero are too finely discrimi- 
 nated by Montesquieu to be omitted : " Je crois que si Caton 
 s'etoit reserve pour la republlque, 11 auroit donne aux choses 
 tout un autre tour. Clceron, avec des parties admlrables 
 pour un second role, etoit Incapable du premier ; 11 avolt un 
 beau genie, mais une ame souvent commune. L'accessoire, 
 chez Cicero, c etoit la vertu ; chez Caton c'etoit la glolre : 
 Ciceron se voyoit toujours le premier; Caton s'oublioit tou- 
 jours : celui-ci voulolt sauver la republlque pour elle meme ; 
 celui la pour s'en vanter. Je pourrois continuer le parallele 
 en disant que quand Caton prevoyoit, Ciceron se comfioit ;
 
 442 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 que le premier voyolt toujours les choses de sang-froid, 
 I'dutre a. travers cent jJetites passions.''* 
 
 It would be unjust to finish the note without quoting 
 some admirable remarks from the Quarterly Review, which 
 I wrote down at the time : — " No scholar can be blind to the 
 " weaknesses or to the vanity of this extraordinary man ; but, 
 " while his faults arose chiefly out of his very peculiar posi- 
 " tion, his greatness, we conceive, was his own. His want 
 " of military distinction and ability only places in stronger 
 " relief his commanding powers in civil life. Without this, 
 '• he stood on a level with the Luculli, the Pompeys, and the 
 " Caesars. It is a strong testimony to the vitality of the 
 " Roman institutions and the old Roman virtue, that, in the 
 " final collision which dashed the Republic to pieces, two 
 " men, who possessed, the one only eloquence, the other 
 " only the rude old Sabine independence of character, — 
 " Cicero and Cato, — maintained their place and their in- 
 " fluence." 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 But whither hath the Mind immortal flown ? 
 The startling, the almost perturbing epitaph of the 
 Atheist, on the Appian Way, will be remembered by many : 
 
 Non nomen, non quo genitus, non unde, quid egi, 
 Mutus in etemum sum cinis, ossa, nihil ! 
 
 * Livy's sentiment on Cato is too grandly expressed to be forgotten : — 
 " Adversus vitia degenerantis civitatis, stetit solus, et cadentem rempub- 
 " licam . . . retinuit — neque enim Cato post libertatem vixit nee Libcrtas 
 " post Calonem .'"
 
 NOTES TO CANTO III. 443 
 
 " Miserrinuis " indeed — let it be set against that of a 
 better, and a wiser Roman : 
 
 Ingenio superest Cordus, meres ipsa recepta est 
 Coslo, quod terras est maxima Roma tenet. 
 
 ■ LXXXII. 
 
 Our Father ! as thou art : 
 
 When speaking of the Supreme Being, how closely the 
 Deist and the Cliristian unite in sentiment ! 
 
 " In Him," says Paul, " we live, and move, and have our 
 being." 
 
 " Membra sumus corporis magni : totum hoc Deus 
 est, ' says Seneca, giving from himself the general sense of 
 the Sophists, and, after them, the Poets, on the subject, 
 having, also, Anaximenes and Plato at their head : 
 
 ^AvThv irdvTa Koafj-tiv tu, Trpdy/u-aTa Sia TrdvTwv iovia- 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 And fondly dream of bmnortality ? 
 
 " Immortality already commences on earth for him," says 
 Kant, " who feels within him the longing for immortal 
 things." * All the intelligible parts of Kant's philosophy 
 are drawn (in common with all before him) from Plato ; his 
 
 * This, however, is merely a transcript from Plato — " The soul is in- 
 " capable of dissolution ; the objects to which it natuiall^' adheres, are 
 "■ spiritual and incorruptible •, therefore. Us nature must be the same."
 
 444 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 unintelligible parts are all his own. Indeed, his philosophy 
 (that falsest of misnomers) is the most miserably dishearten- 
 ing of all ; opposing the weakness of our mere human 
 Reason against our most implanted convictions, he strikes 
 at the root of all knowledge and all religion. Kant, however, 
 like all defective writers, is more talked of than read ; let us 
 hope that, with time, his reveries will be forgotten ; his 
 harmlessness, meanwhile, consists mainly in his unintelligi- 
 bility. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Love there will re-unite .... 
 
 Empedocles calls the soul — and how exquisite is the 
 idea — 
 
 " Heaven's exile straying from its Orb of Light /" 
 
 while Plotinus, the philosopher, was so ashamed of his soul 
 having " strayed" at all, that he would never tell his origin, 
 or the place of his earthly birth ! 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Is this wreck all that now remains of thee ? 
 
 It' any theorist imagines that the Forum is, or can be ever, 
 satisfactorily made out — let him visit it ; he will there find 
 sufficient answer. Fresh remains of friezes, capitals, &c. dis- 
 covered yearly, prove note, as other discoveries will prove 
 hereafter, the folly of naming or affixing 'sites to any objects 
 which are not confirmed in Roman letters. The Temple of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO HI. 445 
 
 Fortune, for example, was the Temple of Concord, and will, 
 doubtless, have many a new misnomer. Where are the 
 Temples of Castor or Pollux — of Julius Caesar, or of Saturn ? 
 where the Arch of Tiberius — the Temples of Vespasian, 
 or Fortune? Where is the Rostrum? — it stood before tlie 
 Curia ; — where is Julius Caesar's, or Duillius's Column, a 
 fragment of whose inscription is seen in the Capitol ? and, 
 far above them all — where is a remnant of that first of all 
 Temples— to Capitoline Jove? We knoto that all these, 
 and others, once existed here ; and we see, that not one 
 single stone of them is remaining! Journal. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 How hath Destruction sunk. 
 
 The reflections of Burton, in the Forum, so naturally given, 
 and with so much healthy and eloquent feeling, will be ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 " If ever we could wish to moralise upon the vicissitudes 
 " of human greatness, it would be here. W^hen Marcellus 
 " wept as Syracuse was about to fall, and Marius surveyed 
 " the ruins of Carthage with the eyes, not of a hero, but 
 " of a man, we surely do not think that human nature was 
 " degraded; but the sorrow of the one must have been 
 " increased by the thought, that so much splendour must 
 " shortly fall a sacrifice to his own glory : and when Marius 
 " saw his country's ancient rival in the dust, he must have 
 " felt that the same cause which sent him an exile to Africa,
 
 446 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 " might shortly level his own city to the fate of Carthage. 
 " May we not, then, be allowed to sympathise with the 
 " mighty names which once graced the Roman Forum ? 
 " May we not see in it a memorial, that whatever is great 
 " may be overthrown ? and, what is more mortifying to 
 " human pride, that much which is overthrown may be for- 
 " gotten ? Posthumous fame has such charms for some 
 " men, that they would consent to be overwhelmed, if they 
 " were certain that they would be talked of some thousand 
 " years after. But ambition would find poor encouragement 
 " in the ruins of the Forum, where so much greatness lies 
 " doubly buried : and though some fragments may be 
 " brought to light from the soil which covers them, yet the 
 " revolution of ages has consigned their history to oblivion, 
 " and they serve only to excite the ingenuity or the jealousy 
 " of antiquaries !" 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Where stood spare Brutus when his friend he slew. 
 
 I am indebted to an anonymous writer for some fine stric- 
 tures on the real character of Brutus : — " Brutus was a kind 
 " of philosopher-patriot, who affected to preserve his stoic 
 " impassiveness, while he was addressing an exasperated 
 " mob. Nothing can be more amusing, or, at the same 
 " time, less calculated to raise our respect for Brutus, than 
 " the vanity of authorship, which induced him to submit his 
 " famous speech to the people, on which hung the destiny 
 " of Rome, to Cicero, to be touched up, previous to its publi-
 
 NOTES TO CANTO HI 447 
 
 " cation ; which speech, however, Cicero found so flat and 
 
 " Hfeless, that he dechned meddHng with it. Yet such were 
 
 " the best confederates whom Cicero could command to 
 
 " fight the battle for the liberties of Rome. It was, in fact, 
 
 " from the first, a contest between the unarmed and the 
 
 " armed ; of eloquence against power ; of the orator who 
 
 " exercised a doubtful sway over a timid and feeble audience, 
 
 " and one who gave the word of command to legions of 
 
 « 
 " veterans." Quarterly Review. 
 
 Behold the arch of Titus : 
 
 The Arch of Titus was erected in honour of his conquest 
 of Jerusalem ; and, although the least of the arches, by far 
 the most graceful of them all. On either side beneath the 
 arch, are bas-reliefs ; on the left, one distinguishes Titus, 
 seated in a quadriga! chariot, which Rome, embodied as a 
 female, leads by the reins : Victory crowns the Emperor, 
 and a troop of soldiers closes the scene. On the right is re- 
 presented the most interesting part of the triumph ; the 
 Jewish captives, the table of gold and sacred vessels, the 
 trumpets, the seven -branched candlestick, which soldiers, 
 crowned with laurel, bear on their shoulders ; beneath the 
 vaultof the arch, the figure of Titus is represented, supported 
 by an eagle — image of his apotheosis. This circumstance, 
 and the epithet of " dhnis," which, if he had been living? 
 they dared not have added, are proofs that it was erected 
 after his death ; probably under the reign of Domitian.
 
 448 NOTES TO CANTO III. 
 
 It is Suetonius who records the single fact which, of itself^ 
 has immortalised the name of Titus : 
 
 *' Once, while at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing 
 for any one on that day, he broke out into that memorable 
 and justly admired saying — 
 
 " Friends — I have lost a day !" 
 
 Yet the saying more illustrated the life of Trajan than liis 
 own. That not yrant could be more remorseless than Titus, 
 when before Jerusalem, the records of even a partial historian 
 testify : wood, and even space, were found wanting to crucify 
 his captives on ; five hundred of whom were nailed up at a 
 time, alive, whose only crime consisted in an heroic and 
 hopeless resistance. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 On those proud columns once ivhere heroes stood. 
 Stand martyrs. 
 
 The triumphal columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, 
 originally crowned with statues of those illustrious Empe- 
 rors, are now surmounted by those of St. Peter and St. Paul ; 
 to be re-surmounted, perhaps, some centuries hence, by the 
 statues of the heroes of redeemed and regenerated Italy.
 
 449 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 I. 
 
 Hold of the despot, refuge of the slave. 
 
 Various uses to which the Colosseum has been apphed. 
 It may be borne in mind that the word Arena signified, also, 
 the Amphitheatre generally ; and he who fought thereon was 
 called Arenarius. Nero, according to Pliny, often covered 
 it with vermilion and chrysocolla. 
 
 IT. 
 
 Great Colosseum, at thy mighty shrine : 
 
 The venerable Bede first gave it this term from its gigantic 
 magnitude. After having been used during three centuries 
 for different spectacles, and, even up to the year a. d. 523, 
 for shows of wild beasts, it served, from the eleventh to the 
 thirteenth century, as a stronghold for many noble families, 
 particularly for those of the Frangipani and the Annibaldi. 
 To this epoch all its chief depredations are referred. " It 
 " would be a weary and sickening task," says Hobhouse, 
 " to enumerate half the despoilers who turned the Colosseum 
 
 G G
 
 450 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 " into a quarry. Pope Adrian I. worked a whole year at it ; 
 " Pope II. built from it his palace. Paul ITI. was more assi- 
 " duous, but he divided his attentions, also, between the 
 " theatre of Marcellus, the Forum of Trajan, and the arch of 
 " Titus. The inferior clergy, it is probable, were more 
 " guilty than their Pontiffs, for, considering it a fair wreck, 
 "we may suppose little scruple was used in appropriation, 
 " In the year 1332 a grand tournament was held therein, 
 " and half a century afterwards, it was changed into an hos- 
 " pital. Since that age, an everlasting mark of pillage, it 
 " has furnished materials for many of the finest palaces at 
 " Rome. It was only since the commencement of our era 
 " that the Popes (seeing, no doubt, its Mecca sort of attrac- 
 " tion for Pilgrims from all parts of the world) have begun 
 " taking pains to preserve it." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Stick were their morning hopes of happiness : 
 
 Every nation has its vices — cruelty was the prevailing vice 
 of the Romans. Vainly is it said : the brave are never cruel 
 the Colosseum bore fearful testimony to the contrary ; 
 " for," as Forsyth observes, " here sat the conquerors of the 
 " world coolly to enjoy the tortures and the death of men 
 " who had never offended them. Two aqueducts hardly 
 " sufficed to wash off the human blood shed in these imperial 
 " shambles. Twice in a day came the senators and matrons 
 " of Rome to the butchery ; and a Virgin always gave the 
 " signal for slaughter."
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV, 451 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Infinity within each particle. 
 
 There is not a mould or mildew so insignificant that is not 
 able to give birth to some parasite less than itself: that may 
 not become the soil and parent of aw?ma/cM/«, of which thou- 
 sands may crowd to its surface .... Some are so small, 
 that to them a drop of lymph, or blood, is an ocean, where 
 they swim in shoals through every duct and channel. 
 Hope's Prospects of Man. 
 
 XI. 
 
 So stretches that Titanic Skeleton : 
 
 Mindful of the enormous losses which the Colosseum has 
 sustained, of the wholesale, private and public, pillaging 
 which has been going on within it, for ages ; mindful of the 
 united influences of war, time, and the elements — no man 
 can stand in the centre of that vast Arena, and look around 
 and above him, without feeling lost in wonder, that so much 
 of what is grand, and perfect, and immovable, should still 
 remain. 
 
 Titus first opened the doors of this Titanic Edifice, begun 
 by his father, finished by himself; the number of beasts then 
 slaughtered, from the elephant to the gazelle, amounted to 
 five thousand. " Sylla," says the historian, " gave, at once, 
 " five hundred lions to his Amphitheatre : the blood ran 
 " in streams round the Arena; but the roar of the wild 
 
 G G 2
 
 452 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 " beasts was drowned in the louder sliouts of the ferocious 
 " spectators." 
 
 XII. 
 
 with populous thousands fraught : 
 
 " The people," says Ammianus, " spend all their earnings 
 " in drinking and gaming, in shows and spectacles. In the 
 "ford, the streets, and squares, multitudes assemble, and 
 " dispute, some defending one, and some another. When 
 " the wished-for day arrives, before sunrise, all run headlong 
 " to the spot, passing in swiftness the chariots that are to 
 " run ; upon the success of which their wishes are so divided, 
 " that many pass the night without sleep." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Spreads the Velaria's sail. 
 
 This the crowd surveys 
 Oft in the theatre, whose awnings broad. 
 Bedecked with crimson, yellow, or the tint 
 Of steel cerulean, from their fluted heights 
 Wave tremulous ; and o'er the scene beneath. 
 Each marble statue fling their tints superb. 
 While as the walls with ampler shade repel 
 The garish noon-beam, every object round 
 Laughs with a deeper dye, and wears profuse, 
 A lovelier lustre, ravished from the day. 
 
 Good's Lucretius. 
 
 * Mr. Lockhart, in his classical " Roman Story" of " Valerius," has 
 gi yen so graphic a picture of the Amphitheatre, with a Gladiator-fight, 
 that, with a slight efibrt of imagination, the coldest reader may imagine 
 himself a spectator.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 453 
 
 XV. 
 
 There fills the Emperor his golden chair. 
 
 The Emperor had his seat somewhat raised above the 
 others. The Senators occupied their curiile chairs, and the 
 Vestals, also, had allotted places. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 He leans upon his shield. 
 
 Embrowned to almost the hue of life, and life-like in its full 
 and manly proportions, his limbs strongly knit, and admi- 
 rably developed, every nerve and sinew, every shadow of the 
 anatomy implied, and a sinking and relaxed tension pervading 
 the whole, this most impressive Statue — for no other is 
 equally so in the same sense, they, all appealing to the ima- 
 gination, this to our natural sympathies — arrests and fixes 
 every eye, and causes a momentary suspension from every 
 other pursuit. We feel the attendant awe, as if we really 
 looked upon a dying man ; those who have imagined the ob- 
 ject, see it realised, and are silent ; those who have seen it, 
 wonder that the slow hand of Art could give such a 
 breathing resemblance. Not one word of this, surely, is ex- 
 aggerated, we expect much — we could not imagine that 
 which we behold. 
 
 Often, while sitting in a dark corner of the hall, I have 
 noticed that large parties, entering in the full tide of gaiety, 
 stood suddenly checked ; they saw, and fell at once, the
 
 J 54 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 expression of the Statue, and were restrained. Which ex- 
 pression is, simply, that, says Pliny, of " a dying man 
 " wounded to the death, in which you might see how much 
 " life was remaining in him :" Vulneratum deficientem fecit, 
 quo possit intelligi quantum restat animce. What an acknow- 
 ledgment, and what a tribute to the powers of the Sculptor ! 
 The other halls were full of noise and talking, but I observed 
 that there was always a silence round " the Dying Gladiator." 
 Journal. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Hurled to the dogs, his body who shall find. 
 
 The bodies of the slain were dragged with a hook through 
 a gate called Libitinensis, the Gate of Death, to the spolia- 
 rium ; the victor was rewarded with a sum of money contri- 
 buted by the spectators, or bestowed from the treasury, or 
 with a palm branch, or a garland of palm ornamented with 
 coloured ribbons ; ensigns of frequent occurrence in ancient 
 monuments. Those who survived three years, were released 
 from this service, and sometimes one, who had given great 
 satisfaction, was enfranchised on the spot. Pompeii, i. 301. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Cola Rienzi ! 
 
 Rienzi was fortunate in his time, for he had Petrarch as 
 his poet and fellow-citizen, and a biographer, unpolished but 
 impartial, who has fairly weighed his merits and defects ; and 
 as those who felt his justice were chiefly the rebellious barons,
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 455 
 
 his half heroic, fantastic figure* has been dehneated with 
 fidehty. His incipient success proved that the allure of 
 Liberty had lost none of its charms, and his fall arose rather 
 from his own inconstancy, than from that of the Romans. 
 " As the overthrower of patrician usurpation, as the assertor 
 " of justice, as the punisher of violence, and the projector of 
 " a splendid system, which was to restore the freedom of 
 " Rome and of Italy — he did greatly ; but, when the repub- 
 " lican aspired to perpetuate his own power ; when the 
 " tribune imitated the farce of royalty ; when the reformer 
 " declared himself the champion of superstition and the 
 " church, he lost his distinctive character, and, like a mightier 
 " character of our day, left an external proof that a revolu- 
 " tion can be maintained alone by the maxims, and even the 
 " very forms,hy which it was first ushered into life."t 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Oh ! let majestic Rome. 
 
