c4 W;WH^kWf^^kWmmmmMi>^ ^pe-'C^r '> I7. \y >j ^ \'\' PK^HS^V .tfldfeii a>/ic/^ ty^Y^^'^^^iO ^^.^.^. JCiCCC. XX . ^t^: aCm ^^ (p . ^tr . * --ir ( J ^J^.^)^^ (^ /^li^^^ THIRD CANTO or CHILDE HAROLD m Published THIS day in 8vo. 5s. 6d. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON ; A DREAM; AND OTHER POEMS. BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD BYRON. T. DAVISON, Lombard-8tr««t, WbiteWars, London. Cljiltie garolti'0 lilgrtmage. CANTO THE THIRD. BY LORD BYRON " Afin que cette application vous for9skt de penser h autre chose; il u'y a en Ttrit^ de remade que celui-li et le temps." Lettre du Roi de Prusse a D''Alembtrt, Sept, 7, 1776. LONDON: PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 1816. Cfjiltje #aroltj's ipilsnmase CANTO III. ej)tltie l^arolti's i^tlgrtmase. CANTO UI. I. Is thy face like thy mother's^ my fair child I Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then we parted, — not as now we part. But with a hope. — Awaking with a start. The waters heave around me ; and on high The winds lift up their voices : I depart, Whither I know not ; but the hour 's gone b}^ When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye. * CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IIL II. Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar ! Swift be their guidance, wheresoever it lead ! Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on ; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. III. In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind ; Again I seize the theme then but begun. And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards : in that Tale I And The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower appears. Canto III, PILGRIMAGE. IV. Since my young days of passion — joy, or pain. Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string. And both may jar : it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling ; So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem To me, though to non^ else, a not ungrateful theme. V. He, who grown aged in this world of woe. In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him ; nor below Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, «harp endurance : he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell Still unimpairM, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. b- CHlLDi: HABOLD'S C««fo IIL VI. Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. What am I .? Nothing; but not so art thou, Soul of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth. Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mix''d with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling, still with thee in my crushed feelings'* deartli, VII. Yet tnust I think less wildly : — I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became. In its own eddy boiling and overwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame. My springs of life were poison''d. 'Tis too late I Yet am I changed ; though still enough the same In strengtli to bear what time can not abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. Canto nr, PILGRIMAGE.- > V VIII. Something too much of this : — ^but now 'tis past. And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long absent Harold re-appears at last ; " • He of the breast which fain no more would feel. Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne^er heal ; Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age : years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb ; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quafTd too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood ; but he fill'd again. And from a purer fount, on hoher ground. And deemed its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen. And heavy though it clank'd not ; worn with pain. Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen. Entering with every step, he took, through many a scene. 9 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cavt^ llf. X. Secure in guarded coldness, he had niix'cJ Again in fancied safety with his kind. And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd And sheath'^d with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind ; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation ! such as in strange land He fouiwi in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. XI. But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek To wear it ? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek. Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ? Harold, once more within tJie vortex, rolPd On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet witli a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. Cmto II r. PILGRTMAC E. XII. But soon he knew himself the most unfit '.^. ' Of men to herd with Man ; with whom he held Little in common ; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, tJiough his soul was quelFd In youth by his own tlioughts ; still uncompelTd, * He would not yield dominion of his mind To spirits against whom his own rebelled ; Proud though in desolation ; which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. XIII. Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; Where roU'd the ocean, thereon was his home ; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends. He had the passion and the power to roam ; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam. Were unto him companionship ; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake. 10 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto III. XIV. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars. Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born jars. And human frailties, were forgotten quite : Could he have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy ; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon iieaven which woos us to its brink. XV. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing Kestless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing. To whom the boundless air alone were home : Then came his fit again, which to overcome. As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his wiry dome Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. C^into III. PILGRIMAGE. 11 XVI. Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again. With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom ; The very knowledge that he Hved in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, "^Vhich, though 'twere wild, — ^as on the plundered wTeck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck,— . Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. XVII. Stop ! — ^for thy tread is on an Empire's dust ! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below ! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust ? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None ; but the moral's truth teUs simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — How that red rain hath made the harvest grow t And is this all the world has gained by thee, Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory ? IS CHILDE HAROLD'S Canlo III. XVIII. And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo ! How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! In " pride of place" ' here last the eagle flew, Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain. Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; Ambition''s life and labours all were vain ; He wears the shattered Hnks of the world'^s broken cliain. XIX. Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more free? Did nations combat to make One submit ; Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ? What I shall reviving Thraldom again be The patched-up idol of enlightened days ? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage? proff*ering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones ? No ; prove before ye praise ! 13 Canto I IT. PILGRIMAGE. XX. If not, o''er one fallen despot boast no more 1 In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears. Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions : all that most endears Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword Such as Hannodius * drew on Athens' tyrantjqrd. XXI. There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again. And 3 all went merry as a marriage-bell ; But hush I hark ! a deep sound strikes Hke a rising kncU ! 14 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto lit. XXII. Did ye not hear it ? — No ; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling ©""er the stony street ; On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — But, hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more. As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; And nearer, clearer, deadher than before ! Arm! Arm! it is — ^it is — the cannon's opening loar ! XXIII. Within a windowed niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival. And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear ; And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier. And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell : He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 15 XXIV. Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and trembhngs of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Biush'd at the praise of their own loveUness ; And there were sudden partings, such as press The hfe from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes. Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise ? XXV. And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering caTj Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb. Or whispering, with white lips — ^* The foe! They come! they come !" 16 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto III. XXVI. And wild and high the " Cameron'*s gathering^' rose ! The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn'*s hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills. Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And * Evan*'s, ^ Donald'*s fame rings in each clansman''s eai*s 1 XXVII. And Ardennes ^ waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature^s tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e''er grieves, Over the unretuming brave, — ^alas h Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe Aiwl burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. Canto JIL PILGRIMAGE. 17 XXVIII. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's ciifcle proudly gay. The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The mom the marshalling in arms, — ^the day Battle's magnificently-stern array ! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay. Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent. Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent ! XXIX Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine ; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his hne, And partly that I did his sire some wrong. And partly that bright names will hallow song ; And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd. They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard! c 18 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto JH , XXX. There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee. And mine were nothing, had I such to give ; But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, Which Hving waves where thou didst cease to Hve, And saw around me the wide field revive With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."^ XXXI. I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; The ArchangePs trump, not Glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of Fame May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake The fever of vain longing, and the name So honoured but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 19 XXXII. They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: The tree will wither long before it fall ; The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness ; the ruined wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; The bars survive the captive they enthral ; The day drags through though storms keep out the sun ; And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on : XXXIII. Even as a broken mirror, which the glass In every fragment multiplies ; and makes A thousand images of one that was, The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; And thus the heart will do which not forsakes. Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold. And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old. Shewing no visible sign, for such things are untold. c2 ftO CHILDE HAROLD'S Cant0 III. XXXIV. There is a very life in our despair. Vitality of poison, — a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it were As nothing did we die ; but Life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit. Like to the apples on the ^Dead Sea's shore. All ashes to the taste : Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name three- score ? XXXV. The Psahnist numbered out the years of man : They are enough *, and if thy tale be true^ Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span. More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo I Milhons of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say^— " Here, where the sword united nations drew, '^ Our countrymen were warring on that day ! '^ Ajid this is much, and all which will not pass awa,y. ^R Canti, III, PILGRIMAGE. 21 XXXVL There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men. Whose spirit antithetically mixt One moment of the mightiest, and again On Httle objects with like firmness fixt. Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been betwixt. Thy throne had still been thine, or never been ; For daring made thy rise as fall : thou seek'st Even now to re-assume the imperial mien. And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene I XXXVII. Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who wooed thee once, thy vassal^ and became The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert. Who deem'd thee for a time whatever thou didst assert J^J2 CHILDE HAROLD'S Ckmto TIT. XXXVIII. Oh, more or less than man — ^in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field ; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild. But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor. However deeply in men's spirits skilPd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war. Nor learn that tempted Fate will le^ve the loftiest star. XXXIX. Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide With that untaught innate philosophy. Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride. Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, ^^ To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; — When Fortune fled her spoiPd and favourite child. He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled, Canto HI. PILGRIMAGE. J«^ XL. Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to- show That just habitual scorn which could contemn Men and their thoughts ; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy Hp and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow : 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. XLI. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock. Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock ; But men's tlioughtswere the steps which paved thy throne, Their admiration thy best weapon shone ; The part of Philip's son was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at paen ; For seeptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. ^ 24} CHILDE HAROLD'S Cmio HI. XLII. But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And t?iere hath been thy bane ; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore. Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. XLIII. This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things^ Which stir too strongly the souFs secret springs, * And are themselves the fools to those they fool ; Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule : Canto III, PILGRIMAGE. 25 XLIV. Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nurs'd and bigotted to strife, ' That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die ; • Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. . *. ,.•- XLV. He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; He who surpasses or subdues mankind. Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread. Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head. And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. ^6 CHILDE HAROLD'S CmtdW. XLVI. Away with these ! true Wisdom's world will be Within its own creation, or in thine, Maternal Nature ! for who teems like thee. Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine ? There Harold gazes on a work divine, A blending of all beauties ; streams and dells. Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine. And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells, XLVII. And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind. Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd. All tenantless, save to the crannying wind. Or holding dark communion with the cloud. There was a day when they were young and proud. Banners on high, and battles pass'd below ; But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. Cante III, PILGRIMAGE.. ^^ ^ XL VIII. Beneath these battlements, within those walls, -' ■■ Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state- Each robber chief. upheld his armed halls, ^^' Doing his evil will, nor less elate Than mightier heroes of a longer date. What want these outlaws ^^ conquerors should have ? But History's purchased page to call them great ? A wider space, an ornamented grave .'' Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave. XLIX. In their baronial feuds and single fields, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died ! And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields. With emblems well devised by amorous pride,'' '5' -'V Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide; But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on Keen contest and destruction near aUied, And many a tower for some fair mischief won. Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run. 28 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto III. L. But Thou, exulting and abounding river ! Making thy waves a blessing as they flow Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever Could man but leave thy bright creation so, Nor its fair promise from the surface mow With the sharp scythe of conflict,— then to see Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know Earth paved like Heaven ; and to seem such to me Even now what wants thy stream ? — that it should Lethe be. LI. A thousand battles have assaifd thy banks. But these and half their fame have pass*'d away. And Slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks ; Their very graves are gone, and what are they? Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday. And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray ; But o'er the blackened memory''s blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem. Canto in. PILGRIMAGE. ^ LII. Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, )> . Yet not insensibly to all which here Awoke the jocund birds to early song In glens which might have made even exile dear : Though on his brow were graven lines austere. And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place Of feehngs fierier far but less severe, Joy was not always absent from his face. But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace. LIII. Nor was all love shut from him, though his days Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze^ On such as smile upon us ; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wean'd it from all worldlings : thus he felt, For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. so CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto III. LIV. And he had learn'd to love, — I know not why, For this in such as him seems strange of mood, — The helpless looks of blooming infancy, Even in its earliest nurture ; what subdued, To change like this, a mind so far imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know ; But thus it was ; and though in solitude Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow. In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow. LV. And there was one soft breast^ as hath been said. Which unto his was bound by stronger ties Than the church links withal ; and, though unwed. That love was pure, and, far above disguise. Had stood the test of mortal enmities Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes ; But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour i Canto 111. .PILGRIMAGE.,? 31 1. The castled crag of Drachenfels '* Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine. And hills all rich with blossomed trees, And fields which promise corn and wine. And scattered cities crowning these. Whose far white walls along them shine. Have strewed a scene, which I should see With double joy wert thou with me ! And peasant gii'ls, with deep blue eyes, And hands which offer early flowers. Walk smiling o'er this paradise ; Above, the frequent feudal towers Through green leaves lift their walls of grey, And many a rock which steeply lours, And noble arch in proud decay, Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; But one thing want these banks of Rhine, — Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! ^ ' CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto ///. 3. I send the lilies given to me ; Though long before thy hand they touch, I know that they must withered be, But yet reject them not as such ; For I have cherished them as dear. Because they yet may meet thine eye, And guide thy soul to mine even here. When thou behold'st them drooping nigh, And knowst them gathered by the Rhine, And offered from my heart to thine ! 4. The river nobly foams and flows. The charm of this enchanted ground. And all its thousand turns disclose Some fresher beauty varying round ; The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Through life to dwell delighted here ; Nor could on earth a spot be found To nature and to me so dear. Could thy dear eyes in following mine Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! CILGRIMAGE. ^ r LXXIL I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me ; and to me> High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture : I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain. Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. LXXIII. And thus I am absorbed, and this is life : I look upon the peopled desart past. As on a place of agony and strife. Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast. To act and sufier, but remount at last With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring, Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. 4.^ CHILDE HAROLD'S * Canto IIL LXXIV. And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form. Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly and worm, — When elements to elements conform. And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzHng, but more warm ? The bodiless thought ? the Spirit of each spot ? Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot? LXXV. Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion ? should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these ? and stem A tide of suifering, rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below, Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow? CtmtolIL PILGRIMAGE. 43- LXXVI. But this is not my theme ; and I return To that which is immediate, and require Those who find contemplation in the urn. To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, A native of the land where I respire The clear air for a -while — a passing guest. Where he became a being, — whose desire Was to be glorious ; 'twas a foolish quest. The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest. LXXVII. Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The apostle of affliction, he who threw Enchantment over passion, and from woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew How to make madness beautiful, and cast Cer erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue Of words, hke sunbeams, dazzling as they past The eyes, which o'er them shed t^ars feelingly and fast. 44 CHILDE HABOLD»S Cant* lU. LXXVUI. His love was passion'^s essence — ^as a tree On fire by lightning ; with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted ; for to be Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same. :' But his was not the love of living dame, Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams. But of ideal beauty, which became In him existence, and overflowing teems Along his burning page, distempered though it seems> LXXIX. ITiis breathed itself to life in Julie, this Invested her with all that's wild and sweet ; This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss Which every morn his fevered lip would greet. From her's, who but with friendship his would meet ; But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast Flashed the thriU'd spirif s love-devouring heat ; In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest. Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possestJ* CanioUL ' 5^ PILGRIMAGE. ^ ^ LXXX. His life was one long war with self-sought foes, Or friends by him self-banish'd ; for his mind Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, ''Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and bhnd. But he was phrenzied, — wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which skill could never find ; But he was phrenzied by disease or woe, To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show. LXXXI. For then he was inspired, and from him came, As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore. Those oracles which set the world in flame. Nor ceased to bum till kingdoms were no more : Did he not this for France ? which lay before Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years ? Broken and trembling, to the yoke she bore. Till by the voice of him and his compeers, Roused up to too much wrath which follows o'ergrown fears ? 46 CHTLDE HAROLD'S Canto 111. LXXXII. They made themselves a fearful monument ! The wreck of old opinions — things which grew Breathed from the birth of time : the veil they rent, And what behind it lay, all earth shall view. But good with ill they also overthrew. Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild Upon the same foundation, and renew Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour re-fiU'd, As heretofore, because ambition was self-wilPd. LXXXIII. But this will not endure, nor be endured ! Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt* They might have used it better, but, allured By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt On one another ; pity ceased to melt With her once natural charities. But they. Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt. They were not eagles^ nourished with the day; Wliat marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey ? Canto 11 r, t PILGRIMAGE. 47 LXXXIV. What deep wounds ever closed without a scar ? The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear That which disfigures it; and they who war ?^ With their own hopes, and have been vanquished, bear . Silence, but not submission : in his lair Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour Which shall atone for years ; none need despair : It came, it cometh, and will come, — the power To punish or forgive — in 07ie we shall be slower. j; -i»J LXXXV. Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction ; once I loved Tom ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved. That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 48 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto TIL LXXXVI. It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen. Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep ; and drawing near. There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar. Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; LXXXVII. He is an evening reveller, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; At intervals, some bird from out the brakes, Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill. But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their teqrs of love instil. Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. Canto in. PILGRIMAGE. Hft LXXXVIII. Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires,— 'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great. Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state. And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, , That fortune, fame, power, hfe, have named themselves a star. LXXXIX. All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feehng most ; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep :— AU heaven and earth are still : From the high host Of stars, to the lulPd lake and mountain-coast. All is concentered in a life intense. Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost. But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 50 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto ITT. xc. Then stirs the feehng infinite, so felt In sohtude, where we ai-e least alone ; A truth, which through our being then doth melt And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of music, which makes know^ j Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cy therea's zone. Binding all things with beauty; — "'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. XCI. Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,2o and thus take* A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek* The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands, Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer! Canto in. PILGRIMAGE. M ' XCII. The sky is changed ! — and such a change i Oh night, ^ And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman \ Far along, From peak \a peak, the ratthng crags among Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloudy But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back ix> the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud 1 XCIII. And this is in the night : — Most glorious night ! Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,- — A portion of the tempest and of thee ! How the Ht lake shines, a phosphoric sea. And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! And now again 'tis black, — ^and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its moiintain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. • e2 ■ 5% CHILDE HAROLD'S Caiito HI. XCIV. Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate, whose mining depths so intervene. That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ; Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed: — Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters,-^— war within themselves to wage. , xcv. Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way. The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: . For here, not pne, but many, make their play. And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand. Flashing and cast around : of all the band. The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd His lightnings, — as if he did undei'stand. That in such gaps as desolation work'd. There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. Canto IIL PILGRIMAGE. 53 XCVI. sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye 1 With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll Of your departing voices, is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless, — ^if I rest. But where of ye, oh tempests ! is the goal ? Are ye like those within the human breast ? t)r do ye find, at length, hke eagles,, some high nest ? XCVII. Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me, — could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feehngs, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek. Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — ^into one word. And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. •^- M CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto 111. XCVIII. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom. Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn. And living as if earth contained no tomb, — And glowing into day : we may resume The march of our existence : and thus I, Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. XCIX. Clarens ! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep Love ! Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought ; Thy trees take root in Love ; the snows above The very Glaciers have his colours caught. And sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought 22 By rays which sleep there lovingly : the rocks. The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, Which stir and sting the soul with hope thatwoos, then mocks. aitti Canto in, , PILGRIMAGE. .|K> ' _. ^^ C. Clarens ! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,— " Undying Lovers, who here ascends a throne To which the steps are mountains ; where the god Is a pervading Kfe and light, — so shown Not on those summits solely, nor alone In the still cave and forest ; o''er the flower His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown. His soft and summer breath, whose tend«- power Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour. CI. All things are here of Mm ; from the black pines, Which are his shade on high, an J the loud roar Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines Which slope his green path downward to the shore, AVhere the bowed waters meet him, and adore, Kissing his feet with murmurs ; and the wood. The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar. But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood. Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude. 56 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto III. CII. A populous solitude of bees and birds, And fairy-form'd and many-coloured things. Who worship him with notes more sweet than words^ And innocently open their glad wings. Fearless and full of life : the gush of springs^ And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, Minghng, and made by Love, unto one mighty end. cm. He who hath loved not, here would learn that love. And make -his heart a spirit ; he who knows That tender mystery, will love the more. For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes. And the world's waste, have driven him far from those* For 'tis his nature to advance or die ; He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie. With the immortal lights, in its eternity ! . Canto IIL PILGRIMAGE. 57 CIV. 'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, PeopUng it with affections ; but he found It was the scene which passion must allot To the mind-s purified beings ; 'twas the ground Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound. And hallowed it with loveliness : 'tis lone. And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound. And sense, and sight of sweetness ; here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch^ the Alps have rear'd a throne. CV. Lausanne ! and Femey ! ye have been the abodes ^^ Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name ; Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, A path to perpetuity of fame : They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim. Was, Titan-hke, on daring doubts to pile Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame Of Heaven, again assail'd, if Heaven the while On man and man's research could deign do more than smile. 58 CHIIDE HAROLD'S Ca.i(» III. * CVI. The one was fire and fickleness, a child, Most mutable in wishes, but in mind, A wit as various, — gay, grave, sage, or wild,-— Historian, bard, philosopher, combined ; He multiplied himself among mankind. The Proteus of their talents : But his own Bijeathed most in ridicule,— which, as the wind, Blew where it listed, laying all thmgs prone, — Now to overthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. CVII. The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought. And hiving wisdom with each studious year. In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought. And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer ; The lord of irony, — ^that master-spell. Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear. And doom''d him to the zealot'*s ready Hell, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 59 CVIII. Yet, peace be with their ashes, — ^for by them. If merited, the penalty is paid ; It is not ours to judge, — far less condemn ; The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all, — or hope and dread allay''d By slumber, on one pillow, — ^in the dust. Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd ; And when it shall revive, as is our trust, ""Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. CIX. But let me quit man's works, again to read His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend This page, which from my reveries I feed. Until it seems prolonging without end. The clouds above me to the white Alps tend. And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er May be permitted, as my steps I bend To their most great and growing region, where The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. 60 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cant0 III. ex. Italia ! too, Italia ! looking on thee, Full flashes on the soul the Hght of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee. To the last halo of the chiefs and sages. Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still. The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill. Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. CXL Thus far I have proceeded in a theme Renewed with no kind auspices : — to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem We are not what we should be, — and to steel The heart against itself; and to conceal. With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, — Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal, — Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought. Is a stern task of soul : — No matter, — ^it is taught. Canto^ in. PILGRIMAGE. ^ CXII. And for these words, thus woven into song. It may be that they are a harmless wile,— The colouring of the scenes which fleet along, Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile My breast, or that of others, for a while. . Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not So young as to regard men's frown or smile. As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot ; I stood and stand alone, — remembered or forgot. CXIII. I have not loved the world, nor the world nie ; I have not flattered it's rank breath, nor bow'd To it's idolatries a patient knee, — Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles,— nor cried aloud In worship of an echo ; in the crowd They could not deem me one of such ; I stood Among them, but not of them ; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed ** my mind, which thus itself subdued. 62 CHILDE HAROLD S Canto III. CXIV. I have not loved the world, nor the world me,— But let us part fair foes ; I do believe, '[I'hough I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things, — hopes which will not deceive. And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing : I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve ; ^s That two, or one, are almost what they seem, — That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. cxv. My daughter ! with thy name this song begun— My daughter I with thy name thus much shall end— I see thee not, — I hear thee not, — ^but none Can be so wrapt in thee ; diou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend : Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold. My voice shall with thy future visions blend. And reach into thy heart,— when mine is cold,— A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. Canto TIL PILGRIMAGE. ^B CXVI. To aid tliy mind's developement, — to watch Thy dawn of httle joys, — to sit and see Almost thy very growth, — to view thee catch Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee ! To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, — This, it should seem^ was not reserved for me ; Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, I know not what is tliere, yet something like to this. CXVII. Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught With desolation, — and a broken claim: Though the grave closed between us, — 'twere the same^ I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain M^^ blood from out thy being, were an aim. And an attainment, — ^all would be in vain,— Still thou would'st love me, still that more than hfe retain. 64 CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. Canto III. CXVIII. The child of love, — though born in bitterness. And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire These were the elements, — and thine no less. As yet such are around thee, — ^but thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher. Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O'er the sea, And from the mountains where I now respire, Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, As, witli a sigji, I deem thou mighfat have been to me ! Note0, NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO IIL Note 1, page 12, line 5. In ** pride of place" here last the eagle Jleix), ^' Pride of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. — See Macbeth, &c. *' An Eagle towering in his pride of place '' Was by a mousing Owl hawked at and killed.'* Note 2, page 13, line p. Such as Harmodius dretv on Athens* tyrant lord. See the famous Song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. — The best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. Den- man. ^* With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," &c. Note 3, page 13, line 17. And all went merry as a marriage-hell. On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was giveoj^t Brussels. F 2 68 NOTES. Notes 4 and 5, page lO, line Q. And Evari^s, Donald* sjame rings in each clansman*s ears. Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the '' gentk Lochiel" of the " forty-five." Note 6, page 16, line 10. And Ardennes tvaves above them her green leaves. The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the *' forest of Ardennes/' famous in Boiardo's Orlando, and im- mortal in Shakespeare's '^ As you like it." It is also celebrated in Tacitus as being the spot of successful defence by the Ger- mans against the Roman encroachments. — I have ventured to adopt the name connected with noJ)ler associations than those of mere slaughter. Note 7, page 18, line g. I turn'' d from all she brought to those she coidd not bring. My guide from Mont St. Jean over the field seemed intelli- gent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle) which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's ^ide. — Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be eflfacedj the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, *^ here Major How- ard lay; I was near him when wounded." I told hipi my rela- NOTES. 69 tionship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field from the peculiarity of the two trees abovementioned. I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination : I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chseronea, and Marathon 5 and the field around Mont St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but im- pressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a cele- brated spot^ to vie in interest with any or all of these^ except perhaps the last mentioned. Note 8^ page 20^ line 6. LiJce to the apples on the Dead Sea^s shore. The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes were said to be fair without, and within ashes. — Vide Tacitus^ His- tor. 1. 5. 7. Note 9, page 23, line last. For sceptred cynics earth toerejar too ivide a den. The great error of Napoleon, *' if we have writ our annals true,** was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them 3 perhaps more offen- sive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. JSuch were his speeches to public assemblies as well as indi- 70 NOTES. viduals : and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, " This is pleasanter than Moscow,'* would probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the re- mark. Note 10, page 2/, line 6. What tjoayit these outlaivs conquerors should have ? " What wants that knave ^' That a king should have ? was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements. — See the Ballad. Note l\, page 31, line 1. The castled crag of Drachenfels. The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of *' the Seven Mountains,'* over the Rhine banks ; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions : it is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river 3 on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another called the Jew's castle, and a large cross commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother : the number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful. • Note 12, page 33, line last. The tjohiteness of his sotd, and thus men oer him ivept. The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau NOTES. 71 (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen on the last day of the fourth year of the French republic) stft remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required : his name was enough 5 France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. — His funeral was at- tended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word, but though he distinguished him- self greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there ; his death was attended by suspiirions of poison. A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription more sim- ple and pleasing. *' The Army of the Sambre and Meuse " to its Commander in Chief ^ *' Hoche." This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier genereds before Buonaparte mono^ polized her triumphs. — He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland. Note 13, page 34, line 1. Here Ehrenhreitstein, tviih her shattered tcall. Ehrenbreitstein, i. e. '' the broad Stone of Honour," one of the Wrongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben.— It had been and 7^ NOTES. could only be reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise* After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison, but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and 1 slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it. Note 14, page 36, line last. Unsepulchred they roani'd, and shriek' d each tvandering ghost. The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the service of France, who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages, (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country) and the less justi- fiable larcenies of the Swiss postillions, who carried them off to sell for knife-handles, a purpose for which the whiteness im- bibed by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made the qnarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preservation which I intend for them. , Note 15, page 37, line last. Leveled Aventicum hath stretved her subject lands, Aventicum (near Morat) was the Roman capital of Helvetia, where Avenches now stands. NOTES. 75 ___ ^ Note 16, page 38, line 9. And held imihin their urn otie mind, one heart, one dust, Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a trai- tor by Aulus Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago ; — it is thus — Julia Alpinula Hie jaceo Infelicis patris, infelix proles Deae Aventiae Sacerdos j Exorare patris necem non potui Male mori in fatis ille erat, Vixi annos XXHI. I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication. Note 17, page 38, line 1 7. . In the sun^sjace, like yonder Alpine snoixi,. This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3d, 181 6) which even at this distance dazzles mine. (July 20th.) I this day observed for some time the distinct 14 NOTES. reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the calm of the lake^ which I was crossing in my boat ; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is 60 miles. Note 18, page 40^ line 12. Bi/ the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in water^ salt or fresh^ except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago. Note 19;, page 44, line last. Than vulgar minds may be 'with all they seeh possest. This refers to the account in his '^ Confessions" of his pas- sion for the Comtesse d*Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lambert) and his long walk every morning for the sake of the single kiss which was the common salutation of French acquaintance.— Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure description and expression of love that ever kindled into words ; which after all must be felt, from their very force, to be inadequate to the delineation : a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean. Note 20, page 50, line 12. Of earth-o* ergazing mountains, and thus take. It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impressive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not in the Temple^ but on the Mount. To wave the question of devotion, and turn to human elo- quence, — the most effectual and splendid specimens were not NOTES. 75 pronounced within walls. Demosthenes addressed the public and popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to their effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be conceived from the difference between what we read of the emotions then and there produced, and those we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is one thing to read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or by the springs with mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you : and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library— this I know. Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Me- thodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvas nor to question) I should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the Jields, and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are ac- customed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers where- ever they may be at the stated hours — of course frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required) ; the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication; nothing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within and upon them, made a far greater'impression than any general rite which was ever per- ormed in places of worship, of which I have seen those of al- most every persuasion under the suu : including most of our 76 NOTES. own sectaries, and the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free exercise of their belief and its rites : some of these I had a distant view of at Patras, and from what I could make out of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a spectator. Note 21, page 51, line 1. The shy is changed! — and such a change ! Oh night. The thunder-storms to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen among the Acro- ceraunian mountains of Chimari several more terrible, but none more beautiful. Note 22, page 54, line 14. And sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought. Rousseau's Heloise, Lettre 17, p.art 4, note. '^ Ces mon- *^' tagnes sont si hautes qu'une demi-heure apres le soleil '' couche, leurs sommets sont encore eclaires de ses rayons j *^ dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle couleur de '^ rose qu'on appergoit de fort loin." This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie. " J'allai ^ Vevay loger ^ la Clef, et pendant deux jours que '' j'y restai sans voir personne, je pris pour cette ville un amour ^' qui m'a suivi dans tons mes voyages, et qui m'y a fait etablir '* enfin les heros de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers ^ ceux '^ qui ont du gout et qui sont sensibles : allez il Vevai — visitez le " pays, examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si NOTES. 77 ^' la Nature n*a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une " Claire et pour un St. Preux 3 mais ne les y cherchez pas." Les Confessions, livre iv. page 306. Lyons ed. \']^Q. In July, 181(5, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva; and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not unin- terested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his *^ Heloise," I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, Meillerie, Erian, and the entrances of the Rhone), without being forcibly struck with it's peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not all ; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie is invested, is of a still higher and more compre- hensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory : it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested ; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole. If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same associa- tions would not less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by their adoption ) he has shewn his sense of their beauty by the selection ; but they have done that for him which no human being could do for them. I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from Meillerie (where we landed for some time), to St. Gingo during a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around. 78 ' NOTES. although occasionally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. By a coincidence which I could not regret, it was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. On gaining the shore at St. Gingo, we found that the wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old chesnut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the height is a seat called the Chateau de Clarens. The hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods ; one of these was named the '^ Bosquet de Julie/' and it is re- markable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfish' ness of the monks of St. Bernard, (to whom the land apper- tained), that the ground might be inclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable superstition, the inhabit- ants of Clarens still point out the spot w^here its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preserva- tion of the " local habitations" he has given to ^^ airy nothings." The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent one, but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that ^' La route vaut '* njieux que les souvenirs.'.' Note 23, page 57, line 10. Lausanne ! and Ferney ! ye have been the abodes. Voltaire and Gibbon. NOTES. 79 Note 24, page 6l, line last. Had I notjiled my mind^ tvhich thus itself subdued, f« If it be thus, " For Banquo's issue have JJiled my mind." Macbeth. Note 25, page 62, line 7. O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve. It is said by Rochefoucault that **^ there is alvoays something in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them." THE END. T. Davison, Lombard-street, )il'tutefriars, London. LIST OF THE POEMS OF THE RIGHT HON. LORD BYRON. Printed uniformly and separately, in Octavo. 1. CHILDE HAROLD, Canto I. and H. 8vo. 12?. 2. J Canto III. 8vo. 5s. Qd, {not\i first published.) 3. THE GIAOUR, 8vo. 5s. Qd. 4. THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS, Svo, 5s, Qd. 5. THE CORSAIR, Bvo. 5s, Qd, 6. LARA, Bvo. 5s, 6d. 7. SIEGE OF CORINTH and PARISINA, 8vo. 5s, 6d. 8. PRISONER OF CHILLON, Bvo. 5s. Qd. (notv frst published). g. ODE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, Bvo. is.Qd. 10. HEBREW MELODIES, Bvo. 5s, Qd. 11. POEMS, containing Fare thee well, and five others, 8vo. 2s. 12. MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN, spoken at Dniry Lane Theatre, Bvo. 1*. ALSO, TWELVE PLATES, illustrative of the Poems of LORD BYRON, engraved by C. Heath, and other Artists, from the original designs of Stothard. Printed in 8vo. to suit the above Edition. 305. CJiillie ^uxoWsi ^tlfitimage* CANTO THE FOURTH. BY LORD BYRON, Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra Italia, e un mare e I'altro, che la bagna. Akiosto, Satira iii. LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE- STREET. 1818. T. DAVISON, LOMBARD-STREET, WHITEFRIARS, LONDON. Venice f Janttary 2, 1818. TO JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ. A.M. F.R.S. 4*0. Sfc, S^c. MY DEAR HOBHOUSE, After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend it is not ex* traordinary that I should recur to one still older and better, — to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advan- tages of an. enUghtened friendship, than — though not ungrateful — I can, or could be, IV to Childe Harold, for any public favour re- flected through the poem on the poet, — to one, whom I have known long, and accom- panied far, whom 1 have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril — to a friend often tried and never found want- ing ; — to yourself. In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth, and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years intimacy with a man of learn- ing, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds hke ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity, have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship ; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to reheve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much ac- customed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus at- tempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence, but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a Oiore agreeable recollection for both, inas- much as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men hav^ experienced, an4 nq n one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself. It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable — Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy ; and what Athens and Constan- tinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last ; and per- haps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and how- ever unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions Vll and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part Avith it with a kind of regret, which I hardly sus- pected that events could have left me for imaginary objects. With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith^s " Citizen of the World, ^^ whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined, that I had drawn, a vm distinction between the author and the pil- grim ; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavaihng, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether. — and have done so. The opi- nions which have been, or may be, formed^ on that subject, are now a matter of indiffer- ence ; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer ; and the author, w ho has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors. In the course of the following Canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. IX But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the laby- rinth of external objects and the consequent reflections ; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and these were necessarily li- mited to the elucidation of the text. It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and man- ners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us, — though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode, — to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impos- sible. It may be enough then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beauti- ful language — " Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la piii nobile ed insieme la piCi dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto r antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima/' Italy has great names still — Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonti, Visconti, Morelh^Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzo- phanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, andVacca, will secure to the present generation an ho- nourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres ; and in some the very highest — Europe — the World — has but one Canova. XI It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that " La pianta uomo nasce piu robusta in Itaha che in qualunque altra terra — e che gh stessi atroci dehtti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova/" Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doc- trine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Itahans are in no respect more ferocious than their neigh- bours, that man'must be wilfully blind, or ig- norantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities^ the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and amidst all the dis- advantages of repeated revolutions, the deso- lation of battles and the despair of ages, their still unquenched " longing after immor- Xll tality/' — the immortality of independence. And when Ave ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, "Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non h piii come era prima," it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exult- ation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me, " Non movero mai corda *' Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda." What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than XIU a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, " Verily they will have their reward,"" and at no very distant period. Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state ; and repeat once more how truly I am ever Your obliged And affectionate friend, BYRON. CONTENTS. Page CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. Canto IV 3 Notes 99 POEMS. ' Romance muy doloroso del sitio y toma de Al- bania, el qual dezia en Aravigo assi. • . 240 Translation 241 Per Monaca. Sonetto di Vittorelli. . . 256 Translation. . . . . . . . 25/ FOURTH CANTO OF CHILDE HAROLD Cfiiltie Harolti's i^ilgtimase* CANTO IV. I. I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ; (0 A palace and a prison on each hand : I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter'*s wand : A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles I b2 4) CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. II. She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, (2) Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers : And such she was ; — ^her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. III. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, (3) And silent rows the songless gondolier ; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore. And music meets not always now the ear : Those days are gone — ^but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die. Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear. The pleasant place of all festivity. The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! Canto ir. PILGRIMAGE. IV. But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanished sway ; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto ; Shy lock and the Moor, And Pierre, can not be swept or worn away — The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er. For us repeopled were the sohtary shore. V. The beings of the mind are not of clay ; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence : that which Fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied First exiles, then replaces what we hate ; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. O CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. VI. Such is the refuge of our youth and age, The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy ; And this worn feehng peoples many a page, And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye : Yet there are things whose strong reality Outshines our fairy-land ; in shape and hues More beautiful than our fantastic sky, And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diiFuse : VII. I saw or dreamed of such, — ^but let them go — They came hke truth, and disappeared like dreams ; And whatsoe'er they were — are now but so : I could replace them if I would, still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found ; Let these too go— for waking Reason deems Such over-weening phantasies unsound. And other voices speak, and other sights sun-ound. Canto ir. PILGUIMAGE. VIII. I've taught me other tongues — and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger ; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise ; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with — ^ay, or without mankind ; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause ; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free. And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, IX. Perhaps I loved it well : and should I lay My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it — if we may Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine My hopes of being remembered in my line With my land's language : if too fond and far These aspirations in their scope incline, — If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Obli>non bar 8 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. X. My name from out the temple where the dead Are honoured by the nations — ^let it be— And Hght the laurels on a loftier head ! And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — *' Sparta hath many a worthier son than he."" (4) Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed : I should have known what fruit would spring from such a XI. The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, The Bucentaur hes rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood ! St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood (5) Stand, but in mockery of his withered power. Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued. And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. ^ XII. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — C^) An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities ; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt ; Oh for one hour of bhnd old Dandolo ! C^) Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. XIII. Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass. Their gilded collars gUttering in the sun ; But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? W Are they not bridled ? — Venice, lost and won. Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, hke a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes. From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 10 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. XIV. In youth she was all glory, — a new Tyre, — 'Her very by-word sprung from victory, The " Planter of the Lion," * which through fire And blood she bore o''er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite ; Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can bhght. XV: Statues of glass — ^all shiver'd — the long file Of her dead Doges are declin'd to dust ; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust. Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls. Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, (9) Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. * Plant the Lion — that is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon — Pianta-leone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon. Canto IV: PILGRIMAGE. ^1 XVI. AVhen Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, And fetter''d thousands bore the yoke of war, Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, * Her voice their only ransom from afar : See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the overmastered victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. XVII. Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot. Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, ^Albion! to thee: the Ocean queen should not -Mil Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. * The story is told in Plutarch's life of Nicias. n CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV, XVIII. I lov'd her from my boyhood — she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising Hke water-columns from the sea. Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; And Otway, Ratcliff, Schiller, Shakspeare's art,* Had stamped her image in me, and even so. Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance even dearer in her day of woe. Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. XIX. I can repeople with the past — and of The present there is stiU for eye and thought. And meditation chastened down, enough ; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought ; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice ! have their colours caught : * There are some feehngs Time can not benumb. Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. * Venice Preserved 3 Mysteries of Udolpho 3 the Ghost-seer, or Armenian 3 the Merchant of Venice 3 Othello. Canto ir. PILGRIMAGE. IS XX. But from their nature will the tannen grow (^o) Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter''d rocks, Rooted in barrenness, where nought below Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks The howling tempest, till its height and frame Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks Of bleak, grey, granite, into life it came. And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same, XXI. Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of Hfe and sufferance make its firm abode In bare and desolated bosoms : mute The camel labours with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd In vain should such example be ; if they, Things of ignoble or of savage mood. Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 14 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IF. XXII. All suiFering doth destroy, or is destroyed, Even by the sufferer ; and, in each event Ends: — Some, with hope replenished and rebuoy'd, Return to whence they came — with like intent, And weave their web again ; some, bow'd and bent, Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time. And perish with the reed on which they leant ; Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were form'd to sink or chmb : XXIII. But ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token hke a scorpion'^s sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever : it may be a sound — A tone of music, — summer's eve — or spring, A flower — ^the wind — the ocean— which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound ; Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 15 XXIV. And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind. But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind. Which out of things familiar, undesigned. When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind. The cold — the changed — ^perchance the dead — anew, The moum'd, the loved, the lost — too many !— yet how few ! XXV. But my soul wanders ; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand. Wherein were cast the heroic and the free. The beautifiil, the brave— the lords of earth and sea, 1^ CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. XXVI. The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome ! And even since, and now, fair Italy ! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; Even in thy desart, what is hke to thee ? Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility ; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced. XXVII. The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 17 XXVIII. A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o^er half the lovely heaven ; but still (*0 Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roird o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaimed her order : — gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose. Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, XXIX. Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar. Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues. From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change ; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day Dies Uke the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away. The last still lovehest, till— 'tis gone — and all is gray. 18 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV XXX. There is a tomb in Arqua ; — ^rear'd in air, PilWd in their sarcophagus, repose The bones of Laura's lover : here repair Many familiar with his well-sung woes. The pilgrims of his genius. He arose To raise a language, and his land reclaim From the duU yoke of her barbaric foes : Watering the tree which bears his lady's name (^2) With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. XXXI They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; (*3) The mountain-village where his latter days Went down the vale of years ; and 'tis their pride-— An honest pride — and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger's gaze His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. CmitoIV. PILGRIMAGE. 19 XXXII. And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt Is one of that complexion which seems made For those who their mortality have felt, And sought a refuge from their hopes decay''d In the deep umbrage of a green hill'^s shade, Which shows a distant prospect far away Of busy cities, now in vain displayed. For they can lure no further ; and the ray Of a bright sun can make sufficient hohday, XXXIII. Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, Clear as its current, ghde the sauntering hours With a calm languor, which, though to the eye Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. If from society we learn to live, 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die ; It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive : c 2 20 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV XXXIV. Or, it may be, with demons, who impair (i^) The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestin"'d to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; Making the sun hke blood, the earth a tomb. The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. XXXV. Ferrara ! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for sohtude, There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and,,was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impelFd, of those who wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. CnintoIV. , PILGRIMAGE. 21 XXXVI. And Tasso is their glory and their shame. Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell ! And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame. And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell : The miserable despot could not quell The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell Where he had plung'd it. Glory without end Scattered the clouds away — and on that name attend XXXVII. The tears and praises of all time ; while thine Would rot in its obhvion — in the sink Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line Is shaken into nothing ; but the link Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn — Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink From thee ! if in another station born. Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn : 2^ CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto JV, XXXVIII. Thou 1 form''d to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty : He ! with a glory round his furrow'd brow. Which emanated then, and dazzles now In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire ; And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow (l^) No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire I XXXIX, Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 'twas his In life and death to be the mark where Wrong Aim'd with her poison'd arrows ; but to miss. Oh, victor unsurpassed in modern song ! Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long The tide of generations shall roll on. And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine ? though all in one Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a sun. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. XL. Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those. Thy countrymen, before thee born to shme, The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; Then, not unequal to the Florentine, The southern Scott, the minstrel who called forth A new creation with his magic line, And, Hke the Ariosto of the North, Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. XLI. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust (16) The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves ; Nor was the ominous element unjust. For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaver (1'^) Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, Know, that the hghtning sanctifies below (18) Whatever it strikes; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 24 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV XLII. Italia ! oh Italia ! thou who hast (19) The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame. And annals graved in characters of flame. Oh God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful, and could'st claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress ; XLIII. Then might' st thou more appal ; or, less desired, Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms; then, still untired. Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. \ ^ XLIV. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, (20) The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim The bright blue waters with a fanning wind. Came Megara before me, and behind ^gina lay, Piraeus on the right, And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined Along the prow, and saw all these unite In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; XLV. For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd The few last rays of their far-scattered light, And the crush'*d rehcs of their vanished might. The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, These sepulchres of cities, which excite Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 26 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV, XLVI. That page is now before me, and on mine His country's ruin added to the mass Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, And I in desolation : all that was Of then destruction is ; and now, alas ! Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, In the same dust and blackness, and we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form, (21) Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. XLVII. Yet, Italy ! through every other land lliy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Mother of Arts ! as once of arms ; thy hand Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; Parent of our Religion 1 whom the wide Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! Europe, repentant of her parricide, Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. Cunto Il\ PILGRIMAGE. 27 XL VIII. But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling fca* her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing hfe, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. XLIX. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills (^2) The air around w^th beauty ; we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality ; the veil Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature^s self would fail ; And to the fond idolaters of old Envy the innate flash which svich a soul could mould ; 28 CHILDE HAROLD'S , Canto IV, L. We gaze and turn away, and know not where. Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart. Away ! — there need no words, nor terms precise. The paltry jargon of the marble mart. Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : Blood — ^pulse- — and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. LI. Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise ? Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or. In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War ? And gazing in thy face as toward a star, Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! (23) while thy lips are With lava kisses melting while they burn. Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn ! Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 29 LII. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate ITiat feehng to express, or to improve. The gods become as mortals, and man''s fate Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! We can recal such visions, and create. From what has been, or might be, things which grow Into thy statue's form, and look hke gods below. LIII. I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands, The artist and his ape, to teach and tell How well his connoisseurship understands The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell : Let these describe the undescribable : I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream Wherein that image shall for ever dwell ; The unruffled mirror of the lovehest dream That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 30 ' CHILDE HAROLD'S . Canto IV. LIV. In Santa Croce^s holy precincts lie (24) Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Even in itself an immortality, Though there were nothing save the past, and this. The particle of those subhmities Which have relaps'd to chaos : — ^here repose Angelo'^s, Alfieri's bones, and his, (25) The starry Galileo, with his woes; Here Machiavelli's earth, returned to whence it rose. (26) LV. These are four minds, which, like the elements, Might furnish forth creation : — Italy I Time^ which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand rents Of thine imperial garment, shall deny. And hath denied, to every other sky. Spirits which soar from ruin i—thy decay Is still impregnate with divinity. Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. CmtoIV, PILGRIMAGE. 31 LVI. But where repose the all Etruscan three-^ Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, The Bard of Prose, creative spirit ! he Of the Hundred Tales of love — ^where did they lay Their bones, distinguish''d from our common clay In death as life ? Are they resolv'd to dust. And have their country's marbles nought to say ? Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust ? LVII. Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, (27) Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; (28) Thy factions, in their worse than civil war. Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore Their children's children would in vain adore With the remorse of ages ; and the crown (29) Which Petrarch'*s laureate brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled-p-not thine own. 32 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LVIII. Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed (30) His dust, — and hes it not her Great among, With many a sweet and solemn requiem breath'd O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue ? That music in itself, whose sounds are song^ The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb Uptorn, must bear the hyaena bigof s wrong. No more amidst the meaner dead find room, Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom ! LIX. And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust ; Yet for this want more noted, as of yore The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more : Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, Fortress of falling empire ! honoured sleeps The immortal exile ; — Arqua, too, her store Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and weeps. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 33 LX. What is her pyramid of precious stones? (^O Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones Of merchant-dukes ? the momentary dews Which, sparkhng to the twilight stars, infuse Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, Are gently prest with far more reverent tread Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. Lxi: There be more things to greet the heart and eyes In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine. Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; For I have been accustomed to entwine My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, Than Art in galleries : though a work divine Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields u CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LXII. Is of another temper, and I roam By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles Come back before me, as his skill beguiles The host between the mountains and the shore. Where Courage falls in her despairing files. And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore. Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er, LXIII. Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds ; And such the storm of battle on this day. And such the phrenzy, whose convulsion blinds To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray. An earthquake reel'd unheededly away ! (32) None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet. And yawning forth a grave for those who lay Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet ! Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 85 LXIV, The Earth to them was as a rolling bark Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw The Ocean round, but had no time to mark The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw From their down-tc^pling nests ; and bellowing herds Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no WOTds. LXV. Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; Her lake a sheet of silver^ and her plain Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — A little rill of scanty stream and bed — A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and tum'd the unwilling waters red. j> 2 36 ' CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave (^3) Of the most living crystal that was e''er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes ; the purest god of gentle waters ! And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters f LXVII. And on thy happy shore a temple still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, Upon a mild declivity of hiH, Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. CaittoIV, PILGRIMAGE. 37 LXVIII. Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! If through the air a zephyr more serene) Win to the brow, 'tis his ; and if ye trace Along his margin a more eloquent green, If on the heart the freshness of the scene Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. LXIX. The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height Vehno cleaves the wave-worn precipice ; The fall of waters ! rapid as the Hght The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss. And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set. 38 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto 1 V. LXX. And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald : — how profound The gulf! and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, ^nd shows More hke the fountain of an infant sea Tom from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale : — Look bax^k ! Lo ! where it comes like an eternity. As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract, (3'0 Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. <>» LXXII. Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the ghttering morn. An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, (35) Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn : Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which — had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar The thundering lauwine — ^might be worshipped more ; (36) But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar Glaciers of bleak Mont-Blanc both far and near, And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear. 40 • CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto JV. LXXIV. Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name ; And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame. For still they soared unutterably high : I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; , Athos, Olympus, Mtna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity, All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid LXXV. For our remembrance, and from out the pl^ Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break. And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain May he, who will, his recollections rake And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latian echoes ; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake. The driU'd dull lesson, forced down word by word (37) In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. , 41 LXXVL Aught that recals the daily drug which tum'd My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught My mind to meditate what then it learn'd. Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought By the impatience of my early thought, That, with the freshness wearing out before My mind could relish what it might have sought, If free to choose, I cannot now restore Its health ; but what it then detested, still abhor. LXXVII. Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so. Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse To understand, not feel thy lyric flow. To comprehend, but never love thy verse, Although no deeper Moralist rehearse Our Httle Hfe, nor Bard prescribe his art, Nor liveHer Satirist the conscience pierce. Awakening without wounding the touched heart. Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 4S CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LXXVIII. Oh Rome ! my country ! city of the soul i The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, Lone mother of dead empires ! and controul In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! Whose agonies are evils of a day — A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe of nations ! there she stands. Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; An empty urn within her withered hands. Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; (3^) The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow. Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress .' Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 4S LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hill"'d city"'s pride ; She saw her glories star by star expire. And up tiie steep barbarian monarchs ride. Where the car climb'*d the capitol ; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, " here was, or is," where all is doubly night ? LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her. Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap All round us ; we but feel our way to err : The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map. And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; But Rome is as the desart, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap Our hands, and cry " Eureka ! " it is clear- When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. H CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LXXXII. Alas ! the lofty city ! and alas ! The trebly hundred triumphs ! (39) and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame^way ! Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, And Livy's pictured page ! — ^but these shall be Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. ; Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free ! LXXXIII. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, C^^) Triumphant Sylla ! Thou, who didst subdue Thy country's foes ere thou would pause to feel The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown Annihilated senates — Roman, too, With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown— Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 4j6 LXXXIV. ThiB dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine To what would one day dwindle that which made Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid ? She who was named Eternal, and array'd Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd, Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was Almighty hail'd I LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors ; but our own The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See What crimes it costs to be a moment free And famous through all ages ! but beneath His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; His day of double victory and death Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. W CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. LXXXVL The third of the same moon whose former course Had all but crown'd him, on the selfsame day Deposed him gently from his throne of force, And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. (41) And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, And all we deem delightful, and consume Our souls to compass through each arduous way. Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom ! Lxxxvir. And thou, dread statue ! yet existent in (42) The austerest form of naked majesty. Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din. At thy bath'd base the bloody Caesar he, Folding his robe in dying dignity, An offering to thine altar from the queen Of gods and men, great Nemesis .' did he die, And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE; 417 LXXXVIII. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome I (^) She-wolf ! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome Where, as a monument of antique art. Thou standest :— Mother of the mighty heart. Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, Scorched by the Roman Jove's etherial dart. And thy hmbs black with hghtning — dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? LXXXIX. Thou dost ; — ^but all thy foster-babes are dead— The men of iron ; and the world hath reared Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled In imitation of the things they fear'd. And fought and conquered, and the same course steer'd, At apish distance ; but as yet none have. Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd, Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave — M CaiLDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. xc. The fool of false dominion — and a kind Of bastard Caesar, following him of old With steps unequal ; for the Roman'*s mind Was modeird in a less terrestrial mould, (44) With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, And an immortal instinct which redeemed The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd, XCI. And came — and saw — and conquered ! But the man Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee. Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van. Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be A listener to itself, was strangely fram'd ; With but one weakest weakness — vanity. Coquettish in ambition — stiU he aim'd — At what ? can he avouch— or answer what he claimed ? Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 4© XCII. And would be all or nothing — nor could wait For the sure grave to level him ; few years Had fix''d him with the Caesars in his fate. On whom we tread : For this the conqueror rears The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed. An universal deluge, which appears Without an ark for wretched man's abode, And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy rainbow, God ! XCIII. ^ What from this barren being do we reap ? Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, (45) Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, • And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale ; Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil Mantles the earth with darkness, until right And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale Lest their ovm judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. E 50 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cmto IV, XCIV. And thus they plod in sluggish misery, Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, Proud of their trampled nature, and so die. Bequeathing their hereditary rage To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage War for their chains, and rather than be free, Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage Within the same arena where they see Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. xcv. I speak not of men^s creeds — ^they rest between Man and his Maker — ^but of things allowed, AverrM, and known, — and daily, hourly seen-^ The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed. And the intent of tyranny avowed. The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown The apes of him who humbled once the proud, And shook them from their slumbers on the throne ; Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. Canto m PILGRIMAGE. 51 XCVI. Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be. And Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise when she Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled ? Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? XCVII. But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime. And fatal have her Saturnalia been To Freedom's cause, in every age and cHme ; Because the deadly days which we have seen, And vile Ambition, that built up between Man and his hopes an adamantine wall. And the base pageant last upon the scene. Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his second fall E 2 52 CHILDE HAROLD'S CmtUf IV. XCVIII. Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and d3ring, The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ; Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth. But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. XCIX. There is a stem round tower of other days, (46) Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, Such as an army's baffled strength delays. Standing with half its battlements alone. And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity, where wave The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ; — What was this tower of strength ? within its cave What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid ?— A woman"*s grave. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. I>S c. But who was she, the lady of the dead, Tombed in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? How Hved — how loved — ^how died she ? Was she not So honoured — and conspicuously there. Where meaner relics must not dare to rot. Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? CI. Was she as those who love their lords, or they Who love the lords of others ? such have been, Even in the olden time Rome's annals say. Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien. Or the light air of E^pt's graceful queen. Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war. Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections are. »• CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CII. Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bowed With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb That weighed upon her gentle dust, a doud Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favourites — early death ; yet shed (*7) A sunset charm around her, and. illume With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead. Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-hke red. CHI. Perchance she died in age — surviving all, Charms, kindred, children — with the silver grey On her long tresses, which might yet recal. It may be, still a something of the day When they were braided, and her proud array And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed By Rome But whither would Conjecture stray ? Thus much alone we know — Metella died. The wealthiest Roman's wife ; Behold his love or pride ! CmtelV. PILGRIMAGE. 5^ CIV. I know not why — ^but standing thus by thee It seems as if I had thine inmate known. Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me With recollected music, though the tone Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone Till I had bodied forth the heated mind Forms from the floating wreck which Rum leaves behind; CV. And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks. Built me a little bark of hope, once more To battle with the ocean and the shocks Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar Which rushes on the solitary shore Where all Hes foundered that was ever dear : But could I gather from the wave-worn store Enough for my rude boat, where shcmld I steer ? There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. ^6 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CVI. Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony Shall henceforth be my music, and the night The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry, jAs I now hear them, in the fading light Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site. Answering each other on the Palatine, With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright, And sailing pinions. — Upon such a shrine What are our petty griefs ? — ^let me not number mine. CVII. Cjrpres^ and ivy, weed and wallflower grown Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strewn In fragments, chok'd up vaults, and frescos steep'd In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd. Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reap'd From her research hath been, that these are walls — Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus the mighty falls. * * The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled brick-work. Nothing has been told, nothing can be Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 57 CVIII. There is the moral of all human tales ; (48) 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First Fi;eedom, and then Glory — when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast. Hath but 07?^ page, — ^'tis better written here, Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amass'd All treasures, all dehghts, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask Away with words ! draw near, CIX. Admire, exult — despise — ^laugh, weep, — ^for here There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span. This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled. Of Glory*'s gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were filPd ! Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build ? told, to satisfy the belief of any but a Roman antiquary. — See — Historical Illustrations, page 206. 58 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. ex. Tully was not so eloquent as thou. Thou nameless column with the buried base .' What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow ? Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, Titus or Trajan's ? No— 'tis that of Time : Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime^ (^9) CXI. Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, And looking to the stars : they had contain'd A spirit which with these would find a home^ The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd. The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd. But yielded back his conquests : — ^he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd With household blood and wine, serenely wore His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. (^) Canto IF, PILGRIMAGE. 5^ CXII. Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep Tai-peian ? fittest goal of Treason's race. The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep— The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And stiU the eloquent air breathes — ^bums with Cicero I CXIII. The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : Here a proud people's passions were exhaled. From the first hour of empire in the bud To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd ; But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd. And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; TiU every lawless soldier who assail'd Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes. Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 60 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cattto IV. CXIV. Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee. Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — Rienzi ! last of Romans ! While the tree (^0 Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf. Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — The forum's champion, and the people's chief — Her new-bom Numa thou — with reign, alas ! too brief. cxv. Egeria ! sweet creation of some heart (52) Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air. The nympholepsy of some fond despair ; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth. Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring ; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. Canto jv. [Pilgrimage. 61 CXVI. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, ' Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep, CXVII. Fantastically tangled ; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class. Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes . Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies. G8 CHILDE HAROLD»S Canto IV. CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ; The purple Midnight veiFd that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befel ? ' This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying. Blend a celestial with a human heart ; And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing. Share with immortal transports ? could thine art Make them indeed immortal, and impart The purity of heaven to earthly joys. Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — The dull satiety which all destroys — And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? Canto IV. PILGRIMAGEv ^ cxx, Alas ! our young affections run to waste^ Or water but the desart ; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison ; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. CXXI. Oh Love ! no habitant of earth thou art— An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart. But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaveo, Even with its own desiring phantasy. And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd— wearied — wrung —and riven. a^ CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV, CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation : — where. Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? In him alone. Can Nature shew so fair ? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, I'he unreached Paradise of our despair. Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? CXXIII. Who loves, raves — ^'tis youth's frenzy — but the cure Is bitterer still ; as chai'm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure. Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on. Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize, — wealtliiest when most undone. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 65 CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp away — Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst. Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice — ^'tis the same, Each idle — and all ill — and none the worst — For all are meteors with a different name. And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. cxxv. Few — none — ^find what they love or could have loved, Though accident, bhnd contact, and the strong Necessity of loving, have removed Antipathies — ^but to recur, ere long, Envenomed with irrevocable wrong ; And Circumstance, that unspiritual god And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming e\ils with a crutch-hke rod, Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have trod. V 66 CniLDE HAROLD'S Cunio IV. CXXVI. Our life is a false nature — ^'tis not in The harmony of things, — this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree. Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly — 'tis a base (P^) Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought — our last and only place Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine : Though from our birth the faculty divine Is chained and tortured^-cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared mind, The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 67 CXXVIII. Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line. Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the hght which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement. For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. f2 6S CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV cxxx. Oh Time ! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And only healer when the heart hath bled — Time ! the corrector where our judgments err, The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher. For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift, Which never loses though it doth defer — Time, the avenger ! unto thee I hft My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift :: CXXXI. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate. Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate :— If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain — shall thei/ not mourn ^ Canto IV, PILGRIMAGE. 69 CXXXIL And thou, who never yet of human wrong Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! (**) Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long— ■ Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss For that unnatural retribution — -just. Had it but been from hands less near — ^in this Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! Dost thou not hear my heart? — Awake! thou shalt, and must. CXXXIII. It is not that I may not have incurred For my ancestral faults or mine the wound I bleed withal, and, had it been conferred With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound ; But now my blood shall not sink in the ground ; To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, Which if / have not taken for the sak e But let that pass— I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 70 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CXXXIV. And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now I shrink from what is suffered : let him speak Who hath beheld decline upon my brow. Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak ; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes ; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse. And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse ! cxxxv. That curse shall be Forgiveness. — Have I not — Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven ! — Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? Have I not suffered things to be for^ven ? Have 1 not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away ? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. Caiuo IV. PILGRIMAGE. 71 CXXXVI. From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do ? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few. And Subtler venom of the reptile crew. The Janus glance of whose significant eye. Learning to lie with silence, would seem true. And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh. Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. CXXXVII. But I have hved, and have not lived in vain : My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain. But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 7^ CHLLDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CXXXVIII. The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here Walk''st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear That we become a part of what has been. And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. CXXXIX. And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause. As man was slaughtered by his feUow man. And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws. And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms—on battle-plains or hsted spot ? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. Canto IV. PnXSRIMAGE- ^f CXL. I see before me the Gladiator lie : C^^) He leans upon his hand — his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low— And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one. Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him — ^he is gone, ^ Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. CXLI. He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away ; He reck'd not of the hfe he lost nor prize. But where his rude hut by the Danube lay Tliere were his young barbarians all at play. There was their Dacian mother — ^he, their sire. Butchered to make a Roman hoHday — (56) All this rush'd with his blood — ShaQ he expire And unavenged ?— Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your ire ! 74 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CXLII. But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam ; And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, And roar'd or murmur'd Hke a mountain stream Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; Here, where the Roman milhon's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, i^V My voice sounds much — and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void — seats crush'd— walls bow'd — And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. CXLIII. A rui^ — ^yet what ruin ! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ? Alas ! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is neared : It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 75 CXLIV. But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the grey walls wear. Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head ; (^8) When the light shines serene but doth not glare. Then in this magic circle raise the dead : Heroes have trod this spot — ^'tis on their dust ye tread. CXLV. " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; (59) " When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; " And when Rome falls — the World." From our own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unaltered all ; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den— of thieves, or what ye will. *5'6 . CHLLDE HAROLD»S Otnto IV. CXLVL Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; (^) Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and tyrants"* rods Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home Of art and piety — Pantheon \ — ^pride of Rome ! CXLVIl. Rehc of nobler days, and noblest arts ! Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads A hohness appealing to all hearts — To art a model ; and to him who treads Rome for the sake of ages. Glory sheds Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; And they who feel for genius may repose Their eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close. (<5l) Canto ir. PILGRIMAGE. it GXLVIII. There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light (^2) AVhat do I gaze on ? Nothing : Look again I Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight — Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so ; I see them full and plain — An old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar : — ^but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare > CXLIX. Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart andjrom the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife. Blest into mother, in the innocent look. Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not — Cain was Eve"'s. 78 CniLDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CL. But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift : — it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Bom with her birth. No ; he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feehng can provide Great Nature"'s Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypf s river : — from that gentle side Drink, drink and hve, old man ! Heaven's realm holds no such tide. CLI. The starry fable of the milky way Has not thy story's purity ; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds: — Oh, holiest nurse! No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. Canto IV, PILGRIMAGE. 79 CLII. Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear''d on high, (63) Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity. Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth His shrunken ashes raise this dome : How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! CLHI. But lo ! the dome— the vast and wondrous dome, (^) To which Diana's marvel was a cell — Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell The hy^na and the jackall in their shade ; I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have suryey'd Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd ; 80 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CUV. But thou, of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone — ^with nothing like to thee— Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook his former city, what could be, Of earthly structures, in his honour piled. Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. CLV. Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; And why ? it is not lessened ; but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined. See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 81 CLVI. Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; Vastness which grows — but grows to harmonize — All musical in its immensities ; Rich marbles — ^richer painting — shrines where flame The lamps of gold— and haughty dome which vies In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame Sits on the firm-set ground— and this the clouds must claim. CLVII. Thou seest not all ; but piecemeal thou must break, To separate contemplation, the great whole ; And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye— so here condense thy soul To more immediate objects, and control Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart Its eloquent proportions, and unroll In mighty graduations, part by part. The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,' 6 82 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV CLVIIL Not by its fault — ^but thine : Our outward sense -i, j Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is - That what we have of feeling most intense Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this Outshining and overwhelming edifice Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great Defies at first our Nature's littleness. Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. CLIX. Then pause, and be enlightened ; there is more In such a survey than the sating gaze Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore The worship of the place, or the mere praise Of art and its great masters, who could raise What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan ; The fountain of sublimity displays Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions c^n. Canf& IV, PILGRIMAGE. CLX. Or, turning to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending : — Vain The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp. The old man's clench ; the long envenomed chain Rivets the Hving hnks, — the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. CLXI. Or view the Lord of the unerring bow. The God of life, and poesy, and light — The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, And majesty, flash their full hghtnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity. g2 80 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CLXII. But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, Shaped by some soHtary nymph, whose breast Long'd for a deathless lover from above, And madden'd in that vision — are exprest All that ideal beauty ever bless'd The mind with in its most unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guest — A ray of immortality — and stood, Starhke, around, until they gathered to a god I CLXIII. And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath array'd With an eternal glory — which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought ; And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust— nor hath it caught A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought. Cnnto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 85 CLXIV. But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, The being who upheld it through the past ? Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. He is no more — these breathings are his last ; His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, And he himself as nothing : — if he was Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd With forms which hve and suffer — let that pass— His shadow fades away into Destrucfibn*'s mass, CLXV. Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all That we inherit in its mortal shroud. And spreads the dim and universal pall Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the cloud Between us sinks and all which ever glowed. Till Glory^s self is twihght, and displays A melancholy halo scarce allowed To hover on the verge of darkness ; rays Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 86 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto IV. CLXVI. And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolv'd to something less than this Its wretched essence ; and to dream of fame. And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear, — ^but never more, Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat was gore. CLXVII. Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, A long low distant murmur of dread sound. Such as arises when a nation bleeds With some deep and immedicable wound ; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground. The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrown^. And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no rehef. Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 87, CLXVIII. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead ? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head ? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, ©""er thy boy, Death hush'd that pang for ever : with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy Which fiird the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee. And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for One ; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort— vainly wert thou wed ! The husband of a year ! the father of the dead f 88 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cmto IV. CLXX. Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made ; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes : in the dust The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid. The love of milHons ! How we did entrust Futurity to her ! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes ; — ^'twas but a meteor beam'd. CLXXI. Woe unto us^ not her ; for she sleeps well : The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle. Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, tiU the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate (^) Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung Against their blind omnipotence a weight Within the opposing scale^ which crushes soon or late, — Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 89 CLXXIL These might have been her destiny ; but no, Our hearts deny it : and so young, so fair. Good without effort, great without a foe ; But now a bride and mother — and now tliere I How many ties did that stern moment tear ! From thy Sire"'s to his humblest subject's breast Is hnked the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake''s, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. CLXXIII. (66) Lo, Nemi ! navelled in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 90 CHILDE HAROLD'S Cmto IV. CLXXIV. And near Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley ; — and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, '^ Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star Rose o''er an empire ; — ^but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome ; — and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's dehght. (^7) . CLXXV. But I forget. — My pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part, — so let it be, — His task and mine alike are nearly done ; Yet once more let us look upon the sea ; The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine roll'd Canto IV. PILGRIMAGE. 91 CLXXVI. (68) Upon the blue Symplegades : long years — Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both ; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward— and it is here ; That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. CLXXVII. Oh ! that the Desart were my dwelhng place, With one fair Spirit for my minister. That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her ! Ye Elements ! — ^in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted — Can ye not Accord me such a being ? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. 92 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto JV. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — ^roU ! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin — ^his control Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin''d, and unknown. Canto IV. PU.GRIMAGE. CLXXX. His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields For earth''s destruction thou dost all despise. Spuming him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playfril spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay. And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake. And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, (69) which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. (70) 94 CHILDE HAROLD'S Canto n\ CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay Has dried up realms to desarts : — not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play- Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, Calm or convuls'd — in breeze, or gale, or storm. Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime—- The image of Eternity — the throne Of the Invisible ; even from out thy shme The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. Canto IV, PILGRIMAGE. 95 CL XXXIV. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — ^'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee. And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. CLXXXV. My task is done — ^my song hath ceased — ^my theme Has died into an echo ; it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish*'d which hath lit My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — Would it were worthier ! but I am not now That which I have been — and my visions flit Less palpably before me — ^and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint, and low. 96 CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIiVIAGE. Canto JV. CLXXXVI. Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — A sound which makes us linger; — yet — farewell! Ye ! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain He wore his sandal -shoon, and scallop-shell ; Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain. If such there were— with «/ow, the moral of his strain ! NOTES. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO IV. Stanza I. / stood in Venice, cm the Bridge of Sighs ; A palace and a prison cm each hand. The communication between the Ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is by a gloomy bridge, or co- vered gallery, high above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dungeons, called *' pozzi," or wells, were sunk in the thick walls of the palace; and the prisoner when taken out to die was conducted across the gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low portal through which the cri- minal was taken into this cell is now walled up; but the passage is still open, and is still known by the h2 100 NOTES. name of the Bridge of Sighs. The pozzi are under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve, but on the first arrival of the French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however, descend by a trap-door, and crawl down through holes, half choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there; scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the pas- sages, and served for the introduction of the pri- soner's food. A wooden pallet, raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors tell you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the republicans descended into these hideous re- cesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen years. But the inmates of the dungeons beneath had left traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still visible, and may perhaps owe some- NOTES. 101 thing to recent ingenuity. Some of the detained appear to have offended against, and others to have belonged to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, but from the churches and belfries which they have scratched upon the walls. The reader may not object to see a specimen of the records prompted by so terrific a solitude. As nearly as they could be copied by more than one pencil, three of them are as follows : 1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PEXSA C TACI SE FUGIR VCJOI DE SPiONI INSIDIE C LACCI IL PENTIRTI PEXTIKTI NULLA GIOVA MA BEN DI VALOR TUO LA VERA PROVA 1607. ADI 2. GENARO. FUI RE- TBNTO P* LA BESTIEMMA P* AVER DATO DA MANZAR A UN MORTO L\COMO . GRITTI. SCRISSE. UN PARLAR POCHO Ct NEGARE PRONTO Ct UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA A NCI ALTRl MESCHINI 1605 EGO lOHN BAPTISTA AD ECCLESIAM CORTELLARIUS. 102 NOTES. 3. ' DE CHI MI FIDO GUARDAMI DIO DB CHI NON MI FIDO MI GCJARDARO IO V. LA S^\ C«. K^. R^\ The copyist has followed, not corrected the sole- cisms; some of which are however not quite so de- cided, since the letters were evidently scratched in the dark. It only need be observed, that Bestemmia and Mangiar may be read in the first inscription, which was probably written by a prisoner confined for some act of impiety committed at a funeral: that Cortellarius is the name of a parish on teiTa firma, near the sea : and that the last initials evidently are put for Viva la santa Chiesa Kattolica Romana. Stanza II. She looks a sea Cyhele, fresh Jrom ocean Risings with her tiara of proud toxvers. An old writer, describing the appearance of Ve- nice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true. " Quo Jit ut qui supcrne urbem contempletur^ tur- NOTES. , lOS ritam teUuris imaginem medio Oceano Jigv/ratam se putet inspicere\^^ Stanza III. In Venice Tassd's echoes are no more. The well known song of the gondoliers, of alter- nate stanzas, from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with the independence of Venice. Editions of the poem, with the original on one column, and the Venetian variations on the other, as sung by the boatmen, were once common, and are still to be found. The following extract will serve to shew the difference between the Tuscan epic and the " Canta alia Bar- cariola." Original. Canto r arme pietose, e '1 capitano Che '1 gran Sepolcro libero di Cristo. Molto egli opro col seuno, e con la mano Molto soffrt nel glorioso acquisto ; ' E in van 1' Inferno a lui s' oppose, e in vano S* anno d' Asia, e di Libia il popol misto, Che il Ciel gli di^ favore, e sbtto a i Santi Segni ridussc i suoi compagni crranti. > Marci Antonii Sabelli de Venetae Urbis situ narrntio, edit. Tanrin. 