 1 quote Rienzi's eloquent and, indeed, magnificent lan- 
 guage : 
 
 " May the Roman city, ascending the throne of her wonted 
 " majesty, rise for ever from the fall of her long prostration ! 
 " Let her cast oft' the garment of mourning and widowhood, 
 " and put on the bridal purple I Let lier head be adorned 
 "with the diadem of liberty, and her neck strengthened with 
 
 • Costiio em uomofanlastico ; dair un canto faceala figura d'eroe dull' 
 altvo di pazzo. — Annali. ad an. 1347. 
 
 t Hobhouse.
 
 456 NOTE.S TO CANTO IV. 
 
 " collars ! Let her resume the sceptre of justice, and, strong 
 " and regenerate in every virtue, like a fair dressed bride, 
 >' let her show herself lo her bridegroom," Ext. Tribune 
 TO THE Senate and Roman People. 
 
 " But Rienzi," says the accurate and impartial Sismondi, 
 " was neither a statesman nor a warrior; he knew not how 
 " to consolidate this good state, to which he pretended to 
 " have restored the Romans. His head was turned by vanity, 
 " and he assumed a degree of pomp which excited ridicule : 
 " and, in an ill-conducted attack at Rome by the Colonnas, 
 " he gave proofs, in repelling them, of incapacity and cow- 
 " ardice." Every one will recal the masterly m.anner in which 
 Gibbon has developed his character. Mr. Bulwer has invested 
 Rienzi with all the powers of his fine genius, throwing over 
 his character the richest tints of romance ; it is the severer 
 province of Truth and Poetry, inseparably linked as they 
 are, to represent him as he was. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Olorious and godlike incarnation. 
 The whole figure of the Apollo seems to breathe a sort 
 of divinity, while it inspires a feeling almost of veneration in 
 the beholder ; the marble is so exquisitely polished, that there 
 almost appears a nimbus, or radiance, round the head, ema- 
 nating also from the eves and forehead 
 
 His look with the reach of past ages was wise : 
 And the soul of eternity thonfjht through his eyes! 
 
 Leigh Hint. 
 Lines which require no praise ; they assert themselves.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 457 
 
 Nothing can be conceived more august than his whole pre- 
 sence and attitude, nothing finer than his expression of pride, 
 a pride innate in him, and a part of his godhead, which 
 must rise too much above all opposition to contend. The 
 Python is just slain — but the god is unmoved ; there is no 
 agitation, no exultation, no effort : he has raised his face from 
 the vanquished, as if failure or opposition were sounds, not 
 things ; accidents which could not occur to one of his sun- 
 like and immortal nature. The form of Apollo can scarcely 
 be termed delicate, if, indeed, by that term, anything allied 
 to weakness or effeminacy (as in the Perseus of Canova) be 
 implied. His figure, on the contrary, is swelled to the finest, 
 fullest proportions of a man, in 
 
 The prime of manhood, where youth ended ; 
 
 and the whole of the upper part of that figure how noble, 
 how full of confidence and energy, the anatomy of whose life 
 is so finely shadowed forth, that we almost fancy a current of 
 " ethereal ichor" runs beneath the marble ; we almost expect 
 to see the god recover his bow in his half-raised right arm, 
 and confront the spectator, before ascending into heaven I 
 Nor can anything be imagined more graceful than his cluster- 
 ing hair, which, rich and ray-like, curls round his forehead, 
 but not hiding his temples, and descending, throtvs out (as the 
 painters express it) his arching neck in full and beautiful 
 relief. 
 
 The Apollo has been designated a mere copy, because the 
 marble, it is observed, is from Carrara, not from Paros. Ca-
 
 ■458 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 nova thought the original of bronze, but, more especially, the 
 drapery. Visconti, on the contrary, (a first-rate authority,) 
 denies entirely the Apollo being wrought from Carrara mar- 
 ble, contending that it came from some other Grecian 
 quarry. To all this vain andi estless cavilling, is it not suf- 
 ficient to reply, we feel that divine Image could not be a copy, 
 having the mens divinior stamped, as it is, in its every line ; 
 but such have ever been the conflicting currents of opinion, 
 that, age after age, fret away their hour around the bases of 
 the immutable and eternal monuments of genius.* Journal. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Model of human beauty in repose : 
 The Antinous is an image of still and perfect beauty, of 
 beauty in its most entire repose. His eyes are bent towards 
 the ground ; a languor, a sense of depression, almost ap- 
 proaching to pain, appears stamped in the expression of his 
 features, yet not a line of their polished perfection is discom- 
 posed. He may be called an image of the perfection of 
 manly beauty, which, for a woman to look on, and not to love, 
 would be impossible. I observed that it was chiefly the 
 men who clustered round the Apollo ; the silent gazers on 
 
 * The locks of the Apollo recal to us those graceful lines in the Feast 
 of the Poets : 
 
 And if, as he shook back his hair in its cluster, 
 
 A curl fell athwart them and darken'd their lustre, 
 
 A sprinkle of gold through the duskiness came, 
 
 Like the sun through a tree, iclieu he's setliuff injiame !
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 459 
 
 the Antinous were, almost always, women ; the one, awes, 
 dazzles, repels ; the other, draws, melts, subdues ; woman 
 is always in the right ; one feeling inspired from the heart, 
 is more rewarding than all the sublimer abstractions of the 
 colder imagination. 
 
 XLIII. 
 A shrine as its own form. 
 
 From an idea that perfection in form constituted the same 
 in faculty, the sages of Greece held corporeal beauty 
 amongst the foremost of the gifts of God, and regarded its 
 possessor as being, equally with the possessor of superior 
 wisdom, a special favourite of heaven ; they sometimes paid 
 its owner (as in the example of Antinous) divine honours, 
 and raised to his memory not Statues only, but Altars. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Behold the test of human agony : 
 
 The place of the discovery of the Laocoon (the baths of 
 Titus) identifies it with the group described by Pliny — he 
 gives it the pre-eminence over all other sculpture ; but how 
 interesting are his own words : — " There are many sculptors 
 " whose fame is less generally spread, because the number 
 " of artists employed made against their celebrity in great 
 
 * The Greeks culled a beautiful object Ka\ov, quasi koXovv, i. c. cull- 
 ing on the soul, which receives it instantly, and welcomes it iis something 
 natural.
 
 460 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 " works ; for there is no one person to enjoy the renown, 
 " and where there are more than one, they cannot all obtain 
 " an equal name : as, for instance, the Laocoon, a work which 
 " may he preferred to all others either in painting or statuary. 
 " The whole was made out of one block, the father, his chil- 
 " dren, and the wonderful folds of the serpents, according to 
 "« vote of the council, by Agesander, Polydorus, and Athe- 
 " nodorus, Rhodian sculptors of the first rank." 
 
 I owe an additional note from Winklemann to the interest 
 of a highly esteemed literary friend : 
 
 " As the depths of the Ocean remain always at rest, let 
 " the surface be ever so agitated, even so the expression in 
 " the figures of the Greeks denotes, through every variety of 
 e motion, a great and tranquil soul. 
 
 " This grandeur of soul, combined with the most vehe- 
 ment affliction, is visible in the countenance of the Laocoon : 
 " and not in the countenance alone. The pain which dis- 
 " plays itself in every muscle and sinew of the body, and 
 " which fancy might almost detect in the very contraction 
 " of the abdomen, independent of the countenance and other 
 " parts, is yet expressed without extravagance, either in the 
 " face or in the attitude. He does not, like the Laocoon of 
 " Virgil, give utterance to a terrific shriek : the aperture of 
 " the mouth does not admit of this. The sound he breathes 
 " is rather, as Sadoleto describes it, tJie stifled sigh of an- 
 " guish. Bodily pain and grandeur of soul are divided with 
 " equal strength and accurate balance throughout the whole 
 " construction of the figure. Laocoon suffers — but he suffers
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 461 
 
 " like the Philoctetes of Sophocles. The spectacle of his 
 " ajffliction, while it penetrates the soiit, inspires us with a wish 
 " that we too might he able to bear afflictions with equal mag- 
 " nanimityy 
 
 Such are the fine and liberal criticisms that almost magnify 
 the subject which they only profess to illustrate. Journal. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Behold the Jighting Gladiator stand : 
 
 This admirable Statue is, at present, in the Musee, at 
 Paris : I liave taken the license of putting it in its place. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Sits the great Hebrew Lawgiver : 
 
 How much have we not heard and read of the colossal 
 Moses of Michael Angelo : we ally ourselves naturally to 
 greatness, and we are almost grateful when we feel that our 
 expectations are not overwrought. What nervous arms, and 
 solemn front, the Sculptor has given him : and what a 
 breadth 
 
 Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear 
 The weight of mightiest monarchies ! 
 
 The beard of the Prophet hides his chest ; how much of im- 
 posing majesty is there in the turn of his head ! His robes 
 are nobly disposed in their colossal folds ; the whole figure, in 
 its grand repose, conveying the impression of immovable 
 ti-anquillity, of austere simplicity, of strength, of dignity, and 
 of power. Jot) rnal.
 
 462 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 There is a i*eal pleasure in quoting Burton's almost literal 
 version of Zappi's sublime sonnet on 
 
 THE MOSES. 
 
 Wliat living form in solid marble bound 
 Sitf3 here gigantic, while each stretch of art 
 Springs into being ? hark — there seems to start 
 Fortli from those living lips no fancied sound. 
 'Tis he — his brow with forked radiance crowned. 
 His beard's full flowing honours speak his name ; 
 'Tis Moses ; thus from off the mount of flame, 
 With godlike light encircling him, ho came. 
 Such was his form when huge and roaring waves 
 Stood self-supported round him ; thus he bade 
 The Sea to close and form a living tomb. 
 And did ye raise a molten calf, ye slaves ? 
 Had your vain idol been like this arrayed. 
 The venial crime had met a milder doom. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 On SinaVs Mowit ivho looked upon the one ! 
 
 " And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man 
 speaketh unto his friend." Exod. xxxiii. 11. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Given, in earthquake, ^c. 
 
 " And the tables were the work of God, and the writing 
 *' was the writing of God, graven upon the tables."
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 463 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Dare we repine ? 
 
 ' And Moses went up to the top of Pisgah : and the Lord 
 ' said, ' This is the land which I sware unto Abi-aham, I 
 " have caused thee to see it, but thou shalt not go over 
 " thither. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in 
 " the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord." 
 Deut. xxxiv. 
 
 Surely the point that strikes us most in this mysterious 
 dispensation, is the sublime resignation of the Prophet, 
 which is so impressively inferred in the line put in italics. 
 
 LVIIL 
 
 Horn in the tranquil and. sublime expression : 
 
 " The whole appearance of their tragic poems," says the 
 " classic Schlegel, " was beautiful and dignified to a degree 
 " which we cannot equally conceive. We shall do well al- 
 " ways to think of them in conjunction with ancient sculp- 
 " ture ; and, perhaps, the most fliithful representation of 
 " them is to consider them as living and moving statues of 
 " the highest order." 
 
 LXIIL 
 
 This vale elysian : 
 
 Juvenal complains of the marble ornaments of the Foun- 
 tain, and wishes that it were again left to its pristine sim- 
 plicity : his wishes arc note gratified to tlieir verj' echo.
 
 464 NOTES TO CANTO TV. 
 
 Beautiful is the locality of" that same spot ; the wooded 
 and sequestered valley, the nodding heights around, and that 
 grot of earth, where — the ear soothed by the sound of the 
 wind among the olives, and by the dripping of waters falling 
 from the creeping plants within, and the eye dwelling on 
 Rome in the blue distance without — the mind feels, in the 
 very solitude of the spot, something more lovely for its con- 
 templations than the fabled Egeria. Journal. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Thy name, ivas Solitude ! 
 
 The only real Nurse of all inspirations — the only bringer 
 forth of all that is great, and pure, and good, and beautiful 
 in our human natures ! " Society,' observed Lord Byron, 
 and truer words were never spoken, " as it is now consti- 
 tuted, is fatal to all works of original genius." " I felt most 
 " distinctly," said Goethe, " that nothing considerable could 
 " be produced without self- isolation. Those things of mine 
 " which had gained such applause, were children of' loneli- 
 " ness." 
 
 To take an example beyond humanity, — even Jesus, when 
 he wished to be most alone with his Maker, went up into a 
 mountain apart. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 He felt he left behind no fading trace. 
 
 " A blameless conscience" (Cicero himself is speaking) 
 " is a great consolation ; especially as I can add to it the
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 465 
 
 " double support that arises to my mind, from a knowledge 
 " of the noblest sciences, and from the glory of my former 
 " actions ; one of which can never be torn from me as long 
 " as I live ; and of the other even death itself has not the 
 '* power to deprive me." And yet the man who wrote these 
 noble sentiments, could feel the following : " I earnestly 
 " entreat you, then, not to confine yourself to the strict laws 
 " of history, but to give a greater latitude to your encomiums 
 *' on me, than, possibly, you may think my actions can 
 " claim." Perhaps thei'e was never yet a man (and it is a 
 bold assertion) who more craved for notoriety than Cicero ; 
 it appears to have been the end and aim of his every thought, 
 word, and deed, and to attain which, the most straight and 
 crooked paths were equally taken. We should remember 
 Cicero less by his actions, than by his writings ; his Aca- 
 demic Questions are supposed to have been written at Tus- 
 culum. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 1^0 — he his curse the spell : 
 
 The sublime passage in Persius. which Gifford has made 
 his own, cannot be quoted too often ; — the scholar will recal 
 the original. 
 
 Dread Sire of gods ! when lust's envenomed stings 
 Stir the fierce natures of tyrannic kings ; 
 When storms of rage within their bosoms roll 
 And call in thunder for thy just control, 
 
 H H
 
 466 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 then relax the bolt, suspend the blow, 
 And thus, and thus alone thy vengeance show- 
 In all her charms set Virtue in their eye, 
 And let them see their loss — despair — and die ! 
 
 De Saricti has proved that Horace's Sabine farm was near 
 Licenza, close to a stream called the Digetia, eleven miles 
 from Tivoli, and two from Vico Varo, to which place Horace 
 alludes, in the fourteenth Epistle, under the name of Varium. 
 Eustace has observed that the spot answers entirely to Ho- 
 race's description, given two thousand years since. Not 
 only in the more characteristic features, " the continued 
 chain of mountains," — the shady valley — " the winding dell," 
 " the abundant fountain" — " the savage rocks," — not only in 
 these, but in the lesser details also ; in the little rills, the 
 moss-grown stones, the frequent groves, the arbutus half 
 concealed in the thickets, the oak, and the " ilex suspended" 
 over the grotto, and the occasional pine ; — these meet the 
 traveller at every turn, and rise round him as so many mo- 
 numents of the accuracy of the poet. May it not be added 
 that every line of the text, picturing Horace, might be 
 illustrated by his writings, from whence they were drawn ? 
 
 Imminens villte tua pinus esto 
 Corporis exigui, prcecanum . . . 
 Lihetjacere modo sub antiqua ilice 
 Labuntur altis interim rivis aquae, &c. &c.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 467 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Well didst thou match thy fame : 
 
 Tliere is a moral sublimity in the confidence with which 
 Horace speaks of his works ; it seems like the prophetic im- 
 pression of a mind conscious of its own immortality ; of set- 
 ting its peculiar stamp on every thought and feeling. He 
 was, indeed, a true vates, and his Odes are his vaticinatio7is. 
 Both Virgil and himself considered their fame as lastingly 
 fixed as the Capitol : — where is a brick that formed it ? where 
 is a line of either Poet that shall not descend to remotest 
 posterity ? The Capitol possesses for us an interest deeper 
 still. " It was at Rome," says the equally enduring Gibbon, 
 " on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sate musing amidst 
 " the ruins of the Capitol, whilst the barefooted friars were 
 " singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of 
 " writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to my 
 
 " mind." 
 
 XC. 
 
 How inucli of life is lost ! 
 
 The entire sentiment is from Pliny : while gazing on the 
 same scenes which the illustrious characters of past times be- 
 held, we experience a mingled feeling of pride and delight 
 in adopting their sentiments ; it seems as if we thus identified 
 our beings with their own : as if the void of time were filled 
 up, the links of the present united with those of the past, while 
 we are moulding our minds, as it were, to receive from the 
 same objects the same humanising impressions. Journal. 
 
 H H 2
 
 468 NOTES TO CANTO IV, 
 
 XCI. 
 
 Romantic Tivoli ! 
 
 When standing in the gorge beneath, the circuitous hills 
 around, their sides, grey, and broken, and rocky, overhang- 
 ing, the " praeceps Anio" falling in one noble sheet of foam, 
 full in front, the mists everywhere rising up from its rocky 
 bed below, and curling upwards against the castellated look- 
 ing cliffs — then does the Temple of the Sibyl, crowning the 
 very top of the precipice, stand out, imposing in the ex- 
 treme. It has survived the fall of the Roman Empire and 
 its language ; and, after eighteen hundred years of storms 
 and convulsions of man and nature, it still raises its graceful 
 and delicate proportions, and still claims, from its injuries, 
 even more of our veneration than when first it rose. Gray 
 describes it inefficiently in his letter, Forsyth characteristi- 
 cally : " The hill of Tivoli is all over picture . . a suc- 
 " cession of landscapes superior, in the delight produced, to 
 " the richest cabinet of Claude's. Tivoli cannot be de- 
 " scribed : no true portrait of it exists : all views alter and 
 " embellish it : they are poetical translations of the matchless 
 
 " original" 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 While their perfumed M.eccenas. 
 
 " Augustus indulged in jesting, particularly with his friend 
 " Mecnenas, whom he rallied on all occasions for his ' per- 
 " fumed locks,' and bantered by imitating the manner of 
 " his expression." Suetonius.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 469 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 The wrecks of Hadrian s Villa. 
 
 The circumference of this Villa extended to seven miles, 
 and, even to this day, they are pillaging from its ruins, to 
 clear away patches of the excellently fruitful soil, which 
 they serve but to encumber. 
 