1527, lib. i. fol. 202. 104 NOTES. Venetian, L* arme pietose de cantar gho vogia, E de GofFredo la immortal braura Che al fin 1' ha libera co strassia, e dogia Del nostro buoii Gesd la Sepoltura Dc mezo mbndo unito, e de quel Bogia Missier Pluton no 1' ha bu mai paura : Dio r ha agiutd, e i compagni sparpagnai TUtti '1 gh' i ha messi insieme i di del Dai. Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, take up and continue a stanza of their once familiar bard. On the 7th of last January, the author of Childe Harold, and another Englishman, the writer of this notice, rowed to the Lido with two singers, one of whom was a carpenter, and the other a gondolier. The former placed himself at the prow, the latter at the stern of the boat. A little after leaving the quay of the Piazzetta, they began to sing, and conti- nued their exercise until we arrived at the island. They gave us, amongst other essays, the death of Clorinda, and the palace of Armida ; and did not sing the Venetian, but the Tuscan verses. The car-- penter, however, who was the cleverer of the two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his companion, told us that he could translate the original. He added, that he could sing almost three hundred NOTES. 105 stanzas, but had not spirits, (morUn was the word he used), to learn any more, or to sing what he already knew: a man must have idle time on his hands to acquire, or to repeat, and, said the poor fellow, *' look at my clothes and at me, I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit alone can make attractive. The recita- tive was shrill, screaming, and monotonous, and the gondolier behind assisted his voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The carpenter used a quiet action, which he evidently endeavoured to restrain; but was too much interested in his subject altogether to repress. From these men we learnt that singing is not confined to the gondoliers, and that, although the chant is seldom, if ever, volun- tary, there are still several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with a few stanzas. It does not appear that it is usual for the per- formers to row and sing at the same time. Although the verses of the Jerusalem are no longer casually heard, there is yet much music upon the Venetian canals ; and upon holidays, those strangers who are not near or informed enough to distinguish the words, may fancy that many of the gondolas still resound with the strains of Tasso. The writer of some re- marks which appeared in the Curiosities of Litera- ture must excuse his being twice quoted ; for, with 106 MOTES. the exception of some phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description. " In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. But this talent' seems at present on the dechne : — at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than two persons who delivered to me in this way a passage from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to me a passage in Tasso in the manner, as he assured me, of the gondoliers. " There are always two concerned, who alter- nately sing the strophes. We know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and the canto figurato ; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished. *' I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards, and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began . the song : when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternatel3\ Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invaria- bly returned, but, according to the subject matter NOTES. 107 of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe as the object of the poem altered. " On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse and screaming: they seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivilized men, to make the excellency of their singing in the force of their voice : one seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs ; and so far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box of the gon- dola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. " My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this sing- ing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing against one another, and I kept walk- ing up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood still and hearkened to the one and to the other. " Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the attention; lOd NOTES. the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emo- tion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answer- ing him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas, that moved like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of the scene; and amidst all these circumstances it was easy to confess the cha- racter of this wonderful harmony. *' It suits perfectly well with an idle solitary ma- riner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat al- leviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror, and as all is still around, he is, as it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and po- pulous town. Here is no rattling of carriages^ no noise of foot passengers : a silent gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashing of the oars are scarcely to be heard. " At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly NOTES. 109 unknown to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit convention they alternate verse for verse; though the song should last the vsrhole night through, they entertain them- selves without fatigue ; the hearers, who are pass- ing between the two, take part in the amusement. " This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only ftilfils its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organized person, said quite unexpectedly: e sin- golare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto piii quando lo cantano meglio. " I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the Lagouns/ particularly the women of the extreme dis- tricts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like man- ner the works of Tasso to these and similar tunes. " They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit along the shore in the » The writer meant Lido, which is not a long row of islands, but a long island : litluSf the shore. Ita NOTES. evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a distance."^ The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of Venetians, even amongst the tuneful sons of Italy. The city itself can occasionally furnish respectable audiences for two and even three opera- houses at a time ; and there are few events in private life that do not call forth a printed and circulated sonnet. Does a physician or a lawyer take his de- gree, or a clergyman preach his maiden sermon, has a surgeon performed an operation, would a harlequin announce his departure or his benefit, are you to be congratulated on a marriage, or a birth, or a lawsuit, the Muses are invoked to furnish the same number of syllables, and the individual triumphs blaze abroad in virgin white or party-coloured placards on half the corners of the capital. The last curtsey of a favourite "prima donna" brings down a shower of these poetical tributes from those upper regions, from which, in our theatres, nothing but cupids and snow storms are accustomed to descend. There is a poetry in the very life of a Venetian, which, in its common « [Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii. p. 156. edit. 1807j and Ap- pendix xxix. to Black's Life of Tasso.] NOTES. Ill course, is varied with those surprises and changes so recommendable in fiction, but so different from the sober monotony of northern existence ; amuse- ments are raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, and every object being considered as equally making a part of the business of life, is announced and performed with the same earnest in- difference and gay assiduity. The Venetian gazette constantly closes its columns with the following triple advertisement. Charade. Exposition of the most Holy Sacrament in the church of St. Theatres. St. Moses, opera St. Benedict, a comedy of characters. St. Luke, repose. When it is recollected what the Catholics believe their consecrated wafer to be, we may perhaps think it worthy of a more respectable niche than between poetry and the playhouse. 112 NOTES. Stanza X. Sparta hath many a worthier son than he. The answer of the mother of Brasidas to the strangers who praised the memory of her son. Stanza XI. St. Marie yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, — The lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides, but the gospel which supported the paw that is now on a level with the other foot. The horses also are returned to the ill- chosen spot whence they set out, and are, as before, half hidden under the porch window of St. Mark's church. Their history, after a desperate struggle, has been satisfactorily explored. The decisions and doubts of Erizzo and Zanetti, and lastly, of the Count Leopold Cicognara, would have given them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree not more ancient than the reign of Nero. But M. de Schlegel stepped in to teach the Venetians the value of their own treasures, and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever, the pretension of his countrymen to this noble produc- NOTES. 113 tion/ Mr. Mustoxidi has not been left without a reply; but, as yet, he has received no answer. It should seem that the horses are irrevocably Chian, and were transferred to Constantinople by Theodo- sius. Lapidary writing is a favourite play of the Italians, and has conferred reputation on more than one of their literary characters. One of the best spe- cimens of Bodoni's typography is a respectable vo- lume of inscriptions, all written by his friend Pac- ciaudi. Several were prepared for the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the best was not selected, when the following words were ranged in gold letters above the cathedral porch. QUATUOR . EQUORUM . SIGN A . A . VENETIS . BYZANTIO . CAPl'A . AD . TEMP . D . MAR . A . R . S . MCCIV . POSITA . QVM . HOSTILIS . CUPIDITAS . A . MDCCIIIC . ABSTULERAT . FRANC . I . IMP . PACIS . ORBI . DA'lJE . TROPHiEUM . A . MDCCCXV . VICTOR . REDUXIT. Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be permitted to observej that the injustice of tlie Ve- netians in transporting the horses from Constan- tinople was at least equal to that of the French in carrying them to Paris, and that it would have been I Sui quattro cavalli della Basilica di S. Marco in Venezia. Lettera di Andrea Mustoxidi Corcirese. Padua per Bettoni e conipag. . . . 181(i. I 114 NOTES. more prudent to have avoided all allusions to either robbery. An apostolic prince should, perhaps, have objected to affixing over the principal entrance of a metropolitan church, an inscription having a re- ference to any other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than the pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism. Stanza XII. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns^ An Emperor tramples where an Emperor Jcnelt. After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barba- rossa, and as fruitless attempts of the Emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa, and the former having received a safe conduct, had already arrived at Venice from Ferrara, in company with the ambassadors of the king of Sicily and the consuls of the Lombard league. There still remained, however, many points to adjust, and for several days the peace was believed to be impracticable. At this juncture it was suddenly reported that the Emperor had arrived at Chioza, KOTES. 115 a town fifteen miles from the capital. The Vene- tians rose tumultuously, and insisted upon imme* diately conducting him to the city. The Lombards took the alarm, and departed towards Treviso. The Pope himself was apprehensive of some disaster if Frederic should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured by the prudence and address of Sebastian Ziani, the doge. Several embassies passed between Chioza and the capital, until, at last, the Emperor relaxing somewhat of his pretensions, " laid aside his leonine ferocity, and put on the mildness of the lamb."^ On Saturday the 23d of July, in the year l\77f six Venetian galleys transferred Frederic, in great pomp, from Chioza to the island of Lido, a mile from Venice. Early the next morning the Pope, accompanied by the Sicilian ambassadors, and by the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had recalled from the main land,- together with a great concourse of people, repaired from the patriarchal palace to Saint Mark's church, and solemnly absolved the Em- peror and his partisans from the excommunication pronounced against him. The Chancellor of the Em- > ** Quibus auditis, imperator, operante eo, qui corda priaci- pum sicut (vult et quando vult humiliter inclinat, leonina fc- ritate deposita, ovinam mansuetudinem induit." Romualdi Sa- lernitani. Chronicon. apud. Script. Rer. Ital. Tom. VII. p. 229. I 2 116 NOTES. pire, on the part of his master, renounced the anti- popes and their schismatic adherents. Immediately the Doge, with a great suite both of the clergy and laity, got on board the galleys, and waiting on Fre- deric, rowed him in mighty state from the Lido to the capital. Tlie Emperor descended from the galley at the quay of the Piazzetta. The doge, the pa- triarch, his bishops and clerg}'^, and the people of Venice with their crosses and their standards, marched in solemn procession before him to the church of Saint Mark's. Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the basilica, attended by his bishops and cardinals, by the patriarch of Aquileja, by the archbishops and bishops of Lombardy, all of them in state, and clothed in their church robes. Frederic approached — " moved by the Holy Spirit, venerating the Al- mighty in the person of Alexander, laying aside his imperial dignity, and throwing off his mantle, he prostrated himself at full length at the feet of the Pope. Alexander, with tears in his eyes, raised him benignantly from the ground, kissed him, blessed him ; and immediately the Germans of the train sang, with a loud voice, ' We praise thee, O Lord.' The Em- peror then taking the Pope by the right hand, led him to the church, and having received his benediction, re- turned to the ducal palace.''' The ceremony of humilia- 1 Ibid, page 231. NOTES.' 117 tion was repeated the next day. The Pope himself, at the request of Frederic, said mass at Saint Mark's. ' The Emperor again laid aside his imperial mantle, and, taking a wand in his hand, officiated as verger^ driv- ing the laity from the choir, and preceding the pontiff to the altar. Alexander, after reciting the gospel, preached to the people. The Emperor put himself close to the pulpit in the attitude of listening; and the pontiff, touched hy this mark of his attention, for he knew that Frederic did not understand a word he said, commanded the patriarch of Aquileja to translate the Latin discourse into the German tongue. The creed was then chanted. Frederic made his oblation and kissed the Pope's feet, and, mass being over, led him by the hand to his white horse. He held the stirrup, and would have led the horse's rein to the water side, had not the Pope accepted of the inclination for the performance, and affectionately dismissed him with his benediction. Such is the substance of the account left by the archbishop of Salerno, who was present at the ceremony, and whose story is confirmed by every subsequent narration. It would be not worth so minute a record, were it not the triumph of liberty as well as of superstition. The states of Lombardy owed to it the confirmation of their privileges ; and Alexander had reason to thank the Almighty, who had enabled an infirm, 118 NOTES. unarmed old man to subdue a terrible and potent sovereign. ' Stanza XII. Oh^Jbr one hour qfhlind old Dandolo / TK octogenarian chiefs ByzantiurrCs conquering foe. The reader will recollect the exclamation of the highlander, Oil for one hour of Dundee ! Henry Dan- dolo, when elected Doge, in 1192, was eighty-five years of age. When he commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople, he was consequently ninety-seven years old. At this age he annexed the fourth and a half of the whole empire of Roma- nia,* for so tke Roman empire was then called, to » See the above cited Romuald of Salerno. In a second ser- mon which AlexandeiT preached, on the first day of August, before the Emperor, he compared Frederic to the prodigal son, and himself to the forgiving father. 2 Mr. Gibbon has omitted the important ce, and has written Romani instead of Romaniae. Decline and Fall, cap. Ixi. note }). But the title acquired by Dandolo runs thus in the Chronicle of his namesake, the Doge Andrew Dandolo. Du- cali titulo addidit, " Quartcs partis et dimidice totius imperii Romanice" And. Dand. Chronicon. cap. iii. pars, xxxvii. ap. Script. Rer. Ital. torn. xii. page 331. And the Romanice is ob- served in the subsequent acts of the Doges. Indeed the conti- NOTES. 119 the title and to the territories of the Venetian Doge. The three-eighths of this empire were preserved in the diplomas until the dukedom of Giovanni Dolfino, who made use of the above designation in the year 1357.^ Dandolo led the attack on Constantinople in per- son : two ships, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, w€re tied together, and a drawbridge or ladder let down from their higher yards to the walls. The Doge was one of the first to rush into the city. Then was com- pleted, said the Venetians, the prophecy of the Ery- thraean sybil. " A gathering together of the power- ful shall be made amidst the waves of the Adriatic, under a blind leader; they shall beset the goat — they shall profane Byzantium — they shall blacken her buildings — her spoils shall be dispersed ; a new goat shall bleat until they have measured out and run over fifty-four feet, nine inches, and a half."* nental possessions of the Greek empire in Europe were then generally known by the name of Romania, and that appelia- tion is still seen in the maps of Turkey as applied to Thrace. ^ Sec the continuation ofDandolo's Chronicle, ibid, page 498 Mr. Gibbon appears not to include Dolfino, following Sanudo, who says, " il yual litolo si usojin al Doge Giovanni Dolfino.'* See Vite dc' Duchi di Venezia. ap. Script. Rer. Ital. torn. xxii. 530, 641. • *' Fiet poteniium in aguts Adriaticis congregatto, caico 120 NOTES. Dandolo died on the first day of June 1205, having reigned thirteen years, six months, and five days, and was buried in the church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. Strangely enough it must sound, that the name of the rebel apothecary who received the Doge's sword, and annihilated the ancient go- vernment in ll9Q-7f was Dandolo. Stanza XIII. But is not Dorid's menace come to pass ? Are they not bridled ? After the loss of the battle of Pola, and the taking of Chioza on the 16th of August, 1379, by the united armament of the Genoese and Francesco da Car- rara, Signor of Padua, the Venetians were reduced to the utmost despair. An embassy was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet of paper, praying them to prescribe what terms they pleased, and leave to Venice only her independence. The Prince of Padua was inchned to listen to these proposals, but the Genoese, who, after the victory at Pola, had shouted, " to Venice, to Venice, and long live St. pneduce, Hircum amligent, Byzantium prophanahunt , cedijicia denigrahunt ; spolia dispergentur, Hircus novus lalahit usque dum j.iy pedes et ixpoUices, et semis prcemensurati discurrant ." [Chronicon, ibid, pars xxxiv.] NOTES. 121 George," determined to annihilate their rival, and Peter Doria, their commander in chief, returned this answer to the suppliants : " On God's faith, gentle- men of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Signor of Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the Porch of your evangelist St. Mark. Wild as we may find them, we will soon make them stand still. And this is the pleasure of us and of our commune. As for these my brothers of Genoa, that you have brought with you to give up to us, I will not have them : take them back ; for, in a few days hence, I shall come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all the others." ^ In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as Malamacco, within five miles of the capital ; but their own danger and the pride of their enemies gave 1 " Alia Je di Dio, Signori Veneziam, non havarete mai pace dal Siguore di Padona, ne dal nosiro commune di Genova, se primieramcnte non mettemo le Iriglie a quclli vosiri cavalli sfrenati, che sono su la Reza del Vostro Evangelista S. Marco. Imhrenati che gli havrcmo, vi faremo stare in huona pace. E questa e la intenzione nostra^ e del nostra commune. Questi miei fratelli Genovesi che havete menati con vol per donarci, non li voglio ; rimanetegli in dietro perche io intendo da qui a pochi giorni venirgli a riscuoter dalle vostre prigioni, e loro e gli altri:' 1S5 NOTES. courage to the Venetians, who made prodigious efforts, and many individual sacrifices, all of them carefully recorded by their historians. Vettor Pisani was put at the head of thirty-four galleys. The Ge- noese broke up from Malamocco, and retired to Chioza in October ; but they again threatened Ve- nice, which was reduced to extremities. At this time, the 1st of January, 1380, arrived Garlo Zeno, who had been cruising on the Genoese coast with fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong enough to besiege the Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22d of January by a stone bullet 195 pounds weight, discharged from a bombard called the Trevi- san. Chioza was then closely invested : 5000 auxi- liaries, amongst whom were some English Condot- tieri, commanded b}*^ one Captain Ceccho, joined the Venetians. The Genoese, in their turn, prayed for conditions, but none were granted, until, at last, they surrendered at discretion ; and, on the 24th of June 1380, the Doge Contarini made his triumphal entry into Chioza. Four thousand prisoners, nine- teen galleys, many smaller vessels and barks, with all the ammunition and arms, and outfit of the ex- pedition, fell into the hands of the conquerors, who, had it not been for the inexorable answer of Do- ria, would have gladly reduced their dominion to the city of Venice. An account of these transactions NOTES. 12S is found in a work called the War of Chioza, \yritten by Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at the time.' Stanza XV. Thin streets andjhreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and zchat enthrals. The population of Venice at the end of the seven- teenth century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. The com- merce and the official employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, have both expired. * Most of the patrician mansions are de-. serted, and would gradually disappear, had not the gor vernment, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two, during the last two years, expressly forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many remnants of the Venetian nobility are now scattered and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the banks of the Brenta, whose » " Chronaca della guerra di Chioza," &c. Script, Rer. Italic, torn. xv. pp. 699 to 804. 2 ** Nonnullorum ^ nobilitate immensae sunt opes, adeout vix zestimari possinl : id quod tribus h rebus oritur, parsimonia, commercio, atque iis eraolumentis, quae c Repub. percipiunt, qua banc ob causam diuturna fore creditur."— See de Principa- Hbusltaliae, Tractatus. edit. l631. 124 notes; palladian palaces have sunk, or are sinking, in the ge- neral decay. Of the " gentil uomo Veneto," the name is still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. It surely may be pardoned to him if he is querulous. What- ever may have been the vices of the republic, and al- though the natural term of its existence may be thought by foreigners to have arrived in the due course of mortality, only one sentiment can be ex- pected from the Venetians themselves. At no time were the subjects of the republic so unanimous in their resolution to rally round the standard of St. Mark, as when it was for the last time unfurled; and the cowardice and the treachery of the {ew patri- cians who recommended the fatal neutrality, were confined to the persons of the traitors themselves. Tlie present race cannot be thought to regret the loss of their aristocratical forms, and too despotic government; they think only on their vanished inde- pendence. They pine away at the remembrance, and on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humour. Venice may be said, in the words of the scripture, " to die daily;" and so general and so apparent is the decline, as to become painful to a stranger, not reconciled to the sight of a whole nation expiring as it were before his eyes. So artificial a creation having lost that principle which called it NOTES. 1S5 into life and supported its existence, must fall to pieces at once, and sink more rapidly than it rose. The abhorence of slavery which drove the Venetians to the sea, has, since their disaster, forced them to the land, where they may be at least overlooked amongst the crowd of dependants, and not present the hu- miliating spectacle of a whole nation loaded with re- cent chains. Their liveliness, their affability, and that happy indifference which constitution alone can give, for philosophy aspires to it in vain, have not sunk under circumstances; but many peculiarities of costume and manner have by degrees been lost, and the nobles, with a pride common to allltalians who have been masters, have not been persuaded to pa- rade their insignificance. That splendour which was a proof.and a portion of their power, they would not degrade into the trappings of their subjection. They retired from the space which they had occupied in the eyes of their fellow citizens ; their continuance in which would have been a symptom of acquiescence, and an insult to those who suffered by the common misfortune. Those who remained in the degraded capital, might be said rather to haunt the scenes of their departed power, than to live in them. The re- flection, " who and what enthrals," will hardly bear a comment from one who is, nationally, the friend and the ally of the conqueror. It may, however, be al- 126 . NOTES. lowed to say thus much, that to those who wish to recover theh* independence, any masters must be an object of detestation; and it may be safeiy foretold that this unprofitable aversion will not have been cor- rected before Venice shall have sunk into the slim^of her choked canals. Stanza XX. Bid from their vature will the tannen groxiJ Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'^d rocks. Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir pecu- liar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourish- ment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain tree. Stanza XXVIII. A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven. The above description may seem fantastical or ex- aggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening (the eighteenth) as contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta near La Mira. NOTES. 1^ Stanza XXX. Watering' the ti'ee zvhich bears his ladys name With his melodious tears j he gave himself to Jam>e. Thanks to the critical acumen of a Scotchman, we now know as little of Laura as ever. ^ The disco- veries of the Abbe de Sade, his triumphs, his sneers, can no longer instruct or amuse.* A¥e must not, however, think that these memoirs are as much a ro- mance as Belisarius or the Incas, although we are told so by Dr. Beattie, a great name but a little autho- rity.^ His " labour" has not been in vain, notwith- standing his " love" has, like most other passions, made him ridiculous.* The hypothesis which over- powered the struggling Italians, and carried along * See An historical and critical Essay on the Life and Cha- racter of Petrarch; and a Dissertation on an Historical Hypo- thesis of the Abb^ de Sade : the first appeared about the year 1784 ; the other is inserted in the fourth volume of the Transac- tions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and both have been incorporated into a work, published, under the first title, by Ballantyne in 1810. 2 M^noirea pour la Vie de Pdtrarque. 3 Life of Beattie, by Sir S. Forbes, t. ii. p. 106. * Mr. Gibbon called his Memoirs *' a labour of love,'* (see Decline and Fall, cap. Ixx. note I.), and followed him with confidence and delight. The compiler of a very voluminous work must take much criticism upon trust; Mr. Gibbon has done so, though not so readily as some other authors. V28 NOTES. less interested critics in its current, is run out. We have another proof that we can be never sure that the paradox, the most singular, and therefore having the most agreeable and authentic air, will not give place to the re-established ancient prejudice. It seems, then, first, that Laura was born, lived, died, and was buried, not in Avignon, but in the country. The fountains of the Sorga, the thickets of Cabrieres may resume their pretensions, and the exploded dc la Bast'ie again be heard with complacency. The hypo- thesis of the Abbe had no stronger props than the parchment sonnet and medal found on the skeleton of the wife of Hugo de Sade, and the manuscript note to the Virgil of Petrarch, now in theAmbrosian library. If these proofs were both incontestable, the poetry was written, the medal composed, cast, and deposited within the space of twelve hours; and these deli- berate duties were performed round the carcase of one who died of tlie plague, and was hurried to the grave on the day of her death. These documents, there- fore, are too decisive : they prove not the fact, but the forgery. Either the sonnet or the Virgilian note must be a falsification. The Abbe cites both as in- contestably true ; the consequent deduction is in- evitable — they are both evidently false. ^ , ^ The sonnet had before awakened the suspicions of Mr. Ho- race VValpole. See his letter to Wharton in 1763. NOTES. 1^ Secondly, Laura was never married, and was a ..haughty virgin rather than that tender and prudent wife who honoured Avignon by making that town the theatre of an honest French passion, and played off for one and twenty years her little machinery of alternate favours and refusals ^ upon the first poet of the age. It was, indeed, rather too unfair that a fe- male should be made responsible for eleven children upon the faith of a misinterpreted abbreviation^ and the decision of a librarian. ^ It is, however, satisfac- » '* Par ce petit manege, cette alternative de faveurs et de ri- gueurs bien m^nag^e, une femme tendre et sage amuse, pendant vingt et un aus, le plus grand poete de son siecle, sans faire la moindre breche a son honneur." M^m. pour la Vie de Petrarque', Preface aux Franyois. The Italian editor of the London edi- tion of Petrarch, who has translated Lord Woodhouselee, ren- ders the " femme tendre et sage" ** rqffinata civetta" Riflessioni intorno a madonna Laura, p. ii34, vol, iii. ed. 1811. ^ la a dialogue with St. Augustin, Petrarch has described Laura as having a body exhausted with repeated ptuhs. The old editors read and printed perfurlationibus ; but Mr. Capperonier, librarian to the French King in I762, who saw thcMS. in the Paris library, made an attestation that ** on lit et qu^on doit lire, par- tubus exhaustum.'* De Bade joined the names of Messrs. Boudot and Bejot with Mr. Capperonier, and in the whole discussion on this ptuhs, showed himself a downright literary rogue. See Ri- flessioni, &c. p. 267. Thomas Aquinas is called in to settle whether Petrarch's mistress was a chaste maid or a continent wife. X ISO NOTES. tory to think that the love of Petrarch was not pla- tonic. The happiness which he prayed to possess but once and for a moment was surely not of the mind,! and something so very real as a marriage pro- ject, with one who -has been idly called a shadowy nymph, may be, perhaps, detected in at least six places of his own sonnets. ^ The love of Petrarch was neither platonic nor poetical; and if in one passage of his works he calls it " amore veemen- teissimo ma unico ed onesto," he confesses in a letter to a friend, that it was guilty and perverse, that it absorbed him quite and mastered his heart.