 In wandering among those open halls and areas, every one 
 must feel the impression that they are the most gracefully 
 picturesque of all ruins, either in Italy, or perhaps on the 
 face of earth. I never saw such happy accidents, as they are 
 termed, as here, whether one stands on the ruined terrace look- 
 ing down the still lovely vale of Tempe, or whether one turns 
 into the Palace, to wander among its wilderness of speaking 
 ruins. I noticed one solemn looking pine which rose right 
 in the centre of what was, or might have been, the Greek 
 Theatre, as if the place were now its natural right. 
 
 Wild flowers parsemeed the ground (as the French beau- 
 tifully express it) everywhere : pines, olives, cypresses, and 
 blushing pink almond-trees, flourished thick among the ruins. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 The world's didl stage or left in hate or scorn : 
 
 One modern example — would it were the last! — of the 
 sentiments of these restless Movers of the Nations : At 
 Calade, Napoleon said to those around him — " I renounce 
 " now, and for ever, the world of politics, I will no longer
 
 470 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 " take any part in whatever may happen. At Porto Ferrajo 
 " I can live happy : there I shall be happier than I have ever 
 " been. No ! were this day the crown of Europe to be of- 
 j' fered me, I would not accept it. I will employ myself in 
 " study — with the sciences and mathematics. You have suf- 
 " ficient evidence what the people are. / have done well 
 " never to esteem mankind : my treatment of them has been 
 " better than they deserved. Yet France — the French — 
 " what ingratitude ! / am disgusted with ambition — I have 
 '' no longer a wish to reign." With all his profound insight 
 into human character, how little Napoleon knew his own, 
 his life, as well as these expressions of disjointed irritabilities, 
 prove well. 
 
 It is in vain to deny the fact from any just reasonings 
 formed from the head, that, with all his gigantic errors, 
 which were fully equal to his genius, that man must be a 
 wonderful one, who could so entwine himself, both living 
 and dead, with the verj^ heart of a m.ighty Empire ; who 
 could become the absolute Creator of its destinies ; and who 
 could cause, from the time of his first movement upon Egypt, 
 to the very last step of his troubled career, always a painful, 
 often a thrilling interest from one end of the world to the other. 
 These are facts which may be distorted, but cannot be denied 
 by the impartial Historian ; we should be just, even where we 
 most condemn. I have dwelt thus much on this subject, be- 
 cause I may find no place so apposite, in which to insert an 
 Ode written while the minds of most men — especially English- 
 men — were deeply interested in the struggle of the Poles
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 471 
 
 for freedom ; — a struggle but too unfortunate, and therefore, 
 not the last. The Ode was hardly a composition, emanating 
 as it did, from the feeling of the hour, on hearing of the 
 heroic fight at Ostrolenka. 
 
 ODE TO NAPOLEON. 
 
 A.D. 1832. 
 
 I. 
 
 Where art thou, inspiring Spirit ! 
 
 Art thou to the woim consigned ? 
 Can the dull, cold grave inherit 
 
 Thy world embracing mind ? 
 
 II. 
 
 See'st thou not that world awaking 
 
 From her torpor, from her chain ? 
 Hear'st thou not the Nations breaking 
 
 From Oppression's reign ? 
 
 III. 
 
 FeeVst thou not— oh ! can Death freeze 
 
 Tliy mind's immortal part ? 
 The " gaudia certaminis," * 
 
 The life-bound of thy heart ? 
 
 IV 
 
 Hark ! War yokes his fiery car, 
 
 Poland wakes, and would be free : — 
 Thou, her light, her guiding Star, 
 
 She calls — she calls on thee ! 
 
 * "The joys of battle,"— the favourite expression of the destroying 
 Attila.
 
 472 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 Scatterer of Armies ! hear : — 
 Idol of adoring France ! 
 
 Burst the cearments of thy bier : — 
 Wake from thy long trance ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 What are battles without thee ? 
 
 War is but an idle game 
 Played by children ; thou wert he 
 
 Who gave its sun-like fame I 
 
 VII. 
 
 Leaders caught from thee the ray 
 That made their immortality : 
 
 Vanquished foes were honoured — they 
 Had fought — had fled from thee ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What ! beneath Helena's willows 
 Sleep 'st thou like a child ? 
 
 What ! when living, could her billows 
 Bound thy thoughts so wild ? — 
 
 IX. 
 
 Never — never ! thy Shade still, 
 
 Throneless Monarch ! rules us yet ; 
 
 Reigns ascendant o'er our will. 
 And dares us to forget. 
 
 X. 
 
 Art thou dead ? thou King ! sleep on : 
 Hear not the world's idle strife, 
 
 Thy name — thy name. Napoleon ! 
 Shall kindle freedom's soul to strife.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 473 
 
 CI. 
 
 How He, the Love who made them : 
 God and Love are synonymes : does not nature^man- 
 kind— the Universe— all that is visible and invisible attest the 
 everlasting truth ? That it was felt as such from the most 
 ancient time, let u fragment, ascribed to Orpheus, testify : its 
 translation is given : 
 
 " We will first sing a delightful Song on the ancient 
 " Chaos ; how Heaven, Earth, and Seas were formed from 
 " it ; as, also, on the wise and sagacious love — the Eldest 
 " of All — the Self-Perfect : which, actively, produced all 
 " these things ; separating one thing from another." 
 
 This Love was no other than the operative Presence of the 
 immutable and eternal First Cause. 
 
 CIL 
 
 In braided wreaths the starry hosts above : 
 
 The eloquent language of that Apostle of Nature, 
 " Goethe, seems almost to invest a fanciful image with trutli : 
 " Every sun and planet bears within itself the germ of a 
 " higher fulfilment in virtue of which, its developement is 
 " as regular as that of a rose-tree, by means of leaf, stalk, 
 " and flower. You may call the germ an idea, or monad, if 
 " you please. Enough that it is invisible, and antecedent to 
 " the visible external developement. One and the same me- 
 " tamorphosis, or capacity of Transformation in Nature, pro- 
 " duces a rose out of a leaf, a caterpillar out of an egg, and 
 '* again, a butterfly out of a caterpillar."
 
 474 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 CIV. 
 
 A visible glory from the blossoms spread. 
 I saw one almond-tree, in full blossom, standing in a corner 
 of the ivied wall ; its effect, thus thrown out, was quite magical ; 
 nothing in the garden of Alcinous could have looked so rich, 
 so glowing, and so beautiful. The ivy, clustering over, and 
 hanging from the broken arches, gave a cresting grace and 
 a plumed dignity to the softened grey walls. In full sum- 
 mer, all here must be Paradise ; for the courts and areas 
 were full of vines hanging from the trees, and thick with 
 cherry-trees in blossom ; laburnum, acacia, myrtle, and 
 olive, with which the very air was redolent. I felt as did 
 the Mercury of the Poet when descending to the haunt of 
 Calypso : 
 
 " A scene, where if a god should cast his sight, 
 A god might gaze, and wander in delight ; 
 Joi/ touched the Messenger of Heaven .'"* 
 
 And I, involuntarily, repeated the glorious lines of the 
 Master-poet, who must have written from such remembrances 
 as are here : — in this 
 
 Spot more delicious than those gardens feigned 
 Or of revived Adonis, or renowned 
 Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son ! " 
 
 Paradise Lost, b. ix. 
 
 * Pope's paraphrase will always be reme mbered as one of the most ex- 
 quisite gems of poetry in the English language.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 475 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 The mirror of Diana of old time. 
 
 There is an exquisite passage in Schiller's " Wallenstein," 
 so perfectly translated by Coleridge, with which I cannot 
 resist enriching the notes ; previously observing, that Lake 
 Nemi was Diana's mirror : the transfer, however, can hardly 
 be called poetic license. The close of the stanza is in al- 
 lusion to the beautiful moral fable of Actaeon and Endymion. 
 
 The intelligible forms of ancient poets. 
 
 The fair humanities of old religion. 
 
 The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, 
 
 That had her haunts in dale and piny mountain, 
 
 Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
 
 Or chasms and watery depths : all these have vanished, 
 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 
 
 But still the heart doth need a language, still 
 
 Doth the old instinct bring back the old names. 
 
 And to yon starry world they now are gone. 
 
 Spirits or gods,* that used to share this earth 
 
 With man as with their friend ; and to the lover 
 
 Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky 
 
 Shoot influence doAvn : and even at this day 
 
 'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great, 
 
 And Venus who brings everything that is fair ! 
 
 • No more of talk, where god or angel guest 
 With man, as with his friend familiar, used 
 To sit indulgent. 
 
 Paradise Lost, b. ix.
 
 476 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 ex. 
 
 In the libations poured. 
 
 . . . . Geniumque loci, primamque Deorum 
 Tellurem, Nymphasque, et adhuc ignota precatur 
 Flumina. 
 
 ^N. vii. 136. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 The Intermediates with the Unforgot. 
 
 Never were there a people who had any rehgion but 
 which beheved in " mediate intelligences." The most subtle 
 philosophers, even he who has been termed the Genius of 
 Nature,* — the most sagacious Cartesians, all acknowledged 
 this doctrine. 
 
 The sense of the Ancients on this subject is embodied in 
 the following lines : 
 
 . . . . There are Existences in Nature 
 Beside our own •, not palpable to sense, 
 But only by the inner Mind perceived. 
 They are the True — tlie Good — the Beautiful ; 
 The Intelligence spread over all things, yea, 
 Pervading all things like the holy Light ! 
 
 * Aristotle — " The First Being," says he, " moved the heavens round 
 the earth by means of Intelligences,' which are perpetually occupied in 
 his movements."
 
 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 477 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 Than from these icrecks of Jove's deserted shrine ! 
 
 What a noble view is opened from the Alban Mount, 
 contemplated in quiet from the crumbled ruins of the 
 Temple of Jupiter Latialis ! The most interesting part of all 
 Italy lies spread beneath us here — plains once crowned with 
 Ardea, Lavinium, Laurentum, the scene of the last six books 
 of the iEneid. The Tibur glides along as ever ; and groves 
 still shade its banks, fresh as when first hailed by the ^^neas 
 of the eternal Poet. The Alban Mount of the iEneid is 
 what Mount Ida is in the Iliad : the station of the gods, 
 while contemplating beneath the fortunes of the Italian war. 
 True, indeed, was the remark of Walpole — " Our memory 
 " sees more than our eyes in this country." 
 
 What bright epochs in our life are such moments as these ! — 
 how the past and the future are dignified and ennobled by 
 their recollections ! We have mingled our sensations with 
 those of the illustrious dead, who, gazing on the same scenes, 
 felt, and have expressed to us, their feelings as freshly as if 
 uttered only yesterday. We have familiarised ourselves 
 with the land of their birth ; and the natural illustrations of 
 a thousand passages are spread before our eyes. The sphere 
 of our existence, and of our mental vision, appears, nay, is, 
 enlarged: which, otherwise, could not have occurred with any 
 duration of life, whilst bounded, and cabined in, by the mists 
 and mountains of our native land. 
 
 Nature has been shown to us in her most awful, her most
 
 478 NOTES TO CANTO IV. 
 
 lovely features ; and we have seen the works of men — a race 
 of Titans, which we could not have imagined, excepting in 
 the most vague and undefined outlines ; they were the in- 
 spirations of the Scenes they lived in ; the beauty and the 
 greatness round them were the eternal Archetypes of all 
 their creations.
 
 CANTO V. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thoit Paradise of Exiles / . . . . 
 
 1 STOOD on the shore which Virgil so loved, that I do be- 
 lieve his poem vras partially inspired by its localities ; for, 
 how cautiously, and with what a careful pencil, and a provi- 
 dent and frugal love, has he developed almost every creek 
 and cranny of his favourite haunts ! How often must his 
 eye have rested on Capri, on Pausilipo, — near which we 
 know is his tomb; — on Baiae, and on Misenum, while he 
 blessed them all ! The very air here inspires poetry, for it 
 is toned with everything which is fresh and buoyant from the 
 sea, and perfumed with all the flowers from the land, which 
 seem stolen, for the hour, from Paradise. The promenade of 
 the Chiaja on the sea-shore is unique in the world : it must 
 necessarily be so from its localities alone. One walks, 
 buried among acacias, (there is music in tlie name,) whose 
 fragrance fills the air ; myrtles, laurels, cypresses, roses, are 
 flourishing everywhere around ; and fountains, gracefully 
 adorned, and statues, placed among orange and citron trees,
 
 480 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 crown the whole. The circHng hills gird in the sea ; on the 
 one hand, animated with the lazzaroni and fishermen, while, 
 on the other, Vesuvius, distinct from all the range, marked 
 by its breath of clouds, grey and desolate, rises like some 
 saddening Image on the mind, where all else is bright, and 
 joyous, and revelling. 
 
 It is a singular proof of the versatility of Italian character 
 that each city seems to bear its peculiar stamp ; the ecclesi- 
 astical Milan, the sullen Ferrara, and the " superb Genoa," 
 each have an impress of their own. 
 
 Rome sits like a Queen upon the ground, commanding, 
 rather than demanding, our reverence and admiration. Flo- 
 rence, like Calypso, would make us forget home and all else, 
 while dwelling on her smiles, and among the stores of her 
 mind ; Venice, like a beauty in decline, inspires in us a me- 
 lancholy and a too painful interest ; but Naples, the buoyant 
 and ever-laughing Naples, is the true Comus : he throws a 
 veil of enchantment over every object; heightens every 
 colour, and turns nature herself into a masquerade scene. 
 Approaching the city, the noise and bustle fill the mind with 
 anticipation, with a prepared feeling of enjoyment. The 
 song is for ever sounding ; " tipsy dance and jollity" are for 
 ever revelling here. The night is turned into day, and the 
 day into night, by sleeping under its overpowering sun. Life 
 appears on the tiptoe of expectation of something to come ; 
 the past is nothmg — the present is instantly joining it ; but 
 the future is full of hope — teeming with promise. All are 
 in constant motion : there is a restless movement everywhere
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 481 
 
 around. Nature seems to have put on lier holiday garments ; 
 and men catch from her the same tone of light and levity. 
 
 Naples stands, then, like Comus amidst his Bacchanals, on 
 the sands, and on the highways, and offers his cup of oblivion 
 to drown everything except present and instant enjoyment. 
 Life is too short to sigh any longer ; the aspect of himself 
 and of nature round, are too seducing to be resisted ; the in- 
 vitation is accepted, and life and pleasure from that hour are 
 one. Journal. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rent from her parent mountains all alone. 
 
 The Neapolitans term the Bay, the Crater, from its cup-like 
 shape ; no one can look at the map of the territory, or, a 
 better proof, sail (as the writer of this note has done) from 
 the promontory of Sorrento to the opposite shores of Ca- 
 preee, Avithout observing the fitting parts, the dove-tailing, as 
 it were, of the points and sinuosities of the opposing coasts, 
 palpably marked as they are between the little isle of 
 Nisida and the main land. No reflective mind can survey 
 Procida and Ischia, nor feel that they — heaps of volcanic 
 matter as they are— once formed, with Capreae, the extreme 
 points of an immense spherical ridge ; and that the Bay of 
 Naples was, perhaps, for ages, that which the Solfaterra is to- 
 day—the region of Fires; one vast Crater, of which Monte 
 Barbaro, Avernus, Fusaro, and the Mare Morto, were among 
 the chief eruptive parts. Solfaterra is a volcano burnt down 
 to the ground: Avernus, another, in its last stage, filled 
 
 I 1
 
 482 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 with water, as, also, the yVcherusian and other lakes. Ve- 
 suvius, in our modern days, has lost full six hundred feet of 
 its original elevation ; and, perhaps, during the long course of 
 ages, that grand mountain, St. Angelo, will succeed it in per- 
 forming its great ends of creation. 
 
 The territory of Naples is the theatre, above all the world, 
 where the Almighty Power — for here the mind is driven to 
 first Causes — appears most immediately in action. Journal. 
 
 X. 
 
 Dreamed by the sage of old : 
 
 Allusion to that most eloquent and exquisitely poetical 
 apostrophe of Lucretius to Venus, or Nature, in the opening 
 of his fantastical poem : it seems as if the influence which he 
 evoked had descended in his words. 
 
 XL 
 
 Where thy sad Roman Sister's Spirit yearns : 
 
 Every reflective mind is more struck by Rome on his 
 return from Naples ; the grandeur of the objects — the waste 
 of the Campagna — the desolation of the tombs — the speaking 
 eloquence of the Appian Way — the Titanic sweep of the 
 aqueducts alone, yawning round him, would each, of them- 
 selves, leave solemn impressions on the mind, and the more 
 so, when contrasted, for one moment, with the tinsel shows 
 and pettiness of life which he has left behind him. The roar 
 of an immense population yet fresh in his ears — the bustle of
 
 NOTES TU CANTO V. 483 
 
 business or gaiety — the voices of mirth or contention — the 
 rolling of the innumerable vehicles — in fine, the ever-sounding 
 and almost bewildering noises of the active and stirring life 
 of Naples, are contrasted, and most forcibly, with the solem- 
 nity, and, far more, with the impressive yet speaking silence 
 which seems to brood over the Eternal City. Entering the 
 walls — 'the palaces, in their gigantic proportions, and the 
 ruins, suggesting still vaster ideas, appear like the works of a 
 superior race of beings. We seem to have ascended the 
 flight of ages, to have left behind the trifles of the present, 
 in the full absorption of the mighty past. Rome, in her 
 severe and matron majesty, seems to despise the gaieties and 
 frivolities of her lighter and gayer sister ; every feature dis- 
 poses the mind more to reflection than delight. Like the 
 fallen Queen of the Master-Dramatist, her seat is on the 
 ground, and her words are, it possible, more impressive than 
 her attitude : 
 
 Here I and Sorrow sit, 
 Bid Kings bow down to me ! 
 
 XII. 
 A Form there present. 
 " At the entertainments of the rich," (quoting the words 
 of the Historian,) "just as they are about to rise from 
 " the repast, a small coffin is carried round, containing an 
 " exact representation of a dead body ; and, as it is shown 
 " to the guests in succession, the bearer say.s — 
 
 Ej rhvTOV opeuy ■7T7i''e /col repweo, 
 
 ftrtrsai yap aiTodaywv rotovros' Herod, ii. 78. 
 
 I I 2
 
 484 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 " Cast your eye on this figure : after death you will yourself 
 resemble it ; drink, then, and be happy." Euterpe, i. 309. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Mountains cleaving through the Sea : 
 
 " The Lucrine lake is a little sedgy plash," says old Sandys, 
 in his odd quaint style, " choked up by the horrible eruption 
 " of the Monte Nuovo, whereof as oft as I think, I am easy 
 " to credit whatsoever is wonderful. For who here knows 
 " not, or who elsewhere will believe, that a mountain should 
 arise (partly out of the lake, and partly out of the sea) in 
 " one day and a night ? In the year of our Lord 1538, on the 
 " 29th of September, the country hereabout was so vexed 
 " with perpetual earthquakes, as no one house was left so 
 " entire as not to expect an immediate ruin ; after that the 
 " sea had retired two hundred paces from'the shore, (leaving 
 «' abundance of fish, and springs of fresh water rising in the 
 " bottom,) this Mountain visibly ascended, v/'ithsi hideous roar- 
 " ing, Ivorribly vomiting stones and such stores of cinders as 
 " overwhelmed all the buildings thereabout." 
 
 XVL 
 
 How Vestal Nature, even to thy cime : 
 
 I trust that I have not coined a word here ; for I think I 
 have seen it adopted, and therefore sanctioned, by the Quar- 
 terly and Edinburgh Reviews. The word occurred to me—
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 485 
 
 and more particularly whilst residing in Switzerland— as tlie 
 term of all others most expressive of the object. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ' Tis Herculaneum. 
 
 The city of Herculaneum was found covered with six 
 layers of ashes, making a height of sixty-five feet, which 
 renders it certain that there had been five eruptions after 
 that which buried it in a. d. 79. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 How the Scenes stern sublimity appals ! 
 
 All these stanzas were, in common with the whole poem, 
 a record of the impressions of the hour. Nothing could be 
 more awfully, more sublimely imposing than the appearance 
 of the Clouds, rushing rapidly up from the inner crater — the 
 occasional night of darkness which they made — the unearthly 
 noises beneath, and the unbroken silence that reigned above. 
 It is here, more especially, we feel how these scenes were 
 remembered by Milton in his eternal Poem. Here it is that 
 we, too, walk — 
 
 With uneasy steps 
 Over the burning marie. 
 Here, we look down into the abyss — 
 
 The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave. 
 We see the pit, which 
 
 Casts forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
 
 486 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 The chaos— the darkness, and the thunderings ; — all the 
 sublime images, for which he taxed his memory, and his own 
 sublimer imagination, to form his earlier books, are palpably 
 manifested to us here. Journal, 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 .... the moral contemplate 
 Of chained Prometheus. 
 
 Prometheus may surely be termed the sublimest morality 
 ever embodied by the imagination ; moral, in the loftiest, the 
 severest sense of the expression. In him is shown the 
 superiority of a Spirit, immortal in itself, to human suffering ; 
 the great cause, being for the welfare of mankind. Pro- 
 metheus, viewed from this point, stands on far higher ground 
 than the Fiend of Milton, who, though portrayed (as Goethe 
 also observes) with masterly powers, is necessarily placed in 
 a subaltern situation. Prometheus, on the contrary, creates : 
 he is a benevolent and a humanised spirit ; afflicted, but not 
 subdued by his trials ; accursed, but unshaken from his noble 
 aims ; far diflerent, here, indeed, from Satan, who, the perso- 
 nification of selfish Evil, commits his malevolent and abortive 
 attempts, not from any definite hope of success, but from 
 the mere goadings of an impotent despair. The sympathy 
 we accord to Lucifer in the great Poem is qualified, and paid 
 to his undaunted courage alone ; on this vantage ground, 
 Milton takes his stand ; and asserts (hat faculty in all its 
 grandeur.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 487 
 
 There is no passage in Paradise Lost, for example, in 
 which Milton leaves all Epic Poets more behind him, than 
 where Satan stands alone against a host of hostile Angels : 
 — how can such a personage be too often recalled ? 
 
 Satan, alarmed. 
 Collecting all his might, dilated stood, 
 Like TenerifFe or Atlas, unremoved : 
 His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
 Sat Horror plumed ; nor wanted in his grasp 
 What seemed both spear and shield. 
 
 Every element that constitutes sublimity— fear, terror, 
 danger, uncertainty, and indistinctness, are here congre- 
 gated. 
 
 The drama of Prometheus, from the opening to the close, 
 is an epitome of the true Sublime. The imagination is 
 toned and fortified by its scenes ; the passions also are 
 awakened ; and the final impression stamped on the Mind (of 
 which Prometheus is the representative) is, that it must rely 
 on itself; that the force of circumstances and destiny may 
 shake, but cannot overthrow its energies. The writer of this 
 note remembers, when younger, having entertained thoughts 
 of attempting the translation of this Drama ; but, having 
 carefully compared the original with the admirable version of 
 Potter, recently, he is happy to observe, re-printed, he found 
 that even to equal it would require the greatest effort, that 
 to excel it, was impossible. Journal.
 
 488 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Dried up the water springs : 
 
 The warning given by Nature or an approaching eruption ; 
 the hermit hves mid-way up the mountain, whose province 
 it is to warn the king of the expected event. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Pompeii, city of the dead: 
 
 The ruins of Rome are tenanted ; they are thick with busy 
 hfe : but Pompeii, excepting in its transient visitors, lies at 
 the foot of Vesuvius, Uke a disenhumed skeleton, which may 
 be again burnt by fires, or re-swallowed in the earth. Among 
 the ruins of Rome, the ancient Romans are vaguely recalled 
 to us ; among those of Pompeii, they are never absent from 
 the mind. The one place is like entering a house, so much 
 in decay, so long abandoned, that its inhabitants seem, and 
 are, too much removed from us and our sympathies ; the 
 flight of time has been too long ; it has extended too far : 
 their places of familiar resort are become too vague, and 
 too doubtful to seize on : and we are repelled the more from 
 doing so, by every assertion of our faith, or our hope, being 
 petulantly, or with " the most civil air of triumph" — denied. 
 At Pompeii, on the contrary, we enter, as it were, the houses 
 from which the tenants have only just departed: the benches 
 are left negligently in their places : the marks of good cheer 
 are on the tables, the very stains of the last revel are un- 
 cleansed ; the paintings are, or were, almost fresh upon the 
 walls : we pause, for a moment, in an amazement which is
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 489 
 
 real : nay, we almost incline to listen— we expect to hear 
 the voices of the returning revellers, or to encounter a soli- 
 tary Pompeian advancing up the distant street ! Journal. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Exquisite Jigures dim in fading grace : 
 
 The ancient painters in fresco seem to have had small 
 choice of subjects ; the deliverance of Ariadne and Andro- 
 meda, as also the story of Perseus, and of Venus and Adonis, 
 constantly recurring. Burton, however, pertinently re- 
 marks, that when it was as common to paint the walls of 
 houses with arabesques and figures, as it is now to cover 
 them with paper, the most ordinary house-painters were, of 
 course, capable of the work ; it would, therefore, be as un- 
 fair to judge of the knowledge of ancient painters from the 
 remains at Pompeii, as to estimate the state of the arts in 
 England from the sign-posts. 
 
 XLVIIl. 
 
 The Shrine of his : 
 
 Or, of Nature — a worship (as is all worship) of Egyptian 
 origin. She was represented at her Temple of Neitha, in 
 Lower Egypt, as veiled, typical of her inscrutable mysteries, 
 and on the pedestal this sublime inscription : " I am what- 
 " ever has been — is — or shall be : and no mortal has drawn 
 " aside my veil ; my offspring is the Sun." Hekodotus.
 
 •100 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 The Pompeian Forum. 
 
 The situation of the Forum is perfect ; on the one side, 
 commanded by Vesuvius, and on the other open to the sea, 
 and opposite mountains. Its grassy area is bounded on 
 three sides with a Grecian Doric colonnade, broken pedi- 
 ments, friezes, cornices, &c., lying everywhere amongst them. 
 The temples of Jove and Venus are here, and the Comitia ; 
 it is, indeed, an impressive and beautifully picturesque spot. 
 There rise, as fresh as if done yesterday, the new pillars 
 which replaced the old, overthrown four years previously by 
 the earthquake ; the workmen's hands were arrested in their 
 last finish, and the marks of the last rough chips of the has- 
 tily abandoned task are manifest. 
 
 Diodorus derives the name " Phlegraean" from Vesuvius, 
 which, he observes, " Like ^Etna, used to vomit fire, and 
 still retains traces of its former enqjtions :'' thus, the anti- 
 (juity of such eruptions is lost in the night of ages. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Yoi shadowing willmv. 
 
 This noble tree will be recalled by all who have visited 
 Pompeii : its shadows are doubly grateful, from the oppres- 
 sive heats. How many an Englishman's luncheon — the end 
 and aim, indeed, of almost every Englishman's jaunt — has 
 been enjoyed under its shadows !
 
 .NOTES TO CANTO V. 491 
 
 LIV. 
 
 We tread their very pavement : 
 
 How infinitely more home to our bosoms is brought the 
 lesson of mortality when we sit in their Forum, or theatres, 
 where they watched the spectacles and laughed or sighed, 
 as the scene exhilarated or softened ; where they saw the 
 serene landscape we see presented, and reflect that they 
 have quitted those perfect monuments for twenty ages ! 
 The Past is, indeed, embodied in Pompeii : elsewhere but 
 a vague abstraction, an idea of the mind without a form. 
 
 We ask aloud, " Where are those men who lived, and 
 " enjoyed themselves here, as it were, yesterday ?" The 
 echo of the walls seems (as in the Eastern poem) to answer, 
 " Where ?" Their very dust has been lost for ages : their 
 only records are those which their fellow men have restored ; 
 yet there, rising apparently almost from the ruins, and never 
 absent from their eyes, stands the Mountain — the cause of 
 all; which destroyed to preserve — which annihilated their 
 little ant-hills, for the hour, to render that — which must 
 have been else destroyed by war or circumstance a thou- 
 sand times over — immortal ; to preserve their places of com- 
 fort, or of vanity : and to hand down to the last posterity 
 all that which no other human means of preservation could 
 have so well insured. Journal. 
 
 LVII. 
 Or spread the untasted feast. 
 The wits and poets of the day -always protested against
 
 402 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 this throwing away the good things of life, as they called 
 them, on a cold stone ; that happiest of old men, Anacreon, 
 is more than usually eloquent on the occasion ; the month 
 of February was usually devoted to these sad offerings. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Tributes of love to tlie departed : 
 
 The epitaph on Caia Oppia, by her daughter, is surely 
 among the most affecting of all human compositions : 
 
 Farewell 
 
 Most happy soul of Caia Oppia .' 
 
 We shall follow thee 
 
 In such order 
 
 As may be appointed by Nature. 
 
 Farewell ! sweetest mother ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Life in her masquerading revelry 
 Surprised ; 
 " I noticed," says Simond, " a striking memorial of this 
 " mighty interruption in the Forum, opposite to the Temple 
 '' of Jupiter. A new altar of white marble, exquisitely 
 " moulded, and apparently just fresh from the hands of the 
 " sculptor, had been erected there ; an enclosure was build- 
 " ing around it ; the mortar just, dashed against the side of 
 " the wall, was but half spread out : you saw the long sliding 
 " stroke of the trowel about to return and obliterate its own 
 " track — but it never did return ! The hand of the workman
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 493 
 
 '< was suddenly arrested, and, after the lapse of eighteen 
 " hundred years, the whole looks so fresh and new, that you 
 " would almost swear the mason was only just gone to din- 
 " ner, and about to come back immediately to smooth away 
 " the roughness." 
 
 The first line of the stanza is in allusion to Horace's de- 
 solate truth : 
 
 Tu secanda marmora 
 
 Locas sub ipsum funus, et sepulchri 
 
 Immemor, struis domos ! 
 
 LXII. 
 
 No tale forgot ivhen read : 
 
 Not certainly the " Last Days of Pompeii," by Mr. Bui- 
 wer : among such a crowd of productions from the same 
 accomplished author, it would be difficult indeed to assign a 
 preference ; but most assuredly the novel in question is 
 scarcely inferior to his very best. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 There Diomed reclines : 
 
 I cannot resist quoting here the impressive remarks of the 
 anonymous author of " Pompeii :" 
 
 " It is, indeed, usually called the Villa of Marcus Arrius 
 " Diomedes, from the circumstance of a tomb, bearing that 
 " name, having been discovered in its proximity. The con- 
 " jecture, at the outset, rested on a sandy foundation, which
 
 494 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 " lias since been entirely sapped by the discovery of nu- 
 " merous other tombs almost erjually near. All that we 
 " know of the owner or his family may be comprised in one 
 " sentence, which, short as it is, speaks forcibly to our feel- 
 " ings : their life was one of elegant luxury and enjoyment, 
 " in the midst of which death came on them by surprise — a 
 " death of singular and lingering agony." 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Branching their pine-like shape : 
 
 " I cannot give a more exact description of its figure than 
 " by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to a 
 " great height in form of a trunk, which extended itself, at 
 " the top, into a sort of branches." Pliny. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Vesuvius, in his ever-green attire : 
 
 " Above these," says Strabo, " rises Vesuvius, well culti- 
 " vated, and inhabited all round, except its top, which is, 
 " for the most part, level, and entirely barren, so that we 
 " mai/ suppose this spot to have been a volcano formerly, 
 " with burning craters, now extinguished for want of fuel." 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Where all was night : 
 ■' The chariots Ave had ordered to be drawn out, were so
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 495 
 
 " agitated backwards and forwards, that we could not keep 
 " them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. 
 " Darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or 
 " when there is no moon, hut of a room when it is shut up, 
 " and all the lights extinct. Nothing then was to be heard 
 " but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, the 
 " cries of men ; some calling for their children, others for 
 " their parents, others for their husbands ; some wishing to 
 " die from the very fear of dying ; some lifting their hands 
 " to the gods : but the greater part imagining that the last 
 " and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods 
 " and the world together." If such terrors could be felt at 
 Misenum, " what must they have been at Pompeii ? And 
 yet, during all these terrors round him, the younger Pliny 
 carefully reiterates how he pursued his studies : — " I took 
 " up Livy, and amused myself (^!) with turning over that 
 " author, and even making extracts from him, as if all about 
 " me had been in fall security. (.') A friend of my uncle's 
 " reproved me for my careless security ; nevertheless, I still 
 " went on with my author (!)....! might boast that, 
 " during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or expression of 
 
 " fear escaped me As I was, at that time, but eigh- 
 
 " teen years of age, I know not whether I should call my 
 " behaviour courage or rashness :" — neither, most certainly, 
 but a specimen of the grossest affectation — of the most con- 
 summate and heartless vanity ever recorded in print.
 
 490 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Scathed heneatli the fiery rain : 
 
 " Much of the matter showered on Pompeii appears to 
 " have been deposited in a hquid state, which is easily ex- 
 " plained ; for the vast volumes of steam sent up by the 
 " volcano descended in torrents of rain. . . . Among other 
 " proofs of this, the skeleton of a woman was found in a 
 " cellar, enclosed within a mould of volcanic paste, which 
 " received, and has retained, a perfect impression of her 
 " form."* Pompeii. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Through one thick ivall : 
 
 " A skeleton lay in the outermost room, of one, who, hav- 
 " ing deferred probably to make his escape until it was too 
 " late to do so by the door, was attempting to break through 
 *' the walls with an axe. He had already forced his way 
 " through two, but, before he could pass a third, was stifled 
 " by the vapour — the axe was lying near his remains." — 
 Pompeii. 
 
 He was supposed to be a priest of Isis ; the skeleton was 
 covered with pumice stones and other volcanic matter. 
 In the hand was a bag of coarse linen, not wholly destroyed, 
 containing three hundred and sixty silver coins : forty of 
 
 * So exact is the impression, that the very texture of the dress in which 
 she was clothed is apparent, which, by its fineness, evidently shows that 
 she had not been a slave : it might be taken for that fine gauze whitli 
 Seneca so Ijeautifully and poetically calls " woven air."
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 497 
 
 copper, and six of gold ; and close by him several figures 
 appertaining to the worship of Isis.* 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Yon Roman Sentinel : 
 
 The bruised and battered helmet of the Roman sentinel 
 who was found at his post at the Gate of Pompeii, when all 
 but he had fled, is still shown. It was of bronze, and in colour 
 entirely green : the red cinders and bits of volcanic stone were 
 stuck in, and thickly studded over it ; it looked as if it had 
 been taken scathed out of a furnace ; his spear is shown 
 also. I took great pains to ascertain the fact of his position 
 at the gate ; but so it was ; with the full power to fly like 
 the rest, there he stood to be destroyed in his place : for, 
 even in that dreadful hour, his pride of Roman discipline 
 prevailed. Journal. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Descend yon subterranean gallery : 
 
 The catastrophe is eloquently given in " Pompeii :" 
 " His daughter, two children, and other members of his 
 " family and household, sought protection in the subterranean 
 " vaults, which, by the help of the wine jars already stored 
 " there, and the provisions which they brought with them, 
 " they probably considered as sufficient refuge against an 
 " evil of which they could not guess the extent. It was a 
 
 * The fine effect drawn fi oin this fact in the " Last Days of Pompeii " 
 will be recalled. 
 
 K K
 
 498 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 " vain hope ; the same fate awaited them all by different 
 " ways. The strong vaults and narrow openings to the 
 " day protected them indeed, from the falling cinders ; but 
 " the heat, sufficient to char wood, and volatilise the more 
 " subtle part of the ashes, could not be kept out by such 
 *' means. The vital air was changed into a sulphurous va- 
 " pour, charged with burning dust. In their despair, long- 
 ' ing for the pure breath of heaven, they rushed to the 
 " door, already choked with scoriae and ruins, and perished 
 " in agonies on which the imagination does not willingly 
 " dwell." Pompeii. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 Anterior Pompeii 's : 
 
 " Mais d'autres eruptions doivent necessairement avoir en 
 " heu avant cette epoque, car on a reconnu que les rues de 
 " ces villes etaient deja pavees de lave et autres matieres 
 " volcaniques ; ce que parait annoncer que le Vesuve avoit 
 " ete un volcan eteint long-tems avant que ces villes furent 
 '■'■ fondeesr — Vasi. 
 