^ In this case, however, he was perhaps alarmed for the culpability of his wishes; for the Abbe de Sade himself, who certainly would not have been scru*- pulously delicate if he could have proved his descent from Petrarch as well as Laura, is forced into a stout defence of his virtuous grand-mother. As far as re- lates to the poet, we have no security for the inno- 1 «< Pigmalion, quanto lodar ti clei Deir imagine tua, se mille volte N' avesti quel ch' i' sol una vorrei." Sonetto 58. qtiando giunse a Simon Callo concetto Le Rime (Sfc. par. i. pag. I89. edit. Ven. 1756. 2 See Riflessioni, &c. p. 29I. 3 " Quella rea e perversa passione che solo tulto mi occupava e mi regnava nel ciiore." NOTES. ISl cence, except perhaps in the constancy of his pur- suit. He assures us in his epistle to posterity that, when arrived at his fortieth year, he not only had in horror, but had lost all recollection and image of any ** irregularity." ^ But the birth of his natural daughter cannot be assigned earlier than his thirty- ninth year; and either the memory or the morality of the poet must have failed him, when he forgot or was guilty of this slip, ^ The weakest argument for the purity of this love has been drawn from the per- manence of effects, which survived the object of his passion. The reflection of Mr. de la Bastie, that virtue alone is capable of making impressions which death cannot efface, is one of those whicli every body applauds, and every body finds not to be true, the moment he examines his own breast or the records of human feeling.^ Such apothegms can do nothing for Petrarch or for the cause of morality, except with the very weak and the very young. He that has * Ation disonesta are his words. * ♦* A questa confessione cosl sincera diecle forse occasione una nuova caduta ch' ei fece.'' Tiraboschi, Storia, &c. torn. v. lib. iv. par. ii. pag. 492. ^^ _^ J ^ '* II n*y a que la vertu seule qui soit capahle defatre otesim' prcssions que la mort n' efface pas." M. de Bimard, Baron de la Bastie, in the Memoircs de 1' Academic des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for 1740 and 1751. See also Riflessioni, &c. p. 2Qru K 2 1S2 KOTES. made even a little progress beyond ignorance and pupilage, cannot be edified with any thing but truth. .What is called vindicating the honour of an individual or a nation, is the most futile, tedious and uninstruc- tive of all writing; although it will always meet with more applause than that sober criticism, which is at- tributed to the malicious desire of reducing a great man to the common standard of humanity. It is, after all, not unlikely, that our historian was right in retaining his favorite hypothetic salvo^ which secures the author, although it scarcely saves the honoui of the still unknown mistress of Petrarch. Stanza XXXI. l^hey keep his dust in Arqua, where he died, Petrarch retired to Arqua immediately on his re- turn from the unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to Venice in company with Fran- 1 **■ And if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable, he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying the nymph of poetry." Decline and Fall, cap. Ixx. p. 32?. vol. xii, oct. Perhaps the if Is here meant fur aWiough. NOTES. 1^ cesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last years of his life between that charming soli- tude and Padua. For four months previous to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and in the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his library chair with his head rest- ing upon a book. The chair is still shown amongst the precious rehcs of Arqu^, which, from the uninter- rupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man fyom the moment of his death to the present hour, have, it may be hoped, a better chance of authenticity than the Shakesperian memorials of Stratford upon Avon. Arqua (for the last syllable is accented in pro- nunciation, although the analogy of the English lan- guage has been observed in the verse) is twelve miles from Padua, and about three miles on the right of the high road to Rovigo, in the bosom of the Eu- ganean hills. After a walk of twenty minutes across a flat well wooded meadow, you come to a little blue lake, clear, but fathomless, and to the foot of a suc- cession of acclivities and hills, clothed with vine- yards and orchards, rich with fir and pomegranate trees, and every sunny fruit shrub. From the banks of the lake the road winds into the hills, and the church of Arqu^ is soon seen between a cleft where t^^d ridges slope towards each other, and nearly in- IM NOTES. close the village. The houses are scattered at intervals on the steep sides of these summits ; and that of the poet is on the edge of a little knoll overlooking two descents, and Commanding a view not only of the glowing gardens in the dales immediately beneath, hut of the wide plains, above whose low woods of mulberry and willow thickened into a dark mass by festoons of vines, tall single cypresses, and the spires of towns are seen in the distance, which stretches to the mouths of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The climate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be said to he buried, in a sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands conspi- cuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four lately planted laurels. Petrarch's fountain, for here every thing is Petrarch's, springs and expands itself beneath an artificial arch, a little below the church, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, with that soft water which was the ancient wealth of the Euganean hills. It would he more attractive, were it not, in some seasons, beset with hornets and wasps. No other coincidence could assimilate the tombs of Petrarch and Archilochus. The revolutions of cen- turies have spared these sequestered vallies, and the NOTES. :i§f ©nly violence which has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen by a Floren- tine through a rent which is still visible. The injury is not forgotten, but has served to identify the poet with the country where he was born, but where he would not live. A peasant boy of Arqua being asked who Petrarch was, replied, " that the peof)le of the parsonage knew all about him, but that he only knew that he was a Florentine." Mr, Forsyth^ was not quite correct in saying that Petrarch never returned to Tuscan}'' after he had once quitted it when a boy. It appears he did pass through Florence on his way from Parma to Rome, and on his return in the year 1350, and remained there long enough to form some acquaintance with its most distinguished inhabitants. A Florentine gentleman, ashamed of the aversion of the poet for his native country, was eager to point out this trivial error in our accomplished traveller, whom he^ knew and respected for an extraordinary capacity, exten- sive erudition, and refined taste, joined to that en- gaging simplicity of manners which has been so fre- quently recognized as the surest, though it is cer- tainly not an indispensable, trait of superior genius. ^ fiemarks, &c. on Italy, p. Qa, note, 2nd edit. IM NOTES. Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously traced and recorded. The house in which he lodged is shewn in Venice. The inhabitants of Arezzo, in order to decide the ancient controversy between their city and the neighbouring Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven months old, and remained until his seventh year, have designated by a long ii>- scription the spot where their great fellow citizen was born. A tablet has been raised to him at Parma, in the chapel of St. Agatha, at the cathedral,* be- * 1 D.O. M. Francisco Petrarch se Parmensi Archidiacono. Parentibus praeclaris genere perantiquo Ethices Christianae scriptori eximio Romanae linguae restitutori Etruscae principi Africae ob carmen hac in urbe peractum regibus accito S. P. Q. R. laurea donate. Tanti Viri Juvenilium juvenis senilium senex Studiosissimus Comes Nicolaus Canonicus Cicognarus Marmorea proxima ara excitata. Ibique condito Divae Januariae cruento corpore H. M. P. Suffectum Sed ii>fra meritura Francisci sepulchra f notes: 137 cause he was archdeacon of that society, and was only snatched from his intended sepulture in. their church by a foreign death. Another tablet with a bust has been erected to him at Pavia, on account of his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that city, with his son in law Brossano. The political con- dition which has for ages precluded the Italians from the criticism of the living, has concentrated their at- tention to the illustration of the dead. Stanza XXXIV. Or it may he with daemons. The struggle is to the full as likely to be with daemons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude. Stanza XXXVIII. In face of all his Joes, the Cruscan quire; And Boileau, whose rash envy, <^c. Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates Tasso, may serve as well as any other specimen to Summa liac in aede efferri mandantis Si Parmae occumberet Extera raorte heu nobis erepti. IX NOTES, justify the opinion given of the harmony of French verse. A Malerbe a Racan. pr^f(^rer Theophile Et le clinquant du Tasse a tout I'or de Virgile, Sat. ix. vers. 176. The biographer Serassi, ^ out of tenderness to the re- putation either of the Italian or the French poet, is eager to observe that the satirist recanted or ex- {>lained away this censure, and subsequently allowed the author of the Jerusalem to be a " genius, sublime, vast, and happily born for the higher flights of poetry." To this we will add, that the recantation is far from satisfactory, when we examine the whole anecdote as reported by Olivet.^ The sentence pro- nounced against him by Bohours,^ is recorded only I La vita del Tasso, lib. iii. p. 284. torn. ii. edit. Bergamo 1790. 2Histoire de I'Academie Franjoise depuis 1G52, jusqu'a I7OO, par I'abb^ d'Olivet, p. 181, edit. Amsterdam 1730. " Mais, en- suite, venant a I'usage qu'il a fait de ses talens, j'aurois montr^ que le tons sens n'est pas toujours ce qui domine chez lui,'* p. 182. Boileau said he had not changed his opinion. ** J'en ai si peu chang^, dit il," &c. p. 181. ^ La maniere de bien penser dans les ouvrages de I'esprit, sec. dial. p. 89, edit. 1 692. Philanthes is for Tasso, and says in the outset, ** de tous les beaux esprits que ITtalie a perils, le Tasse est peut ^tre celui qui pense le plus noblement." But Bohours seems to speak in Eudoxus, who closes with the absurd com- NOTES/ 139 to the confusion of the critic, whose palinodia the Italian makes no effort to discover, and would not perhaps accept. As to the opposition which the Je-. rusalem encountered from the Cruscan academy, who degraded Tasso from all competition with Ariosto, below Bojardo and Pulci, the disgrace of such opposition must also in some measure be laid to the charfjje of Alfonso, and the court of Ferrara. For Leonard Salviati, the principal and nearly the sloe origin of this attack, was, there can be no doubt, ' influenced by a hope to acquire the favour of the House of Este: an object which he thought attain- able by exalting the reputation of a native poet at the expense of a rival, then s. prisoner of state. The hopes and efforts of Salviati must serve to show the cotemporary opinion as to the nature of the poet's imprisonment; and will fill up the measure of our indignation at the tyrant jailer. ^ In fact, the anta« gonist of Tasso was not disappointed in the reception given to his criticism ; he was called to the court of parison : ** Faites valoir le Tasse tant qu'il vous plaira, je m'en tiens pour moi a Virgile," &c. ibid. p. 102. » La Vita, &c. lib. iii. p. 90, torn. ii. The English reader may see an account of the opposition of the Crusca to Tasso, in Dr. Black, Life, &c. cap. xvii. vol. ii. 2 For further and, it is hoped, decisive proof, that Tasso wa% neither more nor less than a prisoner of state, the reader is re- ferred to ** Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto 4)p Childe Harold," pag. 5, and following. t0 NOTES. Ferrara, where, having endeavoured to heighten hi^ claims to favour, by panegyrics on the family of his sovereign ;i he was in his turn abandoned, and ex- pired in neglected poverty. The opposition of the Cruscanswas brought to a close in six years after the commencement of the controversy, and if the aca- demy owed its first renown to having almost opened with such a paradox; 2 it is probable that;, on the other hand, the care of his reputation alleviated rather than aggravated the imprisonment of the injured poet. The defence of his father and of himself, for both were involved in the censure of Salviati, found employment formany ofhis solitary hours, and the cap- tive could have been but little embarrassed to reply to accusations, where, amongst other delinquencies he was charged with invidiously omitting, in his compa- rison between France and Italy, to make any mention of the cupola of St. Maria del Fiore at Florence.^ The late biographer of Ariosto seems as if willing to renew the controversy by doubting the interpretation ' Orazioni funebri . . delle lodi di Don Luigi Cardinal d'Este . . . . delle lodi di Donno Alfonso d'Este. See La Vita, lib. iii. page 1 17. * It was founded in 1582, and the Cruscan answer to Pelle- grino's Caraffa or epica poesia was published in 1584. 5 " Cotanto pot^ sempre in lui il veleno della sua pessima vo- lonta contro alia nazion Fiorentina." La Vita, lib. iii. p. 96, 98, torn. ii. NOTES. 44* of Tasso*s self-estimation^ related in Serassi's life of the poet. But Tiraboschi had before laid that rivalry at rest,^ b}^ showing, that between Ariosto and Tasso it is not a question of comparison, but of preference. Stanza XLI. The lightning' rentfrcym Ariostd's bust The iron crown oflaureTs mimic^d leaves. Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the Benedictine church to the librar}^ of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away. The event has been recorded by a writer of the last century.^ The transfer of these sacred ashes on the 6th of June 1801 was one of the most brilliant spec- tacles of the short-lived Italian Republic, and to con- secrate the memory of the ceremony, the once fa- ^ La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, scritta dall' Abate Girolamo Ba- ruffaldi Giuniore &c., Ferrara 1807, lib. iii. pag. 262. See His- torical Illustrations, &c. p. 26. ' Storia della Lett. &c. lib. iii. torn. vii. par. iii. pag. 1220. sect. 4. J " Mi raccontarono que' monaci, ch' essendo caduto un ful- mine nella loro chiesa schiamo esse dalle tempie la corona di lauro a queir itnmortale poela." Op. di Bianconi, vol. iii. p. 17O. ed. Milano. 1802 ; lettera al Signor Guido Savini Arcifisiocritico, suH* indole di nn fulinine caduto in Dresda Tanno I739. / Wt NOTES. mous fallen IntrepUli were revived and re-formed into the Ariostean academ3^ The large public placethrough which the procession paraded was then for the first time called Ariosto Square. The author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Fer- rara. ^ The mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born is carefully distin- guished by a tablet with these words : " Qui nacque Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Setterribre delV aniw 1474." But the Ferrarese make light of the accident b}^ which their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They possess his bones, they show his arm-chair, and his inkstand, and his autographs. ** Hie illius arma Hie currus fuit " , The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by his own replaced memorial, ^ and by a recent inscription. The Ferrarese are more jealous of their claims since the animosity of Denina, » " Appassionato ammiratore ed invitto apologista dell' Om^o Ferrarese y The title was first given by Tasso, and is quoted to the confusion of ihe Tassisti. lib. iii. pp. 262. 265. La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, &c. '■^ ** Parva sed apta mihi, sed nuUi obnoxia, sed non Sordida, parta meo sed tamen sere domus." NOTES. 14@ arising from a cause which their apologists myste- riously hint is not unknown to them, ventured to de- grade their soil and climate to a Boeotian incapacity for all spiritual productions. A quarto volume has been called forth by the detraction, and this supple- ment to Barotti's Memoirs of the illustrious Ferrarese has been considered a triumphant reply to the " Qua- dro Storico Stadstico dell' Alta Italia." Stanza XLI. Vcyr the true laureUwreath which Glory weaves Is of the tree no holt of thunder cleaves. The eagle, the sea calf, the laurel ^, and the whi^e vine,'^ were amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning : Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Caesar the second,^ and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the* sky threatened a thunder storm. 4 These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where the magical pro- perties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit; and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised ^ Aquila, vitulus marinus, et laurus, fulmine non fcriuniur. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii, cap. Iv. ^ Columella, lib. x. 3 Sueton. in Vit. August, cap. xc. ' * Id. in Vit. Tiberii, cap. Ixix* 144 NOTES. to find that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown of Tiberius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote a laurel was actually struck by lightning at Rome. * Stanza X LI. Know that the lightning sanctifies below. The Curtian lake and the Ruminal fig-tree in the Forum, having been touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the memory of the accident was preserved by 'dputeal, or altar, resembling the mouth of a well, with a little chapel covering the cavity supposed to be made by the thunderbolt. Bodies scathed and persons struck dead were thought to be incor- ruptible;^ and a stroke not fatal conferred perpetual dignity upon the man so distinguished by heaven.^ Those killed by lightning w^ere wrapped in a white garment, and buried where they fell. The supersti- tion was not confined to the worshippers of Jupiter: the Lombards believed in the omens furnished by ^ Note 2. pag. 40g. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1667. 2 Vid. J. C. Bullenger, de Terras motu et Fulminib. lib. v. cap. xi. "* 'Ovitl; xefavyw^ilg dri(ji.og lart, oS'iy xal w; 0joj rtfJMTM- Piot. SyiU- pos. rid. J. C. Bulleng. ut sup. NOTES. 145 lightning, and a Christian priest confesses that, by a diabolical skill in interpreting thunder, a seer foretold to Agilulf, duke of Turin, an event which came to pass, and gave him a queen and a crown. There was, however, something equivocal in this sign, which the ancient inhabitants of Rome did not always consider propitious ; and as the fears are likely to last longer than the consolations of superstition, it is not strange that the Romans of the age of Leo X. should have been so mi^ch terrified at some misinterpreted storms as to require the exhortations of a scholar who arrayed all the learning on thunder and lightning to prove the omen favourable: beginning with the flash which struck the walls of Velitrae, and including that which played upon a gate at Florence, and fore- told the pontificate of one of its citizens/^ Stanza XLII. Italia, oh Italia, Sfc. The two stanzas, XLII. and XLIII. are, with the » PauliDiaconi, de gestis Langobard. lib. iii. cap. xiv. fo. 15. edit. Taurin. 1527. * I. P. Valeriani, de fulrainum significationibus declamatio, ap. Graev. Antiq. Rom. torn. v. pag. 593. The declamation is addressed to Julian of Medicis. L 146 NOTES. exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: *♦ Italia, Italia, O ta cui feo la sorte." Stanza XLIV. Wandering inyouth^ I traced the path afhinif The Romanjriend of Rome's lea^t mortal mind. The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. " On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from JEgina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me : JEgina was be- hind, Megara before me ; Piraeus on the right, Co- rinth on the left ; all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think pre- sently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcases of so many noble cities lie here exposed be- fore me in one view." * * Dr. Middleton— History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vii. pag. 371. vol. ii. NOTES. ; • 147 Stanza XLVL And we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form. It is Poggio who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, '* Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi." ' Stanza XLIX. There too the goddess loves in stone. The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly sug- gests the lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with the description proves, not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. The same con- clusion, may be deduced from another hint in the same episode of Musidora; for Thomson's notion of the privileges of favoured love must have been either very primitive, or rather deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her discreet * De fortunae varietate urbis Komae et de minis' ejusdem dc- jcriptio, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tora. i. pag. 501. L 2 14j8 notes. Damon that in some happier moment he might per- haps be the companion of her bath : ** The time may come you need not fly." The reader will recollect the anecdote told in the life of Dr. Johnson. We will not leave the Florentine gallery without a word on the Whetter, It seems strange that the character of that disputed statue should not be entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who has seen a sarcophagus in the vesti- bule of the Basilica of St. Paul without the walls, at Rome, where the whole group of the fable of Mar- syas is seen in tolerable preservation ; and the Scy- thian slave whetting the knife is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated masterpiece. The slave is not naked : but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Caesar. Winkel- mann, illustrating a has relief of the same subject, follows the opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his au- thority might have been thought conclusive, even if the resemblance did not strike the most careless ob- ^ See Monim. Ant. ined. par. i. cap.xvii. n. xlii. pag. 50; and Sloriadelle arti, &c. lib. xi. cnp. i. torn. ii. pag. 314. not. u* NOTES. 149 Amongst the bronzes of the same princely collec- tion, is still to be seen the inscribed tablet copied and commented upon by Mr. Gibbon. ' Our historian found some difficulties, but did not desist from his illustration : he might be vexed to hear that his criti- cism has been thrown away on an inscription now generally recognized to be a forgery. Stanza LI. His eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek, *0(pQaXiJt,oi}s saridv " Atque oculos pascat uterque suos.** Ovid. Amor. lib. ii. Stanza LIV. In Santa Crocis holy precincts lie. This name will recal the memory, not only of those whose tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the centre of pilgrimage, the Mecca of Italy, but of her whose eloquence was poured over the illustrious ashes, and whose Voice is now as mute as those she snng. CoRiNNA is no more; and with her should * Noipina gentesque Antiquae Itali2e, p. 204. e^it. oct. 150 NOTE^. expire the fear, theflatter}% and the envy, which threw too dazzling or too dark a cloud round the march of genius, and forbad the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. We have her picture embellished or dis- torted, as friendship or detraction has held the pencil : the impartial portrait was hardly to be expected from a cotemporary. The immediate voice of her -sur- vivors will, it is probable, be far from affording a just estimate of her singular capacity. The gallantry, the love of wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which blunted the edge of censure, must cease to exist. — The dead have no sex ; they can surprise by no new miracles ; they can confer no privilege : Co- rinna has ceased to be a woman — she is only an au- thor : and it may be foreseen that many will repay themselves for former complaisance, by a severity to which the extravagance of previous praises may per- haps give the colour of truth. The latest posterit}'^, for to the latest posterity they will assuredly descend, will have to pronounce upon her various productions; and the longer the vista through which they are seen, the more accurately minute will be the object, the more certain the justice, of the decision. She will enter into that existence in which the great writers of all ages and nations are, as it were, associated in a world of their own, and, from that superior sphere, shed their eternal influence for the control and con- NOTES. 151 solation of mankind. But the individual will gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen : some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of invo- luntary wit, and of easy hospitality, attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet, should rescue from oh- livion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to pourtray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relation- ships, the performance of whose duties is rather dis- covered amongst the interior secrets, than seen in the outward management, of family intercourse; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine af- fection to qualify for the eye of an indiiferent spec- tator. Some one should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an open man- sion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambi- tion and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those around her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot- be for- gotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was known the best ; and, to the sorrows of very 16^ NOTES. many friends and more dependants, may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake, received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging quali- ties of the incomparable Porinna. Stanza LIV. Here repose AngeWs^ Alfieri's hones, Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Ita- lians, without waiting for the hundred years, con- sider him as *' a poet good in law." — His memory is the more dear to them because he is the bard of freedom; and because, as such, his tragedies can receive no countenance from any of their sovereigns. They are but very seldom, and but very few of them, allowed to be acted. It was observed by Cicero, that nowhere were the true opinions and feelings of the Romans so clearly shown as at the theatre, * In the * The free expression of their honest sentiments survived their liberties. Titius, the friend of Antony, presented them with games in the theatre of Pompey. They did not suffer the bril- liancy of the spectacle to efface from their memory that the man who furnished them with the entertainment had murdered the son of Pompey : they drove him from the theatre with curses. NOTES. tBS autumn of 18 16, a celebrated improvisatore exhibited his talents at the Opera-house of Milan. The read- ing of the theses handed in for the subjects of his poetry was received by a very numerous audience, for the most part in silence, or with laughter ; but when the assistant, unfolding one of the papers, exclaimed, " The apotheosis of Victor Alfieri^ the whole theatre burst into a shout, and the applause was continued for some moments. The lot did not fall on Alfieri; and the Signor Sgricci had to pour forth his extem- porary common-places on the bombardment of Al- giers. 1 he choice, indeed, is not left to accident quite so much as might be thought from a first view of the ceremony; and the police not only takes care to look at the papers beforehand, but, in case of any prudential after- thought, steps in to correct the blindness of chance. The proposal for deifjnng Al- fieri was received with immediate enthusiasm, the rather because it was conjectured there would be no opportunity of carrying it into effect. The moral sense of a populace, spontaneously expressed, is never wrong. Even the soldiers of the triumvirs joined in the execration of the citizens, by shouting round the chariots of Le- pidus and Plancus, who had proscribed their brothers, De Ger- manis non de Gallis duo triumphant Consules, a saying worth a record, were it nothing but a good pun. [C. Veil, Paterculi Hist. lib. ii. cap. Ixxix. pag. 78. edit. Elzevir, 1639. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. Ixxvii.] 154! NOTES. Stanza LIV, Here Machiavellis earth returned to whence it rose. The affectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscrip- tions, which so often leaves us uncertain whether the structure before us is an actual depository, or a cenotaph, or a simple memorial not of death but life, has given to the tomb of Machiavelli no information as to the place or time of the birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian. TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM NICCOLAVS MACHIAVELLJ. There seems at least no reason why the name should not have beeij put ahove the sentence which alludes to it. It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which have passed the name of Machiavelh into an epithet proverbial of iniquity, exist no longer at Florence. His memory was persecuted as his life had been for an attachment to liberty, incompatible with the new system of despotism, which succeeded the fall of the free governments of Italy. He was put to the torture for being a " libertine y' that is, for wishing to restore the republic of Florence; and such are the undying efforts of those who are interested in the perversion not onl}^ of the nature of actions, but NOTES. 155 the meaning of words, that what was once patriotism, has by degrees come to signify dehmich. We have our- sfelves outlived the old meaning of ' liberality/ which is now another word for treason in one country and for infatuation in all. It seems to have been a strange mistake to accuse the author of the Prince, as being a pandar to tyranny ; and to think that the inqui- sition would condemn his work for such a delin- quency. The fact is that Machiavelli, as is usual with those against whom no crime can be proved, was suspected of and charged with atheism; and the first and last most violent opposers of the Prince were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded the Inqui- sition " benche fosse tardo," to prohibit the treatise, and the other qualified the secretary of the Floren- tine republic as no better than a fool. The father Possevin was proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucchesini not to have understood it. It is clear, however, that such critics must have ob- jected not to* the slavery of the doctrines, but to the supposed tendency of a lesson which shows how dis- tinct are the interests of a monarch from the happiness of mankind. The Jesuits are re-established in Italy, and the last chapter of the Prince may again call forth a particular refutation, from those who are em- ployed once more in moulding the minds of the rising generation, so as to receive the impressions of despotism. The chapter bears for title, " Esortazione 156 • NOTES. a liberare la Italia dai Barbari/* and concludes with a libertine excitement to the future redemption of Italy. ''' Non si deve adtcnque lasciar passare qicesta occasioned acciocche la Italia vegga dopo tanto tempo apparire un sua redentore. Ne posse esprimere con qual amove ei fusse ricevuto in tutte quelle provincie, che hanno patito per queste illuvioni esterne, con qual sete di vendetta, con che ostinatafede, con che lacrime. Quali porte se li serrerebeno ? Quali popoli li negher^ elibeno la obbedicfizaf Quale Italiojno li negherebbe Yossequio? ad ognuno puzza questo barbaro Stanza LVII. Ungrateful Florence I Dante sleeps qfa/r. Dante was born in Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles, was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic. When the party of Charles of Anjou triumphed over the Bianchi, he was absent on an embassy to Pope Boniface VIII, and was condemned to two years banishment, and to a fine of 8000 lire ; on the non-payment of which he was further punished by the sequestration of all his * II Principe di Niccold Machiavelli, &c. con la prefazione ele note istoriche e politiche di M"". Amelot de la Houssaye e Tesame e confutazione dell' opera .... Cosmopoli, 1769. >JOTES. 