 How the reflective mind recoils startled back on itself be- 
 fore the prospect of almost infinite duration which here lies 
 unexplored before it ! 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Yon sunlit isles : 
 " While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we finde
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 499 
 
 " they are but like the earth, durable in their main bodies, 
 " alterable in their parts ; whereof, beside comets and new 
 " starres, perspectives begin to tell tales." Hydriotaphia. 
 
 The Chaldeans believed the origin of all things to have 
 been Darkness and Water. " Before Nature was en. 
 dewed," says the inspired Plato, " with its present beautiful 
 " forms, it was inclined to confusion and deformity." The 
 existence of a God he inferred from the intelligence shown 
 in the visible world ; and, from its unity, he concluded it, 
 also, made by One. 
 
 " Je suis pres quelquefois de tomber dans le desespoir, 
 ' quand je songe qu'apres toutes mes recherches je ne sais 
 t' ni d'ou je viens, ni ce que je suis, ni oii j'irai, ni ce que je 
 " deviendrai." 
 
 And this confession of a serious moment comes from Vol- 
 taire, who has been most happily termed " the Proteus of 
 talents " — from a mind which, in despite of the straws 
 which floated on its surface, was one of the most profound, 
 the most suggestive, mobile, and piercing, that has arisen 
 either in ancient or modern times. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 What are our ruined piles to Nature's own f 
 
 That a simple relation of the operations of Nature form 
 Poetry of the highest order, the first part of the following 
 passage will testify, being merely a passage, and not a se- 
 lected one, from Whewell's Bridgwater Treatise, thrown into 
 blank verse : 
 
 K K 2
 
 500 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 Say not man only perishes : he shares 
 
 The lot decreed to all save God himself. 
 
 The oak endures for centuries, and falls ; 
 
 The crumbling Mountains change, and earthquakes cast them 
 
 From their foundations : even the sea retires, 
 
 And the emerging green field smiles above 
 
 The roar of weltering waves ; the starry worlds 
 
 Fall, and their place in heaven is known no more. 
 
 The Sun and Moon have written on their foreheads 
 
 The lines of age •, that they must end : they have 
 
 Only a longer respite given than man. 
 
 Th' ephemerae live their hour, man threescore years ; 
 
 Empires, too, have their centuries, their rise, 
 
 Their spring and autumn ; and volcanic fires 
 
 Hurl the fixed Island from his Ocean throne ! 
 
 The very revolutions of the sky 
 
 Which make our time, will languish, and stand still. 
 
 And who art thou, weak man ! who dar'st complain. 
 
 Least part in this great chain of life ? who talk'st 
 
 Of thy brief span, when worlds and systems round thee 
 
 Change, and are nothing. Strive to rule thyself, 
 
 Thy passions, and thy luxury, and pride : 
 
 Be humble, meek, and ignorant ; and know 
 
 That resignation to the will of God 
 
 Is the true magnanimity ; that he 
 
 Who would approach his Maker, must begin 
 
 By purifying utterly his heart : 
 
 Filling it with the melting charities ; 
 
 Loving all things which God in love hath made ! 
 
 Journal.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 501 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Shells, and the mammoths of past ages rolled 
 Upon their topmost capitals. 
 
 " The world which we inhabit," says Buckland, "is com- 
 " posed of the materials, not of the earth which was the 
 " immediate predecessor of the present, but of the earth 
 " which, in ascending from the present, we consider as 
 " the third, and which had preceded the land which was 
 " above the surface of the sea, while our present land 
 " was beneath the waters of the Ocean. There are three 
 " distinct successive periods of existence, and each of 
 " these is, in our measurement of time, a thing of inde- 
 " finite duration." 
 
 Yet have these iveak things left their trace. 
 
 For a most eloquent and beautiful illustration of the 
 text, the reader is referred to Buckland's Bridgewater 
 Treatise. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 We stand beside the Ocean waves tiled hide 
 One ivorld. rvhich buried both. 
 
 " However deeply we may feel that all earthly glory 
 " shall perish, and however forcibly it has been impressed 
 " upon us that the storied urns shall crumble, and the 
 " gorgeous palaces fall, it is yet a more awful conviction 
 " that the cloud-capt hills shall find a grave in the hollows
 
 502 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 " of the Deep, and shall again rise above its retreatiii^- 
 " waves— majestic Obelisks to the Poiver tvhick overwhelmed 
 " them /" 
 
 The Edinburgh Reviewer concludes with the following 
 
 beautiful and most impressive remarks : " It is only with life 
 
 " and its associations, with life that has been, and with 
 
 " life that is to be, that human sympathies are indisso- 
 
 " lubly entwined. It is beside the grave alone, or when 
 
 " bending over its victims, that man thinks wisely and 
 
 " feels righteously. When ranging, therefore, among the 
 
 " cemeteries of primeval death, the extinction and renewal 
 
 " are continually pressed upon his notice. Among the 
 
 " prostrate relics of a once breathing world, he reads the 
 
 " lesson of his own mortality ; and in the new forms of 
 
 " being which have marked the commencement of every 
 
 " succeeding cycle, he recognises the life-giving hand by 
 
 " which the elements of his own mouldered frame are to 
 
 " be purified and re-combined." 
 
 Men on earth's sun- lit hills. 
 From the remotest ages of Antiquity, from the most an- 
 cient records, we learn that mountains, and " high places," 
 were chosen by mankind to approach — to appeal to the 
 Deity ; not that the Ineffable was supposed to hear his crea- 
 tures the more, but that the?/ could more abstract their minds 
 to address Him. The Indian, the Egyptian, the Chaldean, 
 the Hebrew, the Assyrian, and the Persian — all sought the 
 Godhead on their Mountain-Altars. Man descended into
 
 NOTES TO CANTO V. 503 
 
 caverns when he would pry into the depths of futurity, but 
 he ever ascended when he would address the Supreme. 
 There is a passage on this subject by the ancient sophist 
 Heraclitus (it is quoted by the erudite Cudworth in his 
 " Intellectual System,") which has, I think, no equal for 
 sublimity of thought and expression ; a very close translation 
 is essayed — perhaps, the reader may appreciate, through its 
 medium, something of the fire and the truth of the Original. 
 The Heathen Sophist's belief in the existence of a God 
 and in his own immortality, a proof of both, is too fine to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 Is there no God ? can stones eind altars be 
 
 The only witnesses of Deity ? 
 
 No ! — his own works are witnesses : behold 
 
 Yon sun, his shrine, the eternal truth hath told ! 
 
 The Day and Night bear record ; flower-haired Earth, 
 
 Bringing forth fruits, proclaims from Him their birth. 
 
 The circle of the Moon His hand declares : 
 
 And the same heavenly testimony bears. 
 
 Oh, you unskilful ! 'tis not human hands 
 
 Make God •, His Form upon no basis stands ; 
 
 His Presence cannot he in walls confined : 
 
 Like the space, boundless — viewless as the Wind ! 
 
 Even now I feel my soul its end presage : 
 
 Its freedom from tliis clay-imprisoning cage, 
 
 Which, looking through the rents of this Avom frame. 
 
 Remembers the bright heights from whence it came ; 
 
 Clothed with this mortal msiss : compound of clay. 
 
 Blood, nerves, and bones, and weakness, and decay !
 
 •'^04 NOTES TO CANTO V. 
 
 Yes, it shall fatally be changed and pass : 
 Vet my soul shall not perish in its mas : 
 But, being an immortal thing, shall fly 
 Away — away — up-momiting to yon sky ! 
 And be received in those ethereal domes. 
 And talk irith gods in their immortal hmnes ! 
 
 Journal.
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 III. 
 
 The ■pervading Beautiful. 
 
 " The ancient niythologists represented the nature ot" the 
 " Universe, by Pan, playing on a pipe or harp, and being in 
 " love with the nymph Echo ; as if Nature did, by a kind of 
 " silent melody, make all the parts of the Universe every- 
 " where dance in measure and proportion, itself being, as it 
 " were, in the mean time, delighted and ravished with the 
 " re-echoing of its own harmony. . . . She is, indeed, always 
 " inwardly prompted, secretly whispered into, and inspired 
 " by the Divine art and wisdom." Intell. System, vol. i. 
 341, 7. 
 
 IV 
 
 Where Maro blest tliee once. 
 
 Martial assures us that the tomb of Virgil, even in his 
 time, was neglected ; and that Siliu!? Itulicus restored its 
 long-forgotten honours. " But our surprise may cease," as 
 Mr. Eustace eloquently observes, " when we remember that, 
 " in less than sixty years after his decease, the house of
 
 500 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 " Pope, the trees, and grotto of which he was so fond and 
 " proud, were levelled to the ground. No — earth gives no- 
 " thing to the patriot, bard, or hero, but crumbling monu- 
 " ments ; frail against time, — nothing, against man. The 
 " monument of genius is raised by itself; it commands the me- 
 " mory of man, and forces its obedience by instructing, 
 " while it delights and refines. The neglect of their sepul- 
 " chres when gone, is only a proof of the ingratitude of man- 
 " kind — an everlasting renewal of the Promethean fable ; 
 " but a proof also, that those who seek ^to benefit their fel- 
 " low brethren should, on this very account, renew their ex- 
 " ertions the more." 
 
 The name Pausilipo is Greek, signifying " a cessation 
 from sorrow," adopted, also, from its beautiiul locality. The 
 passage through the grotto must be improved since Seneca's 
 time, who complains of it most dolefully ; but one feels, 
 whilst looking on his busts, that he was not one of those phi- 
 losophers 
 
 Who could endure the toothache patiently. 
 
 V. 
 
 And lo, Avenues. 
 
 What a real feeling of delight is experienced whilst look- 
 ing down from the road, on the Lucrine and Avernian lakes ! 
 The aspect of Avernus, sunk in a profound valley, is quietly 
 and serenely beautiful. Its crater-form proves it an extinct 
 volcano; and the Element of Waters now fills the forges
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 507 
 
 which had been glowing there for ages. Its Greek name 
 signifies " birdless ;" the lake was once girt by woods, but 
 the exhalations from its waters, and its dreary shadows, de- 
 terred the fowls of the air from approaching it. 
 
 Homer shadowed forth Avernus with the gloom and the 
 sublimity of a dim and vague tradition — and he peopled its 
 subterraneous caverns with the heroes of the heroic ages. 
 All, or almost all the sublimity remains with him : but the 
 enchantment, and, perhaps, the truer character and expres- 
 sion of the spot, is drawn from Virgil alone. The one flies to 
 Avernus to evoke the dead, and throws a religious horror 
 over the whole coast ; the latter follows also that Master- 
 spirit to Acheron ; but, even there, the beauty and the ten- 
 derness of his genius sheds a halo around, and lightens and 
 softens the horrors of every step of his way. Homer peoples 
 the Avernian groves with the nations of the dead ; dim, and 
 distant, and mighty, and melancholy ; Virgil irradiates them 
 with the doves of Venus and the golden bough : 
 
 Species auri frondentis opaca 
 Ilice 
 
 and the soft Rembrandt light which he casts over the gloom, 
 divests it of all its severer terrors. Journal. 
 
 vn. 
 
 Ye with deathless Memory are joined : 
 
 It is not required, of the female reader for example, to 
 learn the Latin tongue to enjoy the beauties of Virgil.
 
 508 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 Dryden's matchless version, which, for freedom, grace, and 
 vigour, cannot be equalled, opens the Eletisinian sixth book, 
 vv^ith all its revelations, and with the beautiful and affecting 
 colloquies of i^ineas with departed heroes. How much 
 pains- taking, and (in any other case) meritorious labour, 
 would be spared, if the more modern translators of jEschylus, 
 of Virgil, and of Homer — (for even Pope's unapproachable 
 supremacy has been assailed) — would bear in mind that sim- 
 plest and truest of all axioms : " Only one great Poet can 
 translate another." I am aware how generously and chival- 
 rously the fine poet — Wilson — has stood up for some of these : 
 but even his eloquence has been useless. Had the author 
 of " The City of the Plague" turned Translator himself, he 
 would, indeed, have best exemplified the truth of the axiom. 
 
 VHI. 
 
 Lo, the Bridge. 
 
 " Caligula made," says Suetonius, " a bridge about three 
 " miles and a half in length, from Baia? to the Mole of Pu- 
 " teoli, by collecting together ships of burthen from all 
 " parts, anchoring them in two rows, and overlaying them 
 " with earth, after the manner of the Appian Way." The 
 caprice of tyrants often engenders mighty works : like 
 spoiled children, they will have impossibilities accomplished. 
 When I saw, and weighed in my own mind, the distance op- 
 posite, I could not exactly disbelieve — because I knew 
 that it had been — but I was not able to comprehend the fact.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 509 
 
 XII. 
 
 Covered with Siren forms. 
 
 When Nero coasted along the Bay of Baiae, tents, for 
 all the conveniences for drinking and debauchery, were 
 ranged on the margin of the sea, while courtesans stood, 
 like " Sirens, to invite the passengers from their ships." — 
 Suetonius. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Ill the base rabble's venal shouts. 
 
 Nero made some stay at Puteoli to entertain Tiridates 
 with a show of gladiators. The genius of Nero could not 
 lie still on such a trying occasion ! It was fitting that a 
 foreign prince should know how well he could sing. Tiri- 
 dates beheld the whole with mixed emotions of wonder, ad- 
 miration, and contempt 
 
 So delicate was he on this point, that his greatest rage 
 against Vindex, when that general set out to dethrone 
 him, was, that he had dared to call him — a vile singer ! 
 
 His appeal to the Senate is exquisite : — " Judge your- 
 " selves, conscript Fathers ! — judge of the insolence of this 
 " Vindex ; in his own words, see the malignity of that auda- 
 " cious rebel ! He has dared, impiously, to maintain that 
 " I have a bad voice ! — and thai I play ill on the guitar /" 
 A complaint of such solemn import failed not to make a due 
 impression on the Fathers. They passed a decree, de-
 
 510 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 daring Galba a public enemy ; and a reward of ten mil- 
 lion of sesterces for the head of the pertinacious and igno- 
 rant Vindex ! This is " exquisite foolery" indeed. 
 
 " The people, with earnest entreaty," says Tacitus, 
 " prayed that he would let them taste the supreme delight of 
 " hearing and enjoying all his divine accomplishments. Such 
 " was the language of the populace. In compliance with 
 " their wishes, he mounted the stage, conforming in all 
 " things to the rules of the orchestra, where no performer 
 " was to sit down, nor to toipe tJie siveat from his face with 
 " anything hut his oivn garment, and never to spit or clear 
 " his nostrils in sight of the audience. Having exhibited 
 " his skill, he kneeled down, and stretching forth his hands 
 " with pretended agitations of hope and fear, waited, in that 
 " humble posture, for the decision of the judges. The po- 
 " pulace, accustomed to applaud the notes and gestures of 
 " the common players, paid their tribute of admiration to the 
 " prince, with measured cadence, in one regular chorus of 
 " applause. You would have thought their joy sincere, and 
 " perhaps it ivas so : the rabble wished to be amused at any 
 " rate, and, for the disgrace which befel the state, vulgar 
 " minds felt no concern." 
 
 Yet this ridiculous farce had its tragedy ; — I again recur 
 to Tacitus : 
 
 " It is a certain fact, that many Roman knights, endeavour- 
 " ing to make their way out, were crushed to death in the 
 " narrow passes ; and that others, who kept their seats in the 
 " theatre night and day, fell dangerously ill. The dread of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 511 
 
 " being found absent from sucb a performance was more 
 " alarming than the worst sickness which could happen." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Burner of Rome, and player of the hour : 
 
 " He set the city on fire so openly" says Suetonius, 
 " that many men of consular rank caught those of his bed- 
 " chamber with tow, and torches for lighting, but durst not 
 
 " meddle with them This fire he beheld from a 
 
 " tower on the top of Mecajnas' house, and, 'being prodigi- 
 " ously diverted,' as he said, ' with the beauty of the flame,' 
 *' he sang the ditty of the destruction of Troy, in the dress 
 " used by him upon the stage." 
 
 Even this toretch sought fame : 
 
 His friends advised him to rescue himself, by one manly 
 deed, from an ignominous death. Nero assented, yet studied 
 delay, fond to linger still in life. Preparations for his fu- 
 neral were necessary. He ordered a trench to be dug ; 
 wood to be collected for his funeral-pile ; and pieces of mar- 
 ble to be brought to form a decent covering for his grave. 
 He bewailed his unhappy lot ; he heaved a piteous sigh, and 
 said to his friends, " IVJiat a musician the world will lose /" 
 
 The fear of ignominious punishment inspired him with a 
 short-lived passion which, for a moment, had the appearance 
 of courage. He drew two daggers, which he had brought 
 with him as if meditating some great attempt — tried the
 
 512 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 points, then calmly replaced them, saying, " the Fatal mo- 
 " ment is not yet come." He turned to Sporus : " Sing the 
 " melancholy dirge, and offer the last obsequies to your 
 " friend." He cast his eyes around him : " And why," he 
 said, " why will not some one despatch himself, and teach me 
 " how to die ? He paused for a moment, and shed a flood of 
 " tears." He started up and cried out in a tone of despair 
 — " Nero, this is infamy ; the moment calls for manly forti- 
 " tude." 
 
 Nero seized his dagger, and stabbed himself in the throat. 
 The stroke was too feeble ; with his freedman's assistance, 
 the next blow was mortal. A centurion entered, and seeing 
 Nero in a mangled condition, ran to his assistance, pretend- 
 ing that he came with a friendly hand to bind the wound, 
 and save the Emperor's life. Nero had not breathed his last. 
 He raised his eyes and said — " You come too late — is this 
 your fidelit}' ?" He spoke, and expired The ferocity of his 
 nature was still visible in his countenance : and his eyes 
 were still fixed and glaring, as if alive. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The shore of Baice ! 
 
 No scene in the universe surpasses the Bay of Baiae in 
 its natural beauties ; and, surely, there are none over which 
 the mind dwells with fonder recollections ; and deprived of 
 those inner hues, those moral colourings, what are the most 
 magnificent scenes in nature ? The heart of man yearns
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 513 
 
 toward his fellow-man ! — then, and only then, to use the 
 language of Claudian, in lines which I know not if Virgil 
 himself can equal for solemnity or sublimity : 
 
 Tunc sylvae, tunc antra loqui, tunc vivere fontes 
 Tunc sacer horror aquis, adjtisque efFunditur echo 
 Clarior, et doctce spirant prcBsagia rupes ! 
 