157 property. The republic, however, was not content with this satisfaction^ for in 1772 was discovered in the archives at Florence a sentence in which Dante is the eleventh of a list of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be burnt alive ; Talis perveniens igne comhi^atur sic quod moriatur. The pretext for this judgment was a proof of unfair barter, extortions, and illicit gains. Baracteriarum iniqitarum, extorsionum, et il- licitorum lucrorum,^ and with such an accusation it is not strange that Dante should have always pro- tested his innocence, and the injustice of his fellow- citizens. His appeal to Florence was accompanied by another to the Emperor Henry, and the death of that sovereign in 1S13, was the signal for a sentence of irrevocable banishment. He had before lingered near Tuscany with hopes of recal ; then travelled into the north of Italy, where Verona had to boast of his longest residence, and he finally settled at Ravenna, which was his ordinary but not constant abode until his death. The refusal of the Venetians to grant him a public audience, on the part of Guido Novell© da Polenta his protector, is said to have been the principal cause of this event, which hap- pened in 1321. He was buried (" in sacra minorum aede,") at Ravenna, in a handsome tomb, which was erected by Guido, restored by Bernardo Bembo in ' Sloria della Lett. Ital. torn. v. lib. iii. par. 2. p. 448. Tira- boschi's date is incorrect. 158 NOTES. 1483, pre tor for that republic which had refused to hear him, again restored by Cardinal Corsi in 1692, and replaced by a more magnificent sepulchre, con- structed in 1780 at the expense of the Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. The offence or misfortune of Dante was an attachment to a defeated party, and, as his least favourable biographers alledge against bim, too great a freedom of speech and haughtiness of manner. But the next age paid honours almost divine to the exile. The Florentines, having in vain and frequently attempted to recover his body, crowned his image in a church,^ and his pic- ture is still one of the idols of their cathedral. They struck medals, they raised statues to him. The cities of Italy, not being able to dispute about his own birth, contended for that of his great poem, and the Floren- tines thought it for their honour to prove that he had finished the seventh Canto, before they drove him from his native city. Fifty-one years after his death> they endowed a professorial chair for the expounding of his verses, and Boccaccio was appointed to this pa- triotic employment* The example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa, and the commentators, if they performed but little service to literature, augmented the veneration which beheld a sacred or moral allegory I So relates Ficino, but some think his ^:o^onation only an allegory. See Storia, &c. utsup. p. 453. NOTES. 15a in all the images of his mystic muse. His birth and- his infancy were discovered to have been distin- guished above those of ordinary men : the author of the Decameron, his earliest biographer, relates that his mother was warned in a dream of the importance of her pregnancy; and it was found, by others, that at ten years of age he had manifested his precocious passion for that wisdom or theology, which, under the name of Beatrice, had been mistaken for a sub- stantial mistress. When the Divine Comedy had been recognized as a mere mortal production, and at the distance of two centuries, when criticism and competition had sobered the judgment of Italians, Dante was seriously declared superior to Homer,'; and though the preference appeared to some casuists " an heretical blasphemy worthy of the flames,'* the contest was vigorously maintained for nearly fifty years. In later times it was made a question which of the Lords of Verona could boast of having patronised him, and the jealous scepticism of one writer would ngt allow Ravenna the undoubted pos- session of his bones. Even the critical Tiraboschi 1 By Varchi in his Ercolano. The controversy continued from 1570 lo 161G. See Storia, &c. torn. vii. lib. iii. par. iii. p. 1280. 2 Gio. Jacopo Dionisi canonicodi Verona. Serie di Aneddbti, n. 2. See Storia, &c. torn, v. lib. i. par. i. p. 24. . ; 16a NOTES. was inclined to believe that the poet had foreseen and foretold one of the discoveries of Galileo. Like the great originals of other nations, his popularity has not always maiiUained the same level. The last age seemed inclined to undervalue him as a model and a study; and Bettinelli one day rebuked his pupil Monti, for poring over the harsh, and obsolete ex- travagances of the Commedia. The present genera- tion having recovered from the Gallic idolatries of Cesarotti, has returned to the ancient worship, and the Danteggiare of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans. There is still much curious information relative to the life and writings of this great poet which has not as yet been collected even by the Italians ; but the celebrated Ugo FobcuIo meditates to supply this defect, and it is not to be regretted that this national work has been reserved for the patriotism of the author of the letters of Ortis. Stanza LVII. Like Scipio buried by the upbraiding shore, Thyjadions in their worse than civil war Proscribed, S^c, The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb if he was not buried at Liternum, whither he had retired to vo- luntary banishment. This tomb was near the sea- NOTES. 161 -shore,^nd the story of an inscription upon it, Iiigrata PatriUy having given a name to a modern tower, is, if not true, an agreeable fiction. If he was not buried, he certainly lived there. ^ -J In cosi angusta e solitaria villa • ' Era '1 grand' uomo che d'Africa s'appella Perche prima col ferro al vivo aprilla^ Ingratitude is generally supposed the vice peculiar to republics ; and it seems to be forgotten that for -one instance of popular inconstancy, we have a hun- dred examples of the fall of courtly favourites. Bo- sides, a people have often repented — a monarch sel- dom or never. Leaving apart many familiar proofs of this fact, a short story ma}^ show the difference between even an aristocracy and the multitude. Vettor Pisani, having been defeated in 1354 at Portolongo, and many years afterwards in the moire decisive action of Pola, by the Genoese, was recalled by the Venetian government, and thrown into chains. TheAvvogadori proposed to behead him, but thesu- preme Jtribunal was content with the sentence of im>- prisonment. Whilst Pisani was suffering this-unme^ rited disgrace, Chioza, in the vicinity of the capital*, ** Vitam Literni egit sine desiderio- urbis. See T. Liv. Hfsh lib. xxxviii. Livy reports that some said he Was buried at Liter- num, Qthers at Rome. . lb. cap. LV. : . Ij^Zi 2 Trionfo della Castitu, ' See note to stanza XIII. M 168 NOTES. was, by the assistance of the Signor of Padua, deli- vered into the hands of Pietro Doria. At the intdfi- gence of that disaster, the great belJ of St. Mark's tower tolled to arms, and the people and the soldiery ofthegallies were summoned to the repulse of the approaching enemy; but they protested they would not move a step, unless Pisani were liberated and placed at their head. The great council was instantly assembled: the prisoner was called before them, and the Doge, Andrea Contarini, informed him of tlie de- mands of the people and the necessities of the state, whose only hope of safety was reposed on his efforts^ and who implored him to forget the indignities he had endured in her service. " I have submitted," replied the magnanimous republican, " I have sub- mitted to your deliberations without complaint; I have supported patiently the pains- of imprisonment, for they were inflicted at your command : this is no time to inquire whether I deserved them — the good of the republic may have seemed to require it, and that which the republic resolves is always resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my life for the preservation of my country." Pisani was appointed generalissimo, and by his exertions, in conjunction with those of Carlo Zeno, the Venetians soon re- covered the ascendancy over their maritime rivals. NOTES. 16B Tlie Italian communities vrere no lesff unjust to their citizens than the Greek republics. Liberty, both with the one and the other, seems to have been a na- tional, not an individual object : and, notwithstanding the boasted equality before the laws which an ancient Greek writer ' considered the great distinctive mark between his countrymen and the barbarians, the mu- tual rights of fellow-citizens seem never to have been the principal scope of the old democracies. The world may have not yet seen an essay by the author of the Italian Republics, in which the distinc- tion between the liberty of former states, and the sig- nification attached to that word by the happier con- stitution of England, is ingeniously developed. The Italians, however, when they had ceased to be free, still looked back with a sigh upon those times of tur- bulence, when every citizen might rise to a share of sovereign power, and have never been taught fully to appreciate the repose of a monarchy. Speron Spe- roni, when Francis Maria II, Duke of Rovere, pro- posed the question, " which was preferable, the re- public or the principality — the perfect and not dura- ble, or the less perfect and not so liable to change,** replied, *' that our happiness is to be measured by itd quality, not by its duration ; and that he preferred to * The Greek boasted that he was ta-miixos. See— the last chap* ter of the first book of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. M 2 164 NOTES. live for one day like a man, than for a hundred years like a brute, a stock, or a stone." This was thought, and called, a magnificent answer, down to the last days of Italian servitude. ^ Stanza LVII. " And the crown Which PetrarcKs laureate brow supremely wore Upon afar and foreign soil had grown.''"' The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which confiscated the property of his fa^ ther, who had been banished shortly after the exile, of Dante. His crown did not dazzle them ; but when in the next year they were in want of his assistance in the formation of their university, they repented of ];heir injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua to intreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the bosom of his native country, where he might finish his immortal Africa, and enjoy, with his recovered possessions, the esteem of all classes of his fellow- citizens. They gave him the option of the book and the science he might condescend to expound : they called him the glory of his country, who was dear, * ** E intorno alia magnifica risposla" &c. Serassi Vita del Tasso, lib. iii. pag. 149. torn. ii. edit. 2. Bergamo. , NOTES. 165 Iknd wduW be dearer to tbem; and they added, that if there was any thing unpleasing in their letter, he ought to return amongst them, were it only to correct their style \ Petrarch seemed at first to listen to the flattery and to the intreaties of his friend, but he did not return to Florence, and preferred a pilgrimage to the tomb of Laura and the shades of Vaucluse. \ Stanza LVIIL Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed His dust, Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James, at Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the place of his birth. There he passed the latter part of his life in a course of laborious study, which shortened his existence ; and there might his ashes have been se- cure, if not of honour, at least of repose. But the ^' hyaena bigots" of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccaccio, and ejected it from the holy precincts of St. Michael and St. James. The occasion and, it » *^ ** Accingiti intioltre, se ci h lecito ancor Tesortarti^ a com- pire rimmortal tua Africa . . . . Se ti avviene d'incontrare nel nostro stile cosa che ti dispiaccia, ci5 debb' essere un altro motivo ad esaudire i desiderj della tua patria." Storia della Lett. Ital. torn. V. par. i. lib. i. pag. 76. 166 NOTES. may be hoped, the excuse, of this ejectment w£is the making of a new floor for the church; but the fact is, that the tomb-stone was taken up and thrown aside at the bottom of the building. Ignorance may share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to relate such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for their great names, could it not be accompa* nied by a trait more honourably conformable to the general character of the nation. The principal per- son of the district, the last branch of the house of Medicis, afforded that protection to the memory of the insulted dead which her best ancestors had dis- pensed upon all cotemporary merit. The Mar- chioness Lenzoni rescued the tombstone of Boccaccio from the neglect in which it had sometime lain, and found for it an honourable elevation in her own man« sion. She has done more : the house in which the poet lived has been as little respected as his tomb, and is falling to ruin over the head of one indiflferent to the name of its former tenant. It consists of two or three little chambers, and a low tower, on which Cosmo II. affixed an inscription. This house she has taken measures to purchase, and proposes to devote to it that care and consideration which are attached to the cradle and to the roof of genius. This is not the place to undertake the defence of Boc- caccio; but the man who exhausted \\\p little p5itrjinony NOTES. Wr in the acquirement of learning, who was amongst the first, if not the first, to aJlure the science and the poetry of Greece to the bosom of Italy; — who not only in- vented a new style, but founded, or certainly fixed, a new language ; who, besides the esteem of every po- lite court of Europe, was thought worthy of employ- ment by the predominant repubJicof his own country, and, what is more, of the friendship of Petrarch, who lived the life of a philosopher and a freeman, and who died in the pursuit of knowledge, — such a man might have found more consideration than he has met with from the priest of Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who strikes off his portrait as an odious, con- temptible, licentious writer, whose impure remains should be suffered to rot without a record. ^ That Eng- * Classical Tour, cap. ix. vol. ii. p. 355. edit. 3d. ** Of Boccaccio, the modern Petronius, we say nothing ; the abuse of genius is more odious and more contemptible than its absence j and it im- ports little where the impure remains of a licentious author are consigned to their kindred dust. For the same reason the tra- veller may pass unnoticed the tomb of the malignant Aretino.** This dubious phrase is hardly enough to save the tourist from the suspicion of another blunder respecting the burial place of Arctine, whose tomb was in the church of St. Luke at Venice, and gave rise to the famous controversy of which some notice is taken in Bayle. Now the words of Mr. Eustace would lead us to think the tomb was at Florence, or at least was to be some- where recognized. Whether the inscription so much disputed was ever written on the tomb cannot now be decided, for all me- 1:68: notes! lish traveller, unfortunately for those whohave to de- plbre the loss of a verj^ amiable person, is beyond all criticism ; but the mortality which did not protect Boc- caccio fi'om Mr. Eustace, must not defend Mr. Eustace from the impartial judgment of his successors. — Death may canonize his virtues, not his errors; and it may be modestly pronounced that he transgressed, not only as an author, but as a man, when he evoked the shade of Boccaccio in company with that of Aretirie, amidst tlie sepulchres of Santa Croce, merely to dismiss it with indignity. As far as respects ** II flagello a more acceptable contrast with the proscription of the body, soul, and muse of Boccaccio may he found in a few words from the virtuous, the patriotic cotemporary, who thought one of the tales of this im-* pure writer worthy a Latin version from his own pen. *' / have remarked elsezvhere" says Petrarch, writing to Boccaccio, ^' that the hook itself has been worried by certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff and voice. Nor was I astonished^Jbr I have had proof qf the 'vigour of your mind^ and I know you havefalleit on that unaccommodating iiicapable race of mortals who, whatever they either like not, or know not^ or* cannot do, are sure to reprehend in others ; and on those occasions only put on a show of learning and eloquence^ hut otherwise are entirely dumb^ ^ > ^ ■ - V^ : * It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood^ do not resemble those of Certaldo, and that one bf them who did not possess the bones of Boccaccio- would not lose the opportunity of raising a cenotapb ^ ** Animadverti alicubi librum ipsum canum dentjbus laces- situm, tuo tamen baciilo egregie tiiaque voce defensam. Nee mi- ratus sum : nam et vires ingenii tui novi, et scio expertus esses hominum genus insolens et ignavum, qui quicquid ipsi vel nolunt vel nesciunt, vel non possunt, in aliis reprehendunt : ad hoq unum docti et argutr, scd elingues ad reliqua." . . . Epist. Joan. Boccatio. opp. torn. i. p. 540. edit- Basil. • NOTES. 173 to bis mea^ory. Bevius, canon of Padua, at the be* ginning of the 16th century erected at Arqud, oppo- site to the tomh of the Laureate, a tablet, in which be associated Boccaccio to the equal honours of Pante and of Petrarch. Stanza LX, . WTiat is Iter pyramid ofprecioics stones ? * Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and expires with his grandson ; that stream is pure only at the source; and it is in search of some me- morial of the virtuous republicans of the family, that we visit the church of St. Lorenzo at Florence. The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pavement slab simply inscribed to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici.' It was very natural for Corinna^ to suppose that the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de* depositi was in- tended for his great namesake; but the magnificent . \ Cosmus Medices, JOecreto Publico. Pater Patriae. . • ) ■} Cprinne. Liv. xviii. cap. iii. vol. iii. page 248. ' ,> >]>,' 174 NOTES. Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepul- chral peace which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning families in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing, but a faithful picture. ''Not- withstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. Amongst other things it is remarka- ble, that when Philip the Second of Spain gave Si- enna to the Duke of Florence, his embassador then at Rome sent him word, that he had given away more than 650,000 subjects; and it is not believed there are now 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with seditions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unpros- perous, they still retained such strength, that when Charles VIII. of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered NOTES. 175 the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people taking arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon sueh conditions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports, that in that time Florence alone, with the Val d*Arno, a small territory belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring together 135,000 well-armed men ; whereas now that city, with all the others in that province, are brought to such despica- ble weakness, emptiness, poverty and baseness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves if they were as- saulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dis- persed or destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence; they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the government they are under." ^ From the Hsurper Cosmo down to the imbecil Gaston, we look in vain for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a patriot to the command of his fellow citizens. The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cosmo, had operated so entire a change in * On Government, chap. ii. sect. xxvi. pag. 208. edit. 1751, Sidney is, together with Locke and Hoadley, one of Mr. Hum*** '* despicable'* writers 1T6 NOTES. the Tuscan character, that the candid Florentines in excuse for some imperfections in the philanthropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the so- vereign was the only liberal man in his dominions. Yet that excellent prince himself had no other notion of a national assembl}^, than of a body to represent the wants and wishes, not the will of the people. Stanza LXIII. An earthquake reeled unheededly away. V '' And such was their mutual animosity j so intent were they upon the hattle^ that the earthquake, zvhich overthrew in great part many of the cities of Italy ^ which turned the course of rapid streams, poured back the sea upon the rivers, and tore down the very motm-, tains, was not felt hy one of the combatants,""^ Such is the description of Liyy. It may be doubted whe- ther modern tactics would admit of such an ab^ straction^ The site of the battle of Thrasimene is riot to be ^ ** Tantusque fait ardor animoruin, adeo intentus pugnae animus, ut eum terrae motum qui multarum urbium Italise mag- nas partes prostravit, avertilque cursu rapido amnes, mare flomi- nibus invexit, monies laosu ingenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit." • . c Tit. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. xii. NOTES. , 177 mistaken. The traveller from the village under Cpr- lona to Casa di Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, has for the first two or three miles, around him, but more particularly to the right, that flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order to induce the Consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. On his left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills, bending down towards the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy " montes Cortonenses," and now named the Gualandra. These hills he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itineraries pretend to have been so denominated from the bones found there : but there have been no bones found there, and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into the roots of the mountains until the sixty-seventh mile-stone from Florence. The ascent thence is not steep but perpetual, and continues for twenty mi- nutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, with Bdrghetto, a round tower close upon the water; and the undulating hills partially covered with wood, amongst which the road winds, sink b}'^ degrees into the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal placed his horse ,^ in the jaws of or rather ' " Equites ad ipsas fances saltus tiimulis apte tegentibus lo- cal.'* T. Livii, lib. xxii. cap. iv. . N 178 notes; above the pass, which was between the lake and the present road, and most probably close to Borghetto, just under the lowest of the " tumuli."' On a sum- mit to the left, above the road, is an old circular ruin which the peasants call *' the Tower of Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the highest point of the -road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal plain which opens fully upon him as he descends the Gua- landra. He soon finds himself in a vale inclosed to the left and in front and behind him by the Gua- landra hills, bending round in a segment larger than a semrcircle, and running down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the right and forms the chord of this mountain arc. The position cannot be guessed at from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely inclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It then, indeed, appears " a place made as it were on purpose for a snare," locus msidiis natus, " Borghetto is then found to stand in a narrow marshy pass close to the hill and to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at ihe opposite turn of the mountains than through the little town of Passig- nano, which is pushed into the water by the foot of a high rocky acclivity."^ There is a woody erpinence ^ *• Ubi niaxime niontes Cortonenses Thrasimenussdbit." Ibid. ^ ** Inde colles assurgunt." Ibid. NOTES. 17i) branching down from the mountains into the upper end of the plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a white village called Torre. Po- Ijbius seems to allude to this eminence as the one on which Hannibal encamped and drew out his heavy armed Africans and Spaniards in a conspicuous posi- tion.^ From this spot he dispatched his Balearic and. light-armed troops round through the Gualandra heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an ambush amongst the broken acclivities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Flaininius came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset; and, without sending any spies before him, marched through the pass the next morn- ing before the day had quite broken, so that he per- ceived nothing of the horse and light troops above and about him, and saw only the heavy armed Car- thaginians in front on the hill of Torre .^ The Consul began to draw out his army in the flat, and in the ToVfAti x«Ta wgoo-wTTOV TVS '^o^tict; 'Kofo)! u'jto; narzTJi^iTo xctl Toi/f Ai^vug nai Toi/f I^fi^ctg ixwy lii^ avTov iWTKTrpa.TO'ni^iVfft, xlist. lib. Ifl. Cap. 83. The account in Polybins is not so easily reconcileable with present appearances as that in Livy : he talks of hills to the right and left of the pass arid valley j.but when Flaminius entered he had the lake at the right of both. ^ " A tergo et super caput dccepere insidtae." T. Li*'. &c. N 2 180 NOTES. mean time the horse in ambush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto. Thus the Romans were completely inclosed, having the lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills filled with the lig^ht-armed on their left flank, and being prevented from recedmg by the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sun-shine, and all the different corps in ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. At the same moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Ro- mans, who were forming their array in the mist, sud- denly heard the shouts of the enemy amongst them, on^every side, and before they could fall into their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile NOTES. 181 further on^ is called "the bloody rivulet," and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the " Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is covered with thick set ohve trees in corn-grounds, and is no where quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most probable that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to tra- verse the whole plain and to pierce through the maia army of Hannibal. The Romans fought desperately for three hours, but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse thea buxst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the San- guinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and the name of the *' stream of blood." Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some painter is the usual genius of the place, and the 182 NOTES. foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil.^ To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Tlirasimene tradition is still faithful to the fame of an' enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is un- known ; but the postilions on that road have been taught to show the very spot where il Console Ro- mano was slain. Of all who fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian himself has, be- sides the generals and Maharbal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler, of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale, It is hardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the President Dupatyysaw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conve- niently on his way from Sienna to Rome. * About the middle of the Xllth century the coins of Mantua bore on one side the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d* Italia, pi. xvii. i. 6. . . Voyage dans le Milanais &c. par. A. Z. MiUin. torn. ii. pag. 294. Paris, I8I7. NOTES. 183 Stanza LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus, No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto ; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustra- tions of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. Stanza LXXI. Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cata/ract, I saw the " Cascata del marmore" of Terni twice, at different periods ; once from the summit of the preci- pice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only ; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together : the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, &c. are rills in compara- tive appearance. Of thefall of.SchafFhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it. Stanza LXXII. An Iris sits amidst the infernal surge. Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of Iris 184 NOTES. the reader may have seen a short account in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like *' the hell of waters" that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal re- gions. It is singular enough that two of the finest cas- cades in Europe should be artificial — this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly re- commended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake, called Pie^ di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe, ^ and the ancient naturalist, amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus.* A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone. ^ Stanza LXXIII. The thundering lauwine. In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine. * " Reatini me ad sua Tempe duxerunt." Cicer. epist. ad Attic. XV. lib. iv. 2 " In eodem lacu nullo non die apparere arcus." Plin. Hist, Nat. Ub. ii. cap, Ixii. 3 Aid. Manut. de Reatina urbe agroque. ap. Sallengre Thcsaur. torn, i, p. 773. KOTES, 185 Stanza LXXV. / abhorred Too much, to conquer for the poet''s sake^ The drill dull lesson, Jhrc'd down word hy word. These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks : *^ D — n Homo," &c. but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the saixte. I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty ; that we learn by rote be- fore we can get by heart ; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of com- positions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages df Shal^espeare, ("To be or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind but of memory : so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy ; and I believe no one could, or can 186 NOTES. be more attached to Harrow than I have always beeu, and with reason ; — a part of the time passed there Mas the happiest of my life ; and my preceptor, (the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury), was the best and worthiest friend I ever pos'jessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late — when I have erred, and whose counsels 1 have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration — of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely follow- ing his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor. Stanza LXXIX. The Scipios' tomb contains no aslies now. For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. Stanza LXXXII. 7^e trebly hundred triumphs! Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the num- ber of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius j and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers. NOTES. 187 Stanza LXXXIII. Oh tJwu, whose chariot rotted on Fortune*s wheel, 4^.r Certainly were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonement of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul. ^ Stanza LXXXVI. And laid him with the earth! s 'preceding clay. On the third of September Cromwell gained the vic- tory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained "his ^ " Scigireur, vous changez toutes mes id^cs de la fayon dont je vous vols agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de I'ambition, mais aucun amour pour la gloire : je voyois bien que voire ame 6toit haate ; mais je ne soup(Jonnois pas quelle fAt grande." Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucratc. 188 NOTES. crowning mercy" of Worcester ; and a few years after, on the same day, which he liad ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. Stanza LXXXVII. And thou, dread statue! still existent in The ouster est form of naked majesty. The projected division of the Spada Pompey has al- ready been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr, Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca,^ and it may be added to his mention of it that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hundred crowns for the statue ; and presented it to Cardinal Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judgment of Solomon from being executed upon the image. In a more civilized age this statue was exposed to an actual operation: for the French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coliseum, resolved that their Caesar should fall at the base of that Pompey, which was supposed to have been sprinkled with the blood of the original dictator. The nine foot hero was therefore removed to the Arena of ' Memoric, num. Ivii, pag. 9. ap. Montfaucon Diarium Ita- Ileum. NOTES. 