 No translation, I conceive, could convey the infinite ideas 
 which are suggested in these few lines ; the embodying of 
 Nature's Forms — their vitality — and the instinctive and holy 
 Spirit of Prophecy with which they are filled— being, as it 
 were, innate in themselves. 
 
 Those grey-looking hills were once covered with palaces, 
 and with hanging gardens of the richest vegetation, for this 
 shore was not only overcrowded with villas, but the sea was 
 too much intruded on. Horace's complaint is well known. 
 Baiae was the very couch of Sybarism, whose influence was 
 so felt, that the poets seriously warned their mistresses 
 against it ; Martial has a pretty epigram on the subject ; and 
 in a modern day, even the chaste Boccacio expressed his 
 fears. The softness of the earth and heaven entered here 
 into the very soul ; some few it refined ; the most, it ener- 
 vated. On the height of that bluff and grey cape Mi- 
 senum, rose the villa of Marius. There, also dwelt the 
 refined Lucullus ;* on the bend of the hill stood Baulis, 
 
 • " The great expense Lucullus incurred," says Plutarch, " in collect- 
 " ing books, deserves serious approbation" — yet he can add — " Among 
 "his frivolous amusements I cannot but reckon his sumptuous villas, 
 
 L L
 
 514 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 where Hortensius and Cicero studied together. The I'e- 
 treat of the restless Caesar rose close by ; and in that curve 
 of the bay stood Cicero's Academy, as it is called to this 
 hour. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Haunt of those mortal Spirits : 
 
 Augustus, Virgil, and Horace sojourned on this " golden 
 shore." It may be, that from hence Virgil drew, while 
 surveying it, his graphic description of Vesuvius ; and often 
 must he have wandered to Avernus, while preparing his 
 sixth and sublimest book. How delightful — how gratifying 
 are these recollections — how they tend to refine, and to hu- 
 manise the mind ! While memory and imagination dwell 
 on the past, we become, for the time, united with it ; and 
 walking on the very shore and hills, which the illustrious of 
 old beheld and enjoyed, and reading also, in our walk, their 
 descriptions, and their feelings so faithfully given, we almost 
 expect to meet the Authors whom we know so well ! It 
 seems as if they had only for a while departed, leaving their 
 records to our care behind them ! Journal. 
 
 " walks, and baths, and still more so, his paintings, statues, and other 
 '■'• works of art, which he collected at an enormous expense P'' How could 
 wealth be so well employed, as in an encouragement of the arts, and 
 the refinements of life ? This passage alone proves Plutarch quite unable 
 to appreciate the character of this august and noble Roman, who, among 
 the Roman heroes, was what Sarpeden was among those of the Iliad — the 
 only one-on whom the character of the soft and beautiful reposed. Journal.
 
 NOTES TU CANTO V'l. 515 
 
 XX. 
 
 A tale of human sorrow: 
 
 Such a master of the passions is Tacitus, that with a touch 
 of his pen, or rather pencil, he can so represent the scene, 
 as to create a deep sympathy even where, perhaps, it should 
 not exist : — witness the despair and death of Messalina in 
 the gardens of LucuUus : — "She still entertained hopes of 
 " prolonging her days. She began to write to the emperor 
 " in a style of supplication : her passions shifted, and she 
 " spoke the language of reproach, for even in ruin her pride 
 " was not abated." 
 
 Towards night-fall, Evodus was sent (without the in- 
 junctions of the Emperor Claudius, who might have relented) 
 to superintend the execution. We found the Empress stretched 
 on the ground, and Lepida, her mother, sitting by her. 
 " While Messalina flourished, the mother kept no terms with 
 " the daughter ; in her present distress, she felt the regret 
 " and anguish of a parent. 
 
 " Death," she told the wretched criminal," was her only 
 " refuge. To linger for the executioner's stroke were un. 
 " worthy and ignoble. Life, with her, was over : she was in 
 " the last act, and nothing remained but to close the scene 
 " with dignity and a becoming spirit." 
 
 " But, in a mind like Messalina's, depraved by vicious pas- 
 " sions, every virtue was extinct. She sank under afflictions ; 
 ** overwhelnjed with grief, dissolved in tears, and uttering 
 " vain complaints, when the garden gate was thrown open, 
 
 L l'2
 
 old NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 "the tribune presented himself in sullen silence ; while Evo- 
 " dus, the freedman, discharged a torrent of abuse on her, 
 " with all the malice of a servile spirit. Messalina was now, 
 " for the first time, sensible of her condition. She saw that 
 " all was lost ; she received a poniard ; she aimed it, with a 
 " feeble effort, at her throat ; she pointed it to her breast 
 " irresolute, and clinging still to life. The tribune despatched 
 " her at one blow." 
 
 But, in despite of the affecting picture, the historian does 
 notforgethis duty^" The punishment inflicted on Messalina 
 " was undoubtedly just." 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Here, Agrippinas crimes : 
 
 It was at a villa " called Bauli, in a pleasant situation 
 " washed by the sea, which forms a bay between the Cape 
 " of Misenum and the Gulph of Baiae," where Nero drew 
 his mother from Antium, with the design of either drowning 
 or murdering her. On this shore, he went down to receive 
 her landing, with the tenderest embraces ; and it was there, 
 among a thousand lesser vessels, she saw the one adorned for 
 her, and made, purposely, to fall to pieces in the water. 
 
 After the banquet, " the prince attended her to the shore : 
 " he exchanged a thousand fond endearments, and clasping 
 " her to his bosom, fixed his eyes on her with ardent affec- 
 " tion, perhaps intending, under the appearance of filial piety, 
 *' to disguise his purpose ; or, it might be, that the sight of a
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 517 
 
 " mother doomed to destruction might make even a heart like 
 " his yield, for a moment, to the touch of nature" 
 
 Tacitus gives, to the life, the whole of that iniquitous 
 act ; her escape by swimming, and her death ; — but this 
 last scene must be given from his own words : — 
 
 " In her room, the pale glimmer of a light was seen, and 
 " only one maid in waiting. . . . She listened ; and on the 
 " coast of Baiae, where, not long before, the whole was tumult 
 " and confusion, a dismal silence prevailed, broken at inter- 
 " vals by an uproar that added to the horror of the scene 
 " Agrippina trembled for herself. Her servant was leaving 
 " the room. She called to her : — ' And do you, too, abandon 
 " me ?' In that instant the tribune entered the chamber : — 
 " ' If you come,' said Agrippina, ' from the Prince, tell him 
 " I am well ; if your intents are murderous, you are not sent 
 " by my son ; the guilt of parricide is foreign to his heart ' 
 " The ruffians surrounded her bed. The centurion was 
 " drawing his sword ; at the sight, Agrippina presented her 
 ' person,—' And here,' she said, ' plunge your sword in my 
 " womb !' " 
 
 Of her own dreadful end Agrippina had warning from a 
 Chaldean, many years before, who told her that her son 
 would reign at Rome, but destroy his mother : the reply of 
 this evil but powerful-minded woman is recorded : " Let 
 him,'' she said, " let him kill me — but let him reign !" 
 
 Tacitus quits the subject with his usual power: " There 
 " was something awful in the sounds of the trumpets heard 
 " on the hills ; and in the nightly lamentations supposed lo
 
 518 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 " issue from the tomb of Agrippina." Agrippina was the 
 daughter of Germanicus, sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, 
 and mother of Nero. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Where hath change so tvrought ? 
 
 It was under Tiberius that Baiae became degraded. He 
 came to it like a Pestilence ; his example was only wanted 
 to make the Sybarites dwelling there, throw off' the veil which 
 Decency still thinly spread before their vices. The secret 
 shades of Baiae were witnesses to crimes as foul as they were 
 unnatural ; the virtuous fled from haunts which fame made 
 infamous. To have been at Baiae, settled the character of a 
 Roman lady : it was sufficient. The venal Muses still lauded 
 its beauties ; but they debased themselves in their subject : 
 the holy inspirations of Virgil were fled from it for ever ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Solitude sat there : 
 
 The town, forsaken, sank into ruin ; none approached, none 
 remembered it. The most delicious spot the Sun ever looked 
 on, became a desert ; and, even to this hour, although the 
 earth, when tilled, replies in abounding fertility, the general 
 aspect of the naked shore, and of the grey waste-looking 
 hills, impressively reminds us of the past ; they still seem to be 
 the expiating witnesses of the crimes of the last degenerated 
 Romans. Of the palaces which crowned the shore — which, 
 as it were, tiarad the hills, masses of tufa alone remain,
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 5J9 
 
 scarcely distinguishable from its sides. Finally, no page 
 written by the most masterly hand, could illustrate so elo- 
 quently well the instability of the works of man, and the 
 mutability of all human affairs, as the mournful and deserted 
 shores of Baiae ! — Journal. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 . . . wJiere Cuma rears ; 
 
 How impressive are the Cyclopean looking ruins of the 
 Arco Felice, the entrance Gate of Cuma ! We remember it 
 as the most ancient of the Italian cities: the " Eubeian 
 Cuma"* — the fortunate or the happy Cuma of the ancients ; 
 the city which Horace so lauds for its vases ; which, after 
 war and plague had ruined it, was the " vacua Cuma" of 
 Juvenal. It declined with the Roman power, after having, 
 as it were, created Puteoli and Naples ; its cause of decline 
 was the most capricious of all tyrants — Fashion : Baiae and 
 Naples held out greater attractions. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 A wilderness offiowers. 
 
 Vines were everywhere trailing, from tree to tree, and on 
 the ground ; far below me lay the old Acherusian lake, em- 
 bosomed among the richest vegetation. Walking along, to 
 the right of the gate-way, towards the supposed cave of the 
 Sibyl, which opens beneath a lofty crag, the mounds which 
 rose everywhere round me — ruins of the ancient city — for 
 
 * Strubo.
 
 520 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 there was no seeing beyond their surface — were, Hterally, 
 masses of flowers of all colours, mocking the hues of Iris her- 
 self. I never saw such measureless profusion : the horn of 
 plenty so heaped up, so flowing over as here ! the whole scene 
 was one Paradise of flowers : and of fertility of every living 
 description ! Here, rich fields of wheat were shooting up : 
 olives, and other trees, rising thickly among them ; the vines 
 festooning round them all, twined into every fantastic form 
 Occasionally a stone of the once populous city peeped forth 
 its grey brow ; as if its memory ought not entirely to bo 
 forgotten; as if the millions whose hearts once panted there, 
 like mine, still demanded from us a tributary sigh ! The 
 deep Sea lay extended far below ; the intense blue sky was 
 above, making one feel, in its purity, why it was called 
 HEAVEN ; and there, among the green trees tangling above 
 me, and in the song of birds, and in the diapason of the 
 distant Deep, I heard the voice, and 1 felt the pervading 
 influence of the very Spirit of Joy ; that our life was love ; 
 and that their song was only common gratitude in return for 
 the boon — the ineffable blessing of existence ! Journal. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 . . . yonder grassy hill : 
 
 There stood the famous Temple of Apollo, which had 
 been brought to Cuma from i^olia, under which was esta- 
 blished the oracle of the Cumaean Sibyl. It was here, follow- 
 ing Virgil, that Daedalus alighted, after his flight from Crete ;
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 521 
 
 consecrated his " remigium alarum"" to Apollo, and erected 
 him a temple. Ovid has told the tale with his usual pret- 
 tiness — Virgil, with the finishing touches of nature — with the 
 master hand of a poet ; 
 
 Bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro, 
 
 Bis patricB cecidere manus! 
 The works of Daedalus were chiefly in wood ; of which, no 
 fewer than nine are described as existing in the second cen- 
 tury, which, in despite of the injuries of fourteen hundred 
 years, and the imperfections of early taste, seemed, in the 
 words of Pausanias, " to possess something of divine ex- 
 pression." Meme's History of Sculpture. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 . . . a ruined Tower ; 
 Standing on the hill, near the gate, the wide plain is seen 
 beneath, where stood the city and the lake of FoUicole, now 
 Licola. Further along the shore, stood Liternum : a white 
 tower now occupies the site. The word " patria" was found 
 legible on one of its stones, which led to a curious popular 
 error. Pliny the elder mentions olives, and also a myrtle 
 planted by Scipio, as existing at Liternum in his time. It is 
 likely the ashes of Scipio were conveyed to the family se- 
 pulchre in Via Capena.* It was there where the destroyer 
 of Carthage, and the all but the rival of Hannibal, for he 
 never had an equal, played with the pebbles on the beach. 
 Journal. 
 
 * See in Livy, c. xxxviii. a most interesting account of his Lite at 
 Liternum
 
 522 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 On Capreces loftiest civie : 
 
 The ruins of Tiberius' chief palace he on the very topmost 
 height of Capreae, its earthquake-rent or thunder-sphtten 
 peaks stretched far beneath, and their cloven valleys lying 
 between. With a world of beauty beneath him, and among airs 
 fresh as if they came from heaven itself, here the old man 
 retired, disgusted with Rome, with the world, and, worst of 
 all, with himself. With a body prematurely worn out, with 
 a mind vitiated by every excess, what was left him to recruit 
 or to enjoy ? Tacitus has hinted, Suetonius has dilated on 
 his provocatives ; his palaces of the senses must have been 
 gross indeed, since the hour of his decease was that of their 
 destruction. He could not have enjoyed life here ; he must 
 either have laughed at human nature, as a good jest, or 
 despised it ; he found ample causes round him to do both ; 
 and that he did so, we know. A tragedy, a fine one, but 
 whose author should be Shakspeare only, might be written, 
 unfolding the grey tyrant's most secret feelings of satiety, 
 of disgust, of weariness, of baffled ambition, and of despair, 
 which vented its spleen in the most revolting cruelties ; com- 
 bined also with that horror of death, that superstitious search- 
 ing into futurity, which is ever the index of such a life. 
 
 A cloud of locusts were among the ruins whilst I was 
 there. Tiberius' palaces of the senses have 
 
 Left not a wrack behind.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. Q-ZS 
 
 but his 7iame is perpetuated in Capreae ; villany is " damned 
 to everlasting fame," and so should it ever be, for surely his 
 name, or that of any other monster, impresses the moral on 
 the mind fully as much as those of Cato or Brutus. 
 
 Every short description of Tacitus is a miniature picture ; 
 and his annals are an historical picture gallery ; history, in 
 his hands, is philosophy teaching by examples. Tacitus may 
 be justly called the anatomist of the heart, and, so long as the 
 best " study of mankind is man," his works will be a school 
 for political and moral knowledge. I have carefully selected 
 the following extracts from him, which more immediately 
 illustrate the text ; I felt that I could not be diffuse with 
 Tacitus. 
 
 Sick of everything on the continent, Tiberius passed over 
 to Capreae ; defended there from all intrusion, he sequestered 
 himself in the solitude of the place, seeing, it may be ima- 
 gined, many objects suited to his humour* . . . He chose for 
 his residences twelve different villas, all magnificent and well 
 fortified. Wearied of public affairs, he now resigned himself 
 to his favourite gratifications, amidst his solitary views, still 
 engendering mischief. The habit of nourishing dark suspi- 
 cions, and believing every whisper, still adhered to him. 
 
 • The inaccessible rocks of Capreae," says Suetonius, " suited the 
 gloomy and vicious habits of Tiberius : Pracipue delectatus insula, .... 
 undique praruptis immensa; altitudlnis rupibus et profundo maris."
 
 524 NOTES TO CANTO \1. 
 
 XL. 
 
 . . . inaccessible 
 To human sympathies. 
 
 To see those whom he hated in his heart stretched on the 
 torture of the mind, invoking death, yet compelled to linger 
 ^n slow consuming pain, was the delight of that implacable, 
 that obdurate mind ; he thus made his mercy his severest 
 vengeance. On one occasion it pleased him to review all 
 his prisoners. One of them, harassed out with pain, peti- 
 tioned for a speedy execution. " No," said Tiberius, " I 
 " have not yet made up my quarrel with you." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 He clung to power as his minister : 
 
 Bending under the weight of years, and still a slave to his 
 desires, he was anxious to preserve his power to the last. 
 With his usual policy, in appearance resigned to indolence, 
 he made use of his vices to cover his secret purposes. We 
 are informed that Tiberius, often as he went from the 
 Senate-house, was wont to say in Greek ; — " Devoted men 
 — how they rush headlong into bondage!" Even he, the 
 enemy of freedom, was disgusted with adulation ; he played 
 the tyrant, but despised the voluntary slave. A black and 
 shameful period," continues Tacitus, " lies before me. The 
 " age was sunk to the lowest depths of sordid adulation ; in- 
 " somuch, lluit not only the most illustrious citizens, bul
 
 NOTES TU fANTO \I. 525 
 
 " men of consular and praetorian rank, emulated which should 
 " be the most obsequious.' * 
 
 XLII. 
 
 He, the inscrutable, arrayed with power : 
 
 A profound master of dissimulation, Tiberius had from 
 Nature, or from the force of habit, the art of being dark and 
 unintelligible. Even on occasions when duplicity was 
 useless, he spoke in short and broken hints ; the sense sus- 
 pended, mysterious, and indecisive. The fate of Sejanus, 
 (continues Tacitus) filled him with emotionsof joy too strong 
 to be concealed ; but, in all other matters, nothing could lay 
 open the secret workings of that involved and gloomy 
 spirit. He was never at any time more abstruse, dark, and 
 unintelligible. He refused to see the Senate ; he rejected 
 the honours decreed to him ; and even Regulus, who had so 
 faithfully served him, was not admitted to his presence : 
 hating the commerce of mankind, he retired, with a sullen 
 spirit, to one of his Palaces, called " the Villa of Jupiter," 
 and there continued, ruminating in solitude for months 
 together. 
 
 * Ma lorsque le peuple n'eut plus rien a donner, et que le prince,au nom 
 du Senat, disposa de tous les emplois, on les demanda, et on les obtint, par 
 des voies indignes ; la flatterie, Pinfamie, les crimes, furent des arts ne- 
 cessaires pour y parvenir. Montesquieu.
 
 0'26 NOTES TO CANTO M. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Behold the 7'uin of' the man f decay 
 Hathjixed. 
 
 In his decay of nature, he abated nothing from his 
 usual gratifications ; dissembling to the last, he endured 
 every encroachment on his constitution with compo- 
 sure. Patience, he thought, would pass for vigour: to ridi- 
 cule physic, and to jest at those who, after thirty, knew not 
 their constitutions, had long been the bent of his humour. 
 
 But his cruelties increased with his years. To see those 
 " whom he hated in his heart," continues Tacitus, " stretched 
 " on the torture of the mind, invoking death, yet forced to 
 " linger on in slow agonies, was the delight of that implaca- 
 " ble, that obdurate mind ; he thus made his mercy, his 
 " severest vengeance." 
 
 Why the Roman tyrants were always more or less re- 
 gretted by the lower mass of the people is made manifest by 
 Montesquieu : — " A cause de leur folic meme ; car ils 
 *' aimoient avec fureur ce que le peuple aimoit, et contri- 
 " buoient de tout leur pouvoir et mfeme de leur personne a 
 " ses plaisirs ; ils prodiguoient pour lui toutes les richesses 
 " de I'empire ; et quand elles etoient epuisees, le peuple 
 " voyant sans peine depouiller toutes les grandes families, 
 " jouissoit purement, car il trouvoit sa surele dans sa 
 " bassesse." 
 
 " He was of a fair complexion," says Suetonius, " and 
 " had his hair so long behind, that it covered his neck, which
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 527 
 
 " was observed to be a mark of distinction affected by his 
 " family. He had a handsome face, but often full of pim- 
 " pies. His eyes, which were large, had the peculiar 
 " faculty of seeing best at night-time. He walked with his 
 " neck stiff and unmoved, commonly with a frowning coun- 
 " tenance, being, for the most part, silent : when he spoke 
 " to those about him, it was very slowly, and, generally, 
 " accompanied with an effeminate motion of his fingers." 
 
 That Tiberius must have possessed a wonderful knowledge 
 of character, and a perfect insight into human nature, to a 
 degree which made him scarce short of a prophet, the follow- 
 ing anecdotes, from Tacitus, will exemplify : his reproach to 
 Macro, " that he turned from the setting to the rising sun," 
 he could not foresee that this creature — his tool — would 
 suffocate him whilst dying. Wlien Caligula spoke of Sylla 
 with contempt — " You will have the vices of that great man 
 without one of his virtues." While embracing the youngest 
 of his grandsons, he observed the stern countenance of Cali- 
 gula, and, in words which were prophetic, calmly told him — 
 " You will kill this boy, and fall yourself by another hand." 
 If Caligula was spared, Tiberius gave it as his reason — " I 
 " suffer that son of Germanicus to live, that he may be, in 
 " time, a public calamity, and the fated author of his own 
 " destruction. In him I nourish a serpent for the people of 
 " Rome, and another Phaeton for the world at large."
 
 528 NOTIIS TO CANTO VI. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The mind upon its rack of paiyi : 
 
 A passage in one of his letters (still quoting Tacitus) is 
 too remarkable to be omitted : — " What to write, conscript 
 " Fathers ! or what to refrain from writing, is a matter of 
 " such perplexity, that, if I know how to decide, may the 
 " just gods of vengeance doom me to die in pangs worse 
 " than those under which I linger every day." The confes- 
 sion seems almost to have broken out unawares. I add the 
 fine observations of Tacitus : 
 
 " We have here the features of the inward man : his 
 " crimes retaliated on him with the keenest retribution. By 
 " blows and stripes the flesh is made to quiver, and, in like 
 " manner, cruelty and inordinate passions, malice and evil 
 " deeds, become internal executioners, and, with unceasing 
 " torture, lacerate the heart. Neither the imperial dignity, 
 " nor the gloom of solitude, nor the rocks of Capreae, could 
 " shield Tiberius — -from himself He lived on the rack of 
 " guilt, and his wounded spirit groaned in agony.'' 
 
 . . . . There is a hell 
 
 Upon itself by the quick spirit wrought : 
 
 The Mind is its own place, and in itself 
 
 Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven ! 
 
 Milton.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 529 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 The blow to him was mercy given : 
 
 I give, from Tacitus, the death of Tiberius, entire : for, 
 surely, the page of History opens on no scene more awaken- 
 ing, or where the characters appear more to live on the eye, 
 acting their various parts of servihty, fear, hope, and dissi- 
 mulation : — 
 
 " Tiberius now drew near his end : his strength declined, 
 " his spirits sank, and everything failed, except his dissimu- 
 " lation. The same austerity still remained, the same rigour 
 " and energy of mind. He talked in a decisive tone ; he 
 " looked with eagerness ; and, even, at times, affected an air 
 " of gaiety. Dissembling till the last, he hoped, by false ap- 
 " pearances, to hide the decay of nature. Weary, restless, 
 " and impatient, he could not stay long in one place. After 
 " various changes, he stopped at a villa, once the property of 
 " Lucullus, near the promontory of Misenum. It was here 
 '^ first known that his dissolution was approaching fast. 
 " The discovery was made in the following manner. A phy- 
 " sician, named Charicles, highly eminent in his profession, 
 " attended the train of Tiberius, not employed to prescribe, 
 " but occasionally assisting with friendly advice. Pretend- 
 " ing to have avocations that required elsewhere his atten- 
 " dance, he approached the Emperor to take his leave, and 
 " respectfully laying hold of his hand, contrived, in the act 
 " of saluting it, to feel his pulse. The artifice did not escape 
 
 M M
 
 530 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 " the notice of Tiberius. It probably gave him oflFence, but, 
 " for that reason, he smothered his resentment. With an air 
 " of cheerfulness, he ordered the banquet to be served, and, 
 " seemingly with intent to honour his departing friend, con- 
 " tinued at table beyond his usual time. Charicles was not 
 " to be deceived. He saw a rapid decline; and assured 
 " Macro that two days, at most, would close the scene. For 
 " that event, measures were immediately taken : councils 
 " were held in private, and despatches were sent to the army. 
 " On the seventeenth, before the calends of April, a.d. 37, 
 " Tiberius had a fainting-fit : he lay for some time in a state 
 " of languor, speechless, without motion, and was thought to 
 " be dead. A band of courtiers surrounded Caligula, eager 
 " to pay their court, and all congratulating the prince on his 
 " accession to the imperial dignity. Caligula was actually 
 " going forth to be proclaimed emperor, when word was 
 " brought, that Tiberius was come to himself, and had called 
 " for a cordial to revive his fainting spirits. The whole 
 ^^ party was struck with terror — the croivd dispersed; some 
 " with dejected looks, others with a cheerful mien, as if un- 
 " conscious of what had happened. Caligula stood at gaze 
 " astonished, and almost out of his senses. But one moment 
 " before, he had one foot on the throne, and was now cast 
 " from the summit of his ambition. He remained fixed 
 " in despair, as if awaiting the stroke of death. Macro 
 " alone was undismayed. With firmness and presence of 
 " mind, he cleared the Emperor's room, a?id gave orders that 
 " the remains of life should be smothered under a load of
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 531 
 
 " clothes." Such was the end of Tiberius, in the seventy- 
 eighth year of his age 
 
 A picture of human nature in its ev^ery phrase of mean- 
 ness, prostration, dupHcity, and cruelty. When Tiberius 
 watched from his rock the departure of his favourite Macio 
 to crush Sejanus, he could not foresee he was nourishing the 
 serpent who would, eventually, fasten on himself; and 
 Macro, eager, then, to serve his master and his own ambi- 
 tion, little dreamed that he should become the executioner 
 of the Emperor ; — what puppets are human beings under 
 the influences of destiny, or, rather, of their own overmas- 
 tering passions ! 
 
 But Tacitus sums up — " His manners, like his fortune, 
 " had their revolutions, and their distinctive periods ; 
 " amiable, while a private man ; and, in the highest em- 
 " ployments under Augustus, esteemed and honoured. He 
 " played an artificial character during the lives of Drusus 
 " and Germanicus, concealing his vices, and assuming the 
 " exteriors of virtue. While his mother Livia lived, good 
 " and evil were blended. Detested for his cruelty, he had 
 " the art, while he loved or feared Sejanus, to throw a veil 
 " over his most depraved appetites. All restraint being, at 
 " length, removed, he broke out without fear or shame ; 
 " and, during the remainder of his life, hurried away by 
 " his own unbridled passions, he made his reign one scene 
 " of lust, and cruelty, and horror."' 
 
 M M 2
 
 532 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 L. 
 
 While sitting on this mossy stone : 
 
 Beneath the cliffs of Sorrento are shown corridors which 
 are called the caves of Ulysses ; they are stripped of every 
 decoration. Homer has exactly described the shore ; and 
 one huge rock, near the landing-place, seems as if it might 
 have been placed by Polyphemus before his den. The 
 opposite Caprese answers to Lachaea, from whence Ulysses, 
 having quitted the ^^olian isles a second time, proceeded 
 with one vessel to Surrentum, and there encountered the 
 Cyclop : sailing from thence to the Laestrygones, near 
 Gaieta, and after the destruction of his barks by the savages, 
 gaining, with one only, the realm of Circe. The plain of 
 Sorrento is a living picture of Homer's garden of Alcinous ; 
 a realisation of the golden Hesperides—the substance for 
 the vision. It is one vast orchard, but by no means resem- 
 bling our insular ideas of an apple-orchard, for here flourish, 
 entwined together, the pomegranate, mulberry, fig, vine, 
 olive, walnut, peach, apricot, with whole groves of orange 
 and lemon trees — to look down on which, from any eminence, 
 is like looking down into Paradise : the very eye pours its 
 blessina- over the scene for the silent delight which it re- 
 ceives. Journal. 
 
 LI. 
 
 The Sirens yon dim iskinds have forsook : 
 The Sirenusae, three small isles in the Posidonian gulph ;
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 533 
 
 they bore sway over the promontory of Minerva, and town 
 of Massa : it was here Ulysses passed in safety. They are 
 three small barren islets : a low ruined tower stands on one, 
 the largest ; being, perhaps, the remnant of some ancient 
 temple ; the other two are conical rocks. I could not behold 
 them, grey-looking and isolated as they are, detached from 
 the main continent, and appearing as specks on the immense 
 ocean before them, without reflecting, and with a deep con- 
 sciousness of joy, on the immutable and eternal nature of 
 Genius ' To the common, uninquiring eye, they are 
 nothing ; to the intellectual and the imaginative, they have 
 a charm pervading every part of them, like the common 
 light of day.* They have been peopled with immortal spirits 
 by a human being who created them from his own : by a 
 Mind, which, itself immortal and co-existent with time, has 
 been able to throw a halo, which shall endure for ever, round 
 their waste and barren sides ; such are the powers of the 
 creator — such the triumphs of the mind ! Journal. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Sorrento ! who that blesses thy soft broiv ; 
 
 The soil around Sorrento is volcanic, and the vegetation 
 one ocean of richest luxuriance. But that which renders 
 Sorrento an eternal object of speculation to the geologist, 
 
 * Longinus compared the Iliad and tlie Odyssey to tlie rising and the 
 setting sun — an analogy us sublime as tiie subjects from whence it was 
 drawn.
 
 534 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 are, the sunken ravines, or rather, profound chasms in the 
 earth, intersecting its plain, and tending to the sea ; the 
 ground, in all directions, has been rent asunder, in cracks of 
 frightful depth, evidently separated by some great convulsion 
 of Nature. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Even in Tasso : 
 
 Muratori confesses that he was ignorant of the crime 
 which confined Tasso to his cell, but asserts that the cause 
 was not insanity, but from some hasty expressions spoken in 
 choler against the Duke. Manso, the bosom friend of Tasso, 
 throws no light on it ; and, of seven or eight annalists of the 
 day, only one asserts that he was confined at all. Tasso 
 might have felt a pride in being patronised by Leonora of 
 Este, but his fieart was devoted to a humbler beauty : 
 Lucretia Bendedio ranked the author of the " Pastor Fido" 
 among her immortal suitors ; of this passion, Leonora was 
 the confidant.* It is also too certain that Leonora deserted 
 the poet in the first days of his distress; and it is as well 
 known, that Tasso did not vent a single grief over the bier 
 of his supposed mistress. Tasso's great and sole fault, in 
 the eyes of the Duke, was his desire for his natural freedom 
 — in fact, to do as he liked ; and not to feel that he was de- 
 tained at Ferrara. In 1575 he fled to Rome, and this 
 journey, or jaunt rather, was the cause of all his misfortunes. 
 On his return, he found that his manuscript oi" " Jerusalem" 
 * See Hobhouse's Illustrations.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 535 
 
 was withheld from him by Alfonso. All remonstrances and 
 petitions were vain ; till, at length, his passion broke forth 
 in expressions which were carefully repeated : he was ar- 
 rested by " his generous and magnanimous" sovereign, and 
 confined to his prison as a madman. The obligations, then, 
 ofTasso to the Duke, consisted in the seven years' imprison- 
 ment of the author, and the surreptitious publication of 
 a mutilated manuscript. His muse was encouraged 
 and confined to her laureate duties, and so carefully was 
 her gratitude secured, and her recompense so exactly 
 weighed, that the day before the Prince of Mantua secured 
 the freedom of Tasso, he commanded the captive to compose 
 a copy of verses, as an earnest of more elaborate efforts ; 
 even his clothes were not allowed him, unless worn and 
 shown at court; his own letter will best speak the extent of 
 his princely patronage. 
 
 " My very nmgnijicent Signor, 
 " I send your worship ^"i^e shirts — all of which want mend- 
 " ing ! Give them to your relation : and let him know that 
 " 1 do not wish them to be mixed with the others ; and that 
 " he will gratify me by coming one day with you to see me. 
 " In the mean while I wait for that answer which your Lord- 
 " ship promised to solicit for me. I kiss your worship's 
 " hands. 
 
 " Your faithful servant, 
 "January 4th, 1385." " Torquato Tasso.''
 
 536 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 " If you cannot come with j'our relation, come alone; I 
 " want to speak to you : and get the cloth washed in which 
 " the shirts are wrapped up. (!) 
 
 " To the very magnificent Signor" &;c. 
 
 Such was the state of him who thought that besides God, 
 to the poet alone belonged the name of creator : and who 
 was also persuaded that he himself was the first Italian of 
 that immortal race. It is gratifying to know that Alfonso 
 had his recompense : deserted by all on his death-bed, he 
 was interred without even decent honours. His last wishes 
 were neglected : his will cancelled. His kinsman, Don 
 Caesar, shrunk from the Vatican's excommunication, and, 
 after a short suspense, Ferrara passed away for ever from 
 the house of Este. 
 
 LVIIL 
 
 The Exile came for quiet : 
 
 From the delightful scenery of Sorrento, Torquato Tasso 
 was removed in his early infancy, though he appears to have 
 retained a full recollection of its beauties. In latter life he 
 revisited its scenes under circumstances of singular and 
 romantic interest. Suffering under one of those afflicting de- 
 lusions to which his state of mind gave rise,* Tasso fled from 
 Ferrara, resolving to seek safety under the I'oof of his sister 
 
 * Such appears to be the opinion, also, of lloscoe, I'rom whom tliis in- 
 teresting notice is taken.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 587 
 
 Cornelia, who, having lost her husband, resided with her 
 family in the paternal mansion at Sorrento. Disguising him- 
 self in the dress of a shepherd, he succeeded, after many dif- 
 ficulties and privations, in reaching his native place, where 
 he introduced himself to his sister, as a messenger from her 
 brother, who, being in imminent risk of his life, had sent to 
 demand her assistance and protection. Cornelia anxiously in- 
 quired into the perils that surrounded her brother ; and so 
 lively was the picture which the poet drew of his own ima- 
 ginary dangers, that Cornelia fainted at the recital. Aifected 
 by this touching proof of her love, Tasso gradually disclosed 
 himself, and was received by her with every demonstration 
 of affection. He remained at Sorrento for some time, under 
 the assumed character of a distant relative, and passed much 
 of his time in wandering through its woods, in company with 
 his nephews and nieces, upon the latter of whom, from the 
 tallness of their stature, he bestows, in one of his letters to 
 his sisters, the epithet of " giantess." 
 
 The unsettled mind of Tasso, and the love of excitement 
 to which his residence in cities and courts had given birth, 
 did not permit him long to remain a wanderer amidst the 
 beauties of Sorrento. He resided with his sister during the 
 remainder of the summer, at the close of which he departed 
 for Rome. Yet, though a voluntary exile from his native 
 home, its delightful recollections still hovered round him ; 
 and, in a letter addressed to his sister, many years after this 
 period, he expresses a wish that he might once more in her 
 society breathe his native air, and once again refresh his weary
 
 538 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 thoughts amidst the sublime and delicious scenery which na- 
 ture had lavished round his home with so unsparing a hand. 
 The aspiration was vain ;— the illustrious poet was fated 
 never more to visit the scene of his birth. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 While bending o'er this fallen shrine : 
 
 The Temple of Minerva was erected on the Sorrentine 
 promontory : hence Statins entitles her, 
 
 Tyrrheni speculatrix virgo profundi : 
 
 Seneca, the same also ; and Virgil. 
 
 Let me recal that one of the most buoyant mornings of 
 my life was passed on this spot ; retiring, yet within hearing 
 of a joyous party, the Ode was composed, or, with more 
 truth, inspired by the glorious scenes around me. 
 
 9. 
 
 /, too, Arcadia have enjoyed ! 
 
 A small but exquisitely finished picture in the Doria Pa- 
 lace represents two shepherds leaning against a tree in an 
 Arcadian landscape, while contemplating a tomb-stone, on 
 which is placed a human skull, with the beautiful and af- 
 fecting inscription beneath — 
 
 E( ego in A rcadia fui .'• 
 ^ And I, too, have been in Arcadia!
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 539 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 The Stars that to the eye are melodies : 
 
 " In the World of Stars," says Aristotle, " there is to be 
 " seen neither the perfect unmovedness of Divinity, nor the 
 " perpetual changeableness of earthly things, but something 
 " Intermediate— a motion which is immutable, and eternal: 
 " revolutions regulated by the most unerring laws." Milton's 
 beautiful conception may well be a truth : 
 
 And in their motions harmony divine 
 
 So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear 
 
 Listens delighted. 
 
 Wishing to include in the same volume all such pieces as 
 were written in Italy, a fragment of an Address to the Light 
 is subjoined ; composed before day -break, on the shore of 
 Salerno. 
 
 Ancient of Time — of Chaos elder-born ! 
 
 Effluence from Him — His Presence — when he moved 
 
 Above the surface of the Waters, ere 
 
 He called thee from the Shadows into life. 
 
 First — holiest — purest ! thou, that makest all 
 
 Visible, while thou art, like Him, unseen : 
 
 He whom man worshipped first as Light, who dwells 
 
 In light — Himself the emanating Fount 
 
 Of thy self-motive Essence ! Ere the Stars 
 
 Were made, or Suns that led them on, thou wert. 
 
 In-dwelling with the Sanctities of Heaven ! 
 
 Thou robe of many colours ! hovering round 
 
 Earth's body like a mantle, shedding beauty 
 
 On Ihat whicli was before so beautiful !
 
 540 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 Oh, that thy Light which enters in the eyes, 
 And maketh glad the heart of man, could fill him 
 With some faint spark of that absorbing Love, 
 Which made both him and thee ! 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 The towering Amalji ! 
 
 In all Italy, perhaps in the world, there is no city more 
 wildly, more romantically situated than Amalfi, suspended, 
 as much of it appears to be, seen from the distance, on rocks, 
 and the very edges of precipices ; its gardens and vineyards 
 breasting the lower part of the mountain against which it 
 lies : its white villas reflected in tlie mellowing water, and 
 its heights, covered with cottages, peeping through their 
 masses of vegetation. Sitting in that immense cavern, 
 adjacent to the chief inn of the city, which was a con- 
 vent of the most spacious dimensions, and shadowed there 
 from the mid-day sun, which makes its coolness and repose 
 more gratefully felt, no sensation can be more delicious than 
 that of looking between the foliage of the trees which overhang 
 it, upon the deep blue " world of waters" extended beneath ; 
 in truth, the sea appears from thence more like azure float- 
 ing breath than water ; so still does it lie stretched beneath, 
 so sky-like, so silent, so impalpable ! 
 
 " Besides Venice," says Hallam, "Amalfi kept up the com- 
 " mercial intercourse of Christendom with the Saracen 
 " countries before the first crusade. It was the singular 
 " ilite of this city to have filled up the interval between two
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 541 
 
 " periods of civilisation, in neither of which she was destined 
 " to be distinguished. Scarcely known before the end of the 
 " sixth century, Amalfi ran a brilliant career, as a free and 
 " trading Republic, which was checked by the arms of a 
 " Conqueror in the middle of the twelfth century. Since 
 " her subjugation by Roger King of Sicily, the name of a 
 " people, who, for a while, connected Europe with Asia, has 
 " hardly been repeated, except for two discoveries falsely 
 " imputed to them — those of the Pandects and the Mariner's 
 <« Compass.* The Amalfitans are described by William of 
 " Apulia in Muratori." 
 
 If there be one place above another on the face of the 
 earth to which a solitary would wish to retreat, that place 
 must be Amalfi for what sublime, and, at the same time, 
 what soft and beautiful localities does it not present ? Who 
 can forget the appearance of the " deep sea," looked down 
 on from its rocky altitudes ? or the vines, and the myrtle 
 galleries which are everywhere thrown around him on the 
 hill-side ? If our hermit be not disinclined to the good things 
 of this life — and what serious people are 9 — the very best 
 wine in all Italy, if a Poet may be allowed to know anything 
 of so important a subject — is to be found at Amalfi. 
 Journal. 
 
 * The common opinion, ascribing it to a citizen of Amalfi, in the 
 fourteenth century, is erroneous. Guiot de Provens, a French Poet, and 
 James de Vitry, archbishop in Palestine, describe it in the most unequi- 
 vocal language, as also, others, during the same period. Hall.vm.
 
 54-2 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 LXXII. 
 Eternal P^stum there : 
 
 The only account we have of the origin of Paestum is 
 from Solinus, who says it was built by the Dorians ;* but 
 a profound modern antiquaryf has undertaken to prove 
 these came from the East ; his chief arguments are drawn 
 from tracing the names Paestum and Posidonia, to the same 
 oriental radix. Herodotus, also, observes that we shall look 
 in vain for the word noSEIAHN among the Greeks — the 
 word, and Deity, being of Libyan origin. 
 
 The Vision changes — ages take their Jlight : 
 When the Lucanians attacked the Grecian settlements, 
 Posidonia was the first that fell ; they changed its name to 
 Paestum, as also the language and customs of the natives. 
 Of this we have a most touching account in Athenaeus, who 
 cites from Aristoxenus, a philosopher of Tarentum : " We 
 " are doing much the same as the Posidonians, who, from 
 " having been Greeks, are now barbarised into Romans. 
 " These, assembling on one of their old festivals, recalled to 
 " memory their ancient names and customs, for the loss of 
 " which they indulged a social grief, and parted in tears ; — 
 " so we, now that our theatres are become barbarous, and 
 " the general taste in music so corrupted, meet together, 
 " a slender party — to lament the change, and to remember 
 " ivhat Music was !" 
 
 * Notum est Paestum a Dorensibus constitutum. 
 f Mazochii Comment. Naples, 1754.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 543 
 
 I cannot resist collecting into a wreath the beautiful tri- 
 butes of the Roman Poets to the roses of Paestum — it is like 
 steeping oneself in their fragrance ! and first, Virgil : 
 
 Forsitan et pingues hortos quae cura colendi , 
 
 Omaret, canerem, biferique rosaria Paesti. 
 
 The full tribute of Ovid : 
 
 Nee Babylon sestum, nee frigora Pontus habebit 
 Calthaque Psestanus vincit odore rosas. 
 
 Could we omit Propertius ? 
 
 Vidi ego odorati victura rosaria Paesti 
 Sub matutino cocta jacente noto. 
 
 And though quotations might extend, the following exqui- 
 site couplet of Ausonius would excel them all : he brings 
 his roses before the eye, with their morning dews drip- 
 ping heavily from them ! 
 
 Vidi Paistano gaudere rosaria cultu 
 Exoriente novo roscida Lucifero ! 
 During a long sojourn at Naples, the writer of this note 
 had collected, from various sources, some interesting notices 
 of Paestum ; they extended, however, too far : an extract 
 only is given, which was written on the spot. 
 
 Looking at the gigantic Temple, massed and concentrated 
 in its own strength — the three huge steps ascending its plat- 
 form—its quadrilateral shape of nearly two hundred feet in 
 length, and eighty in breadth — its double front — each mount- 
 ing a pediment supported by six stupendous fluted columns 
 of the Doric order — its vast vestibules — its grand unadorned 
 frieze and cornice — its ponderous exterior columns guarding
 
 5-1-1 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 the whole, which Time has softened, and mellowed into tones 
 of harmony, casting over their " glory obscured" a tinge of 
 melancholy which renders them more touching still, — we 
 experience sensations such as that Temple alone could in- 
 spire. While the naked and boundless waste surrounds us 
 with solitude and with silence, a solitude far removed from 
 " towered cities" and " the hum of men" — a silence for 
 ever soothed rather than broken by that grand and monoto- 
 nous Chant — the pulsations of the living Sea! — we feel as if 
 we were removed back into the very night of time ; as if we 
 looked upon the works of a gigantic race of men who held no- 
 thing in common with our weak humanity ; as if the old works 
 of the Titanic ages were developed before us ; as if, had we 
 turned to the Altar for an Oracle, we still should hear an 
 answer from its shrine. 
 
 We look not, here, upon the classical, but on the heroic 
 style of Architecture ; the offspring of an heroic age. The 
 Temple is the Record which stamps the People who erected 
 it: simple, uncorrupted, and, therefore great; no effeminate 
 or enfeebled nation could have designed such a colossal pile : 
 of such a severe and unadorned character ; it testifies the 
 grandeur of both. The whole is stamped with a grand and 
 mighty Energy which awes and fills the mind. Far more 
 impressive are they as ruins, than if presented to us in a 
 perfect state. Their rents serve but to develope the more 
 their Herculean proportions ; their injuries, inflicted by time 
 and disaster, command, rather than ask, the respect of the 
 beholder.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 545 
 
 We feel, while surveying them, that, each moment, our 
 reverence is increased ; for we cannot avoid reflecting on all 
 they have met — on all which they have endured. We re- 
 member how often the Earth has upheaved around, and 
 shook those columned masses, with their ponderous entab- 
 latures, to their foundations ; how often the thunder-stone 
 has been hurled through them, having left its so palpable 
 traces on their sides ; how the Hosts of Heaven have there 
 kept watch ; how the Storms of countless ages have raged 
 above and within them ; how Empires have risen — flourished 
 — fallen — their very positions erased from the earth, while 
 the generations of man have been as grass in the field ! — and 
 still to see how fixedly they grow in their places — how firmly 
 they present their fronts — how serriedly they keep their long 
 ordered ranks — scathed and, splintered — but unbroken and 
 immovable ! 
 
 We almost regard them with human sympathies — but they 
 seem to have outlived the ordeal of human endurance ; and, 
 spared or forgotten by Time and Change, to have become 
 allied with Nature herself : a part of the waste and savage 
 plain they stand on — of the grey mountains— of the ever- 
 lasting Sea I they, also, need no written histories from man ; 
 they bear their own records on their time-withered but 
 majestic brows. 
 
 Cold, and uninspired, indeed, shall that man be, who, sitting 
 under the shadows of their gigantic columns, does not feel 
 the awful impression they convey of the mutability of all 
 human power and grandeur — of the very nothingness of 
 
 N N
 
 546 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 humanity ! Who shall not feel in the presence of those pal- 
 pable — those last — and those not silent Witnesses of a World 
 gone by— that here a mighty City once flourished ; that a 
 populous and busy existence once rolled, Ocean-like, around; 
 — that all the deeds and thoughts which exalt or debase the 
 man, all the passions that soothe or agitate humanity, were 
 stirring here ? Who shall not feel, I repeat, a moral for his 
 own life ; and for his brethren so long gone before him in a 
 path which he and unborn Ages must follow — a feeling too 
 deeply seated for his tears ? Journal. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Arrayed in marble now : 
 It was the kingly boast of Augustus that he found Rome 
 built of brick, but left it in marble. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 The Stars that draw their crowns of light from thine ! 
 
 Milton has a beautiful idea on this subject : 
 
 Hither, as to their fountain, other Stars 
 Repairing, in their golden vn-ns draw light. 
 
 Julian, in his Oration, says the Phoenicians represent 
 Light as " the energy of an intellect perfectly pure, i. e. solar 
 " intellect— which, scattering its beams from the middle re- 
 " gion of the heavens, fills all the celestial orbs with powerful 
 " vigour, and illuminates the universe with divine and incor- 
 " ruptible light." 
 
 "AfjSrju efiil/uxovffa <paos vvp aldepa Kofffiovs-
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 547 
 
 Additional lines to the setting Sun are subjoined ; com- 
 posed, also, in the Temple of Paestum, during an evening 
 which was, of itself, "inspiration. 
 
 Eye of the Day ! 
 Watcher and Monarch of the Seasons, flitting 
 Round the green Earth in their eternal dance, 
 Maker of Time the Shade, who, without thee. 
 Had never been embodied with a name -, 
 Father of days— years — seasons. Lord of Light ! 
 Fountain of heat ! all-seeing— whom all see, 
 Nor seek beyond. Who calls thee an inert. 
 Unthinking substance of material Fire, 
 Thou — wholly spiritual ? hast thou not 
 A will and motion, attributes of Mind, 
 And^immortality ? 
 
 In central Space 
 Thou sittest like the God himself enthroned. 
 The visible Image of the Invisible ! 
 The Shadow of the Substance, who is All. 
 The Stars in their white robes of light, with cro^vns 
 Of glory round their heads, move round thee, hjniining 
 Melodies that are heard by thee alone ! 
 Life — woke by thy rays, started from the dust. 
 And was : even as our spirits from that Light, 
 Thy Fountain, from which we, receding still. 
 Remember : and retain within our hearts. 
 O thou Apollo ! well wert thou so named: 
 Thy Lyre is the living world : and Life, 
 The everlasting music which thy hand. 
 
 Calls into vocal sounds ! for ever changing, , 
 
 As thy beams wander fitfully along 
 Its thrillingly responsive strings !
 
 548 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 Galaxied with Cyclades : 
 The greatest Sculptors of Greece came from the Cyclades , 
 among whom were the Chlan brothers, Bupalus and Anther- 
 mus, who lived B.C. 517. Greece and Asia contended for 
 their works, on which, with a beautiful modesty, was 
 inscribed not their own, but their father's name, in the fol- 
 lowing verse : 
 
 The sons of Anthermus will render thee, O Chios, 
 More renowned than thy vines have yet done. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Thou, who didst make an Ocean of the Land. 
 
 No small part of the present surface of the earth is de- 
 rived from the remains of animals that constituted the po- 
 pulation of ancient seas. " What was once sea," says Aris- 
 " totle, " is now land : what is now land, teas the sea." We do 
 but repeat truths as old almost as eternity. Many extensive 
 plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great 
 charnel-houses of preceding generations, in which the pe- 
 trified exuviae of extinct races of animals, and vegetables, arc 
 piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life 
 and death, during almost immeasurable periods of past time. 
 
 Strata thus loaded with the exuviae of innumerable jjene- 
 rations of organic beings, afford proof of the lapse of long 
 periods of time, wherein the animals from which they have 
 been derived, lived and multiplied, and died, at the bottom 
 of seas which once occupied the site of our present conti- 
 nents and islands. Buckland.
 
 NOTES TO CANTO VI. 549 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 A Priest of Nature : 
 
 Let me set the beautiful truth of Goethe before the reader ; 
 " The Poet is the Priest of Nature : he touches each plant, 
 " each bush, with gentle hand, and hallows them ; members 
 "ofa loving and harmonious family ." h- 
 
 I cannot conclude these Notes — that have been to me one 
 of the most beguiling parts of the Subject which I have 
 hoped to illustrate, better than with the prophetic remarks 
 of the eloquent historian of Italy — Sismondi ; sentiments 
 which will find a sympathy and an echo from all those who 
 proudly, yet gratefully, feel themselves to be free men, and 
 who know how to appreciate the inestimable blessings of 
 Liberty which they enjoy. 
 
 " The Italians, everywhere victorious over their own 
 " tyrants, have been everywhere forced back under the 
 " yoke with redoubled cruelty by the hands of foreign 
 " despots. Attacked before they could form a government, 
 " a treasury, arsenals, or army, by a sovereign who reckons 
 " thirty millions of subjects, they did not attempt a hopeless 
 " resistance, which would have deprived them of every 
 " chance of the future. 
 
 " Italy is crushed ; but her heart still beats with the love 
 " of liberty, virtue, and glory ; she is chained, and covered 
 " with blood, but she still hnoics her strength and her future 
 " destiny ; she is insulted by those for whom she has opened 
 " the way to every improvement ; but she feels that she is
 
 550 NOTES TO C^NTO VI. 
 
 " formed to take tlie lead again. Europe will know no re- 
 " pose till the nation which, in the dark ages, lighted tJie 
 " torch of civilisation with that of liberty, shall be enabled 
 " herself to enjoy the light xohich she created." 
 
 THE END, 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY IBOTSON AND PALMER, SAVOY STREET.
 
 MESSRS. SAUNDERS AND OTLEY 
 
 HAVE JUST PUBLISHED 
 
 THE FOLLOWING NEW WORKS, 
 
 I. 
 ALICE, or THE MYSTERIES. In Three Volumes 
 post 8vo The Completion of Mr. Bulwer's beautiful Tale, 
 " ERNEST MALTRAVERS." 
 
 " Mr. Bulwer has never indulged so rich a vein of quick perception, 
 satirical remark, and bold, original, and powerful thinking, as we find 
 opened up in Ernest Maltravers and Alice."" — Examiner. 
 
 II. 
 
 Miss Martineau's RETROSPECT OF WESTERN 
 
 TRAVEL. 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 " This new work of Miss Martineau's is even more interesting than 
 her former admirable production on America ; her descriptions are 
 perfectly delightful." — London and Westminster Review. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson's CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN. 
 
 2 vols, post 8vo. New edition. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mrs.Jameson'sLIVES OF CELEBRATED QUEENS. 
 
 2 vols, post 8vo. New edition. 
 
 V. 
 Miss Mitford's COUNTRY STORIES, a Sequel to 
 
 " Our Village." 1 vol. post 8vo. 
 
 VI, 
 
 Lady Blessington's VICTIMS OF SOCIETY. 3 vols, 
 post 8vo. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MISREPRESENTATION ; or SCENES from REAL 
 LIFE. 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 VIII. 
 MORTIMER DELMAR. By the Author of " Conrad 
 Blessington." 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 IX. 
 
 HUSSARS, GUARDS, AND INFANTRY; ADVEN^- 
 
 TURKS OF Harry Austin. By as Officer. '■> vnls. jiost 8vo.
 
 -5^, 
 
 Messrs. Saunders and Otley's New Publications. 
 
 X. 
 
 Mr. Lodge's PEERAGE for 1838, FROM THE PER- 
 SONAL COMMUNICATIONS OF THE NOBILITY. 
 
 XI. 
 
 MRS. WILBERFORCE ; or THE WIDOW AND 
 HER ORPHAN FAMILY, 2 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 XII. 
 
 RUFUS, or THE RED KING. An Historical Ro- 
 mance. 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE BIT O' WRITIN', &c. by the O'Hara Family. 
 
 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 XIV« 
 
 ADVENTURES OF A CREOLE, by D. L. Joseph, 
 
 Esq., of Trinidad. 3 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE HEIRESS AND HER SUITORS. 1 vol. post 8vo. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE LADY ANNABETTA, by the Author of" Con- 
 stance," " Rosabel," &c. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, by M. deTocqueville. 
 
 Translated by H. Reeve, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. Second edition. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLIS, First Series. The 
 Third Edition. 2 vols, post 8vo. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 MRS. HEMANS' LIFE, with EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 HER LETTERS. By Mr. Chorley. Second edition. 
 2 vols. Plates. 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. New Edition. 
 Coloured Plates. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE BOOK OF FLOWERS. New Edition. Coloured 
 Plates. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. Coloured Plates,
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 JUL 1 8 20G2 
 ill /vr^(5 
 
 
 .IU'!IL.U 
 
 THE LIKKAKT 
 
 DMIVERSITY OF CALIFORISJIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 368 451 1
 
 -fe 
 
 I