189 the amphitheatre, and to facilitate its transport suflfered the temporary amputation of its right arm. The re- publican tragedians had to plead that the arm was a restoration : but their accusers do not believe that the integrity of the statue would have protected it. The love of finding every coincidence has discovered the true Caesarean ichor in a stain near the right knee ; but colder criticism has rejected not only the blood but the portrait, and assigned the globe of power rather to the first of the emperors than to the last of the republican masters of Rome. Winkelmanm is loth to allow an heroic statue of a Roman citizen, but the Grimani i\grippa, a cotemporary almost, is heroic ; and naked Roman figures were only very rare, not absolutely for- bidden. The face accords much better with the " Jw- minem integrum at castum el gravenif^^ than with any of the busts of Augustus, and is too stern for him who was beautiful, says Suetonius, at all periods of his life. The pretended likeness to Alexander the Great cannot be discerned, but the traits resemble the m^dal of Pompey.^ The objectionable globe may not have been an ill applied flattery to him who found Asia Minor the boundary, and left it the centre of the Roman ^ Storia dellearti, &c. lib. ix. cap. i. pag. 321, 323, torn. ii. 2 Cicer. epist. ad Atticum, xi. 6. ^ Published by Causetis in his Maseum Romanum. 190 NOTES. empire. It seems that Winkelmann has made a mis*, take in thinking that no proof of the identity of this sta- tue, with that which received the bloody sacrifice, can be derived from the spot where it was discovered.^ Flaminiue Vacca says sotto una cantina, and this can- tina is known to have been in the Vicolo de' Leutari near the Cancellaria, a position corresponding exactly to that of the Janus before the basilica of Pompey's theatre, to which Augustus transferred the statue after the curia was either burnt, or taken down.- Part of the Pompeian shade, ^ the portico, existed in the begin- ning of the XVth century, and the atrium was still chilled Satrum* So says Blondus.* At all events, so imposing is the stern majesty of the statue, and so me- morable is the story, that tlie play of the imagination leaves no room for the exercise of the judgment, aiKl the fiction, if a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an effect not less powerful than truth. - ^ Storia delle arti, &c. ibid. 2 Sueton. in vit. August, cap. 31, and in vit. C. J. Caesar, cap. 88. Appian says it was burnt down. See a note of Piuscus to Suetonius, pag. 224. 3 ** Tu modo Pompeia lenta spatiare sub umbra." Ovid.ar. amun. * lloma instaurata, lib. ii. fo. 31. NOTES. j -^ 191 Stanza LXXXVIII. Jnd thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of the foster-mother of her founder; but there were two she-wolves of whom his- tory makes particular mention. One of ihese,of brass in ancient zvorkf was seen by Dionysius ' at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally be- lieved to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, sta having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree. * The -other was that which Cicero ^ has celebrated both XaXxia itmnuettet TtttTMiag Ipyetaia;. Antiq. Rom. Ub. i. 2 "Ad ficum Ruminalem simulacra infantium conditorum urbis sub uberibus lupae posuerunt." Liv. Hist. lib. x. cap. Ixix. This was in the year U. C. 455, or 457. ^ '* Turn statua Natlae, turn simulacra Deorum, Romulusque ct Remus cum altrice bellua vi fulminis icti conciderunt." De Divinat, ii. 20. ** Tactus est iile etiam qui banc urbem con- didit Romulus, quern inauratum in Capitolio parvum atque lac- tantero^ uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis," In Ca- tiUn. iii. 8. " Hie silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix Martia, quae parvos Mavortis semine natos Uberibus gravidis vitah rore rigebat Quae turn cum pueris flammato fuhninis ictu Concidit, atque avulsa pedum vestigia liquit." DeConsuIatu. lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat. cap. ii.) 19^ NOTES. in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also records as havino^ suffered the same accident as is al- luded to by the orator. ^ The question agitated by the antiquaries is, whether the wolf now in the conservators' palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is neither one or the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns : Lucius Faunus^ 1 'Et yap Tw xawnTwXtoo «v^f jfj'vTf; te ttoXXoI 'Jtto xspai/viuv avvtyjuvij^ytffui, scat ayaXjuarft aXXa ti, jcai Jioj Iwl xtovoj l^fVixhov, ttxw/V Tf tj; Xu5tare8enting od one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius. 200 NOTES. Impavidos : illana teriti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos^ et fingere corpora lingua." ' Staiiza XC. For the Roman's mind Was modeird in a less terrestrial mould. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Caesar, the most complete cha- racter, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Na- ture seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the won- der even of the Romans themselves. The first general — the only triumphant politician — inferior to none in elo- quence — comparable to any in the attainments of wis- dom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators and philosophers that ever appeared in the world — an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage— at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings— fighting * and making love at the » ^n. viii. 631. See — Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without exa- mining the subject. " In his tenth book, Lucan shews him sprinkled with the blood of Pharsalia in the arms of Cleopatra, NOTES. ^l same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Csesar appear to his cotempo- raries and to those of the subsequent ages, who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpass- ing glory or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial countryman : HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN. ^ Sanguine Thessalicae cladis perfusus adulter Admisit Venerem curis, et miscuit armis. After feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse with the Egyptian sages, and tells Achoreus, Spes sit mihi carta videndi Niiiacos fontes, bellum civile relinquam. " Sic velut in tuta securi pace trahebant Noctis iter medium." Immediately afterwards, he is fighting again and defending every position. ** Bed adest defensor ubique Caesar et hos aditus gladiis, hos ignibus arcet coeca nocte carinis Insiluit Caesar semper feliciter usus Praecipiti cursu bellorum et tempore rapto." * " Jure ccesus existemetur," says Suetonius after a fair estima- tion of his character^ and making use of a phrase which was a S(» NOTE3. Stanza XCIII. Whatjrom tMs barren being do we reap ? Our senses nc^rrow^ and owr reason Jrail. •'.... omnes pene veteres ; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt ; angustos sensus ; imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitae; in protundo veritatem demersam; opinionibus et instihitis omnia teneri; nihil veritad relinqui: deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt." * The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any of the iniperfection«i of humanity: and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday. S.tanza XCIX. Titer e is a stern round towet qfotfier days. Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Capo di Bove, in ihe Appian Way. See — Historical Illustra- tions of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold. formula in Livy's time. " Melium jure coesum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit :" [lib. iv. cap. 48.] and which was continued in the legal j uHgments pronounced in justi- fiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. Sec Sueton. in vit. C J. Caesar, with the commeatary ©f Pitiscus, p. 4«4. ' Aieadem. I. 13. NOTES WB Stanza CII. Prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favourites — early death. To yaf Savgiv oo)c aicp^fov aXX' ditryj^dS^ 9av£/y. Rich. Franc. Phil. Brunck. PoetSB Gnomici, p. 931, edit. 1784. Stanza CVIII. There is the moral of all hwman tales ; ''Tis hut the same rehearsal of the past ^ First Freedom, and then Glory ^ ^c. The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opi- nion entertained of Britain by tha*^ orator and his cotem- porary Romans, has the following eloquent passage : '' From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms, how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance and po- verty, enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contenjptible of tyrants, superstition and religions imposture : while this remote country, anciently the 9M NOTES. jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty and letters ; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life ; yet run- ning perhaps the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury ; from luxury to an impatience of discipline, and corruption of morals: till by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy op- pressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing every thing that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its ori- ginal barbarism." ^ Stanza CX. And apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial v/rUy wliose ashes slept sublime. The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Aureliiis by St. Paul. See — Historical Illus- trations of the IVth Canto, &c. I The History of the Life ofM. Tullius Cicero, sect. vi. vol. ii. p. 102. The contrast has been reversed in a late extraordinary instance. A gentleman was thrown into prison at Paris ; efforts were made for his release. The French minister continued to detain him, under the pretext that he was not an Englishman but only a Roman. See " Interesting facts relating to Joachim Murat,"pag. 139. NOTES. W^ Stanza CXI. Still we TrajaTi's name adore, Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes : * and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this em- peror. " When he mounted the throne/' says the his- torian Dion, 2 "he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind ; age had impaired none of his faculties ; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honored all the good and he advanced them ; and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate ; he never listened to informers ; he gave * "Hujus tantiim memoriae delatum est ut, usque ad nostram atatem non aliter in Senatuprincipibua acclamatur, nisi, feu- ciOR. AVGVSTO .MELiOR . TRAJANO . " Eutrop. Brev. Hist. Rom. lib. viii. cap. v. ^ TuT 11 ya J ffw/otaTt IppwTO xal Tn -^vyn ^Xfxacftv, wg fxnd^ uiro yn^wg ay.^hvyza^ai . . . xat owt' I<})0ov«, ovrt xaSri^ti T*va, aXXcJ x«t iraiv mwiTag lovg ayaBoOg irifxct. xa* IfxayaXvys* xcjt Sid Toy to owtc t^;S«*TO Tiya at»Twv, ovTi l[j.iffti . . lut^aXatg rt mttrTct litia-rtve xal ojy^ nuiCTa liovKovro' tSt T5 x.2''/'^^''**'^ '''*'* AXXwTgiwv tffa, xat ^ovwy tw> a^ixwv aitHyj.ro ^tXoJfxtvof Tf ojy lit* Avroig /uiaXXoy n TJjucw^fyof fX"*S*» *"*' '^'f' "r* ^V^- ^it' hitixiiag avyiyittTO, xat rv ynoovaia ctfMOTrpfZMS wjmiXk' aya-jtriTog /ixiv vaffi' (pojSego; il fxriM, itKnv 9roXe/*Io«ff, wy. Hist. Rom. lib. Ixviii. cap. vi. & vii. tom. ii. p. 1123, 1124. edit. Hamb. 1750. we NOTES. not way to his anger ; he abstained equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign ; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country." Stanza CXIT. Rienti^ last of Romans. The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and inedited manuscripts relative to this unhappy hero, will be seen in the Illustrations of the IV th Canto. Stanza CXV. Efg^ial sitieet creation of some Tieart WMchJhund no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast. The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto. ^ He assures us that he saw an inscription in * ** Poco lontano dal detto luogo si scende ad un casaletio, dd quale ue sono Padroni li Cafarelli, che con questo nome ^ cbia- NOTES. ^07 the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is hot there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines' of Ovid from a stone in the Villa GiustinSani, which he seems to think had been brought from the same grotto. This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the Ibuntain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, creeps dotvn the matted grass into the brook befow. The brook is the Oviiiian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aqua^accio. The villey itself is called Valle di Qaffarelli, from the dukes of that name who mato il luogo; vi e una fontana sotto una gran volta antica, che «I presenle si gode, e li Romaiii vi vatino Testate a ricrearsi j nel jiavimento di cssa fonte si legge in un epitaffio essere qufeUa la fontedi Egeria, dedicata alle uinfe. e qoesta, dice Fepitaftio, esscre la medesima fonte in cui fu convertita." Memorie, &c. ap. Nar- dini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription. * ** In villa Jusliniana extat ingens lapis quadratus solidus in quo sculpta hgec duo Ovidii carmina sunt -Egeria est quae praebet aquas dea grata Camoenis If la Nuiitae conjunx consiliumque fuit. Qui lapis videtur ex eodem Egeriae fonte, aut ejus vicinia isihiic comportatus." Diarium. Italic, p. 153. 208 NOTES. made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land. There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality of his com- mentators have supposed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been into the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the Kings, as far as the Arician grove, and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city. ^ The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the sub- stance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk. The modern topographers* find in the grotto the statue of the nymph and nine niches for the Muses, and » De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Graev. Ant. Rom. torn. iv. p. 1507. ' Echinard. Descrizionc di Roma e dell' agro Romano cor- retto dair Abate Venuti in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. " Simulacro di questo fontc, essendovi spulpite le acque a pie di esso." a late traveller^ has discovered that the cave is restored to that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. But the headless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches ; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any individual cave.* Noriiing can be collected from the satirist but that somewhere near the Porta Capena was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly consultations with his nymph, and where there was a grove and a sacred fountain, and fanes once consecrated to the Muses ; and that from this spot there was a descent into the valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the decoration which the satirist thought misplaced * Classical Tour. chap. vi. p. 217. vol. ii. ^ " Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam,. Hie ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicse. Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur Judaeis quorum cophinum foenumque supellex. Omuis enim populo mercedem pendere jussa est Arbor, et ejectis mendicat silva Camcanis. In vallem Egeriae descendimus, et speluncas Dissimiles veris : quanto praestantius esset Numeii aquae, viridi si margine clauderet undas Herba, nee ingenuum violarent marmora tophum." Sat. iir. «10 NOTES. in these caves ; for he expressly assigns other fanes (de- lubra) to these divinities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had been ejected to make room for the Jews. Jn fact the little temple, now called that of Bacchus, was formerly thought to belong to the Muses, and Nardini ' places them in a poplar grove, which was in his time above the valley. It is probable, from the inscription and position, that the cave now shown may be one of the '* artificial caverns," of which, indeed, there is another a little way higher up the valley, under a tuft of alder bushes : but a single grotto of Egeria is a mere modern invention, grafted upon the application of the epithet Egerian to these nymphea in general, and which might send us to look for the haunts of Nuraa upon the banks of the Thames. Our English Juvenal was not seduced into mistrans- lation by his acquaintance with Pope : he carefidly pre- serves the correct plural— " Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view The Egerian grois; oh, how unlike the true 1" The valley abounds with springs, * and over these springs, which the Muses might haunt from their neigh- ' Lib. iii. cap. iii. * *• Undique e solo aquae scaturiunt." Nardini, lib. iii, cap. iii. NOTES. Ut bouring groves, Egeria presided : hence she was said to supply them with water ; and she was the nymph of the grottos through which the fountains were taught to flow. The whole af the monuments in the vicinity of the Egerian valley have received names at will, which have been changed at will. Venuti * owns he can see no traces of the temples of .fove, Saturn, Juno, Venus, and Diana, which Nardini found, or hoped to find. The mutatorium of Caracalla*s circus, the temple of Honour and Virtue, the temple of Bacchus, and, above all, the temple of the god Rediculus, are the antiqua- ries' despair. The circus of Caracalla depends on a medal of that emperor cited by Fulvius Ursinus, of which the reverse shows a circus, supposed, however, by some to repre- sent the Circus Maximus. It gives a very good idea of that place of exercise. The soil has been but little raiised, if we may judge from the small cellular struc- ture at the end of the Spina, which was probably the chapel af the god Consus. This cell is half beneath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself, for Dionysius * could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was undero[round. '»• « Echinard, &c. Cic. cit. p. 297-398. ' Antiq. Rorn. lib. ii. cap. xxxi. p2 21^ NOTES. Stanza CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly. ** At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions, ** I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that esti- mation which it ought to possess. The free and philo- sophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admira- tion to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices? This is not the way to defend the cause of truth. It was not; thus that our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time while reason slum- bers in the citadel : but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty, support each otlier ; he who will not reason, is a bigot ; he who cannot, is a foul V and he who dares not, is a slave." Preface, p. xiv, XV. vol. i. 1S05. NOTES. 213 Stanza CXXXII. Great Nemesis ! Utre, xvhere the ancient paid thee liomage long. We read in Suetonius that Augustus, from a warn- ing received in a dream, i counterfeited, once a year, the beggar, sitting before the gate of his palace with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the Villa Borghese, and which should be now at Paris, represents the Emperor in that pos- ture of supplication. The object of this self degrada- tion was the appeasement of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols at- tached to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue pass for that of Belisarius : and until the criticism of Winkelmann^ had rectified the ' Sueton. ill vit. Augusti. cap. 9I. Casaubon, in the note, refers to Plutarch's Lives of Camillus and ^milius Paulus, and also to his apothegms, for the character of this deity. The hol- lowed hand was reckoned the last degree of degradation : and when the dead body of the praefect llufinus was borne about in triumph by the people, the indignity was increased by putting his hand in that position. 2 Storia delle arti, &c. jib. xii. cap. iii. torn. ii. p. 422. Vi§-» M4 NOTES. mistake, one fiction was called in to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden termination of pros- perity that made Amasis king of Egypt warn his friend Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved those whose lives were chequered with good and evil fortunes. Ketoesis was supposed to lie in wait particularly for llie prudent : that is, for those whose caution rendered them accessible only to mere accidents : and her first ihvLT vi'ds raised on the banks of the Phrygiafn ^sepus by Adrastus, probably the prince of that name who killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was called Adrastea.* The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a temple to her in the Palatine under the name of Rhamnusia : 2 so great indeed was the propensity of the ancients to trust to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a temple to die Fortune of the day.^ This is the last superstition conti calls the statue, however, a Cybele. It is given in the Museo Pio-Clement. torn. i. par. 40. The Abate Fea (Spiega- zione dei Rami. Storia, &c. torn. iii. p. 613.) calls it a Chri- sippus. ^ Diet, de Bayle, article Adrastea. 2 It is enumerated by the regionary Victor. 3 Fortunae hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de legib. lib. ii. NOTES. 2\S wliich retains its hold over the human heart; and from concentrating in one object the creduHty so na- tural to man, has always appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles of belief. The anti quaries have supposed this goddess to be synonimous 'With fortune and with fate : ^ but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Kemesis. " Stanza CXL. / see before me the Gladiator lie. Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which in spite of Win- kelmann's criticism has been stoutly maintained;^ or * DEAE NEMESI SIVJE FORTUNAE PISTORIVS RVGIANVS V. C. LEGAT. LEG. XIII. G. GORD. See Questiones Romanae, £?c. Ap. Graev. Antiq. Roman, torn. V. p. 942. See also Muratori. Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. torn, i. p. 88, 89, where there are three Latin and one Greek inscrip- tion to Nemesis, and others to Fate. < 2 By the Abate Bracci, dissertazione supra unclipeo votivo. &c. 216 NOTES, whether it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively asserted, ^ or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or barbarian shield-bearer, according to the opinion of his Italian editor, ^ it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which re- presented " a wounded man dying who perfectly ex- pressed what there remained of life in him."^ Mont^ faucon* and Maffei^ thought it. the identical statue ; but that statue was of bronze. The gladiator was once in the villa Ludovizi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Mi- chael Angelo. ^ Preface, pag. 7. who accounts for the cord round the neck, but not for the horn, which it does not appear the gladiators them- selves ever used. Note A, Storia delle arti, torn. ii. p. 205. * Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by CEdipus ; or Ce- preas, herald of Euritheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidae from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian j or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. See Storia, delle arti, &c. tom. ii. pag. 203, ?04, 205, 206, 20?. lib. ix. cap. ii. 2 Storia, &c. tom. ii. p. 207- Not. (A). ' ** Vulneratum deficientem fecit in quo possit intelligi quan- tum restat animoe." Plin. Nat. Hist. lih. xxxiv. cap. 8, 4 Antiq. tom. iii. par. 2. tab. 15^5. P Race. Stat. tab. 64. ^ Mus. Capitol, tom. iii. p. 164. edit. 1755. .NOTES. S17 Stanza CXLL He, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday. Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled and volun- tary ; and were supplied from several conditions ; from slaves sold for that purpose ; from culprits ; from bar- barian captives either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels ; also from free citizens, some lighting for hire, (auctorati,) others from a depraved ambition : at last even knights and senators were ex- hibited, a disgrace of which the first tyrant was na- turally the first inventor, j In the end, dwarfs, and even women, fought ; an enormity prohibited by Se- verus. Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian captives; and to this species a Christian writer 2 justly applies the epithet *' innocent,* to distinguish them from the professional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after his triumph, and 1 Julius Caesar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Fur'ius Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arena; but our English poet has adopted a common mistake in saying that he forced a knight upon the stage ; the truth is, he made Laberius, who was an actor, a knight, not a knight an actor. 2 Tertullian, " certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in ludum veniunt, at voluptatis publicrehostisE fiant." Just. Lips. Saturn. Sermon, lib. ii. cap. iii. 21B NOTES. the other on the pretext of & rebellion. ' No war, says Lipsius, 2 was ever so destructive to the human race as these sports. In spite of the laws of Constan- tine and Constans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion more than seventy years; but they owed their final extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibitmg the shows in the Flavian amphitheatre be- fore the usual immense concourse of people. Al* machius or Telemachus, an eastern monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to separate the combatants. The praetor Alypius, a person in* credibly attached to these games, ^ gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him ; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abo- lished the shows, which were never afterwards revived. The story is told by Theodoret * and Cassiodorus, ^ and 1 Vopiscus. in vit. Aurel. and, in vit. Claud, ibid. 2 ** Credo imo scio nullum belhim tantam cladem vastitiemque generi humano intulisse, quam hos ad voluptatem ludos." Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii. ^ Augustinus, (lib. vi. confess, cap. viii.) ** Alypium suum gladiatrii spectaculi inhiatu incredibiliter abreptum," scribit. ib. lib. i. cap. xii. * Hist. Eceles. cap. xxvi. lib. v. 5 Cassiod. Tripartita. 1. x. c. xi. Saturn, ib. ib. NOTES. 219 tieetns Mrortby of credit notwithstaodidg its place in the Roman martyrology. ^ Besides the torrents of blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres, the circuSj the forums, and other public places, gladia- tors were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to pieces amidst the supper tables, to the great delight afld applause of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits him- jself to suppose the loss of courage, and the evident de- generacy of mankind, to be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody spectacles. * Stanza CXLII. Here^ where the Roman million^ s blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd. When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted ^'hehOB U;' " hoc habet," or " habet.'' The wounded 1 BaroniQS. ad. ann. et in notis ad Martyrol. Rom. I* Jan. See — Marangoni delle memorie sacre e profane dell' Anfiteatro flavio, p. 25. edit. 1746. S «< Quod ? non tu Lipsi momentum aliquod habuisse censes ad viftuttm ? Magnum. Tempora nostra, nosque ipsos videamus. Oppidum ecce unum alterumve captum, direptum est ; tumuUus circa nos, non in nobis: et tamen concidimus et turbamur. Ubi robur, ubi tot per annos meditata sapientiae studia ? ubi ille animus qui possit dicere, si Jractus illahatur orhis .?" &c. ibid, lib. ii. cap. xxv. The prototype of Mr. Windham's panegyric on bull-baitipg. 220 NOTES. combatant dropped his weapon, and advancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people saved him ; if otherwise, or as ihey happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They were occasion- ally so savage that they were impatient if a combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death. The emperor's presence generally saved the van- quished : and it is recorded as an instance of Cara- calla's ferocity, that he sent those who supplicated him for life, in a spectacle at Nicomedia, to ask the people ; i[i other words, handed them over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at the Spanish bull- fights. The magistrate presides ; and after the horse- men and piccadores have fought the bull, the matadore steps forward and bows to him for permission to kill the animal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or three horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere with shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the animal is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are accompanied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of delight, especially from the female portion of the audience, including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depends on habit. The author of Childe Harold, the writer of this note, and one or two other Englishmen, who have certainly in other days borne the sight of a JSIOT£S. 221 pitched battle, were, during the summer of 1809, in the governor*s box at the great amphitheatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. The death of one or two horses completely satisfied their curiosity. A gentle- man present, observing them shudder and look pale, noticed that unusual reception of so delightful a sport to some young ladies, who stared and smiled, and con- tinued their applauses as another horse fell bleeding to the ground. One bull killed three horses off Ms own horns. He was saved by acclamations which were re- doubled when it was known he belonged to a priest. An Englishman who can be much pleased with seeing two men beat themselves to pieces, cannot bear to look at a horse gallopping round an arena with his bowels trailing on the ground, and turns from the spectatle and the spectators with horror and disgust. Stanza CXLIV. Like laurels on the hcild first Ccesar'^s brow. Suetonius informs us that Julius Caisar was parti- cularly gratified by that decree of the senate, which enabled him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. A stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed at the motive, nor should we without the help of the historian. 323: NOTES. Stanza CXLV. JVhile stands the Coliseum^ Rome shall stand. This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman- Empire; and a notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the Historical Illustrations to the IVth Canto of Childe Harold. Stanza CXLVI. spared and blest hy time. " Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture above ; though exposed to repeated fires, though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so well preserved as this rotundo. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into tiie present worship ; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian altar, that Michael Angelo> ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a model in die Catholic church." ^Forsyth's Remarks, &c. on Italy, p. 137, sec. edit. NOTES. f» Stanai CXLVIL And Ot£ij itluifedfirgemm may ThciT £^f j^ cm humoured Jbrmsy whose busts around Hum dose. The PantheoD has beeo made a leceptacle for die tiiisto of modern great, or, at leasl^ distii^;iittliedy meo. The t^ooA of %ht which once fell diroi^ die laf|;e Hfb abore on die whc^ circle of dtfimdes, now fUnei 00 a mmerooi aawmblage <^ mortab, some ooe or tmo oi idiom have been almoat deified bj die yeoera- tion of their coantfymea. Stanza CXLVUL Thereisa dungeon^ in whose dim drear Ught» Tins and the diree next stanzas allnde to die sCory of the Roman dai^ter, which'is recsdled to the trafdlery lif die site or pfeteaded nte of that adveoture now shevnat the dlmfdi of St Nicholas sitoifVfir^. Tbe diflimltips attending the M belief of die tale are s^led in Historica) lUnrtntfions^lcc. 2S4 NOTES. Stanza CLII. Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high.. The castle of St. Angelo. See — Historical Illustra- tions. Stanza CLIII. This and the six next stanzas have a reference' to the church of St. Peter's. For a measurement of the comparative length of this basilica, and the other great churches of Europe, see the pavement of St. Peter's, and the Classical Tour through Italy, vol. ii. pag. 125. et seq. chap. iv. Stanza CLXXI. the strange Jute Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, Mary died on the scaffold ; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V. a hermit ; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and glory ; Cromwell of anxiety ; and, *' the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious and unhappy. NOTES. Si85 Stanza CLXXIII. £0, Nemi \ navelled in the woody Mils, The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of The Grove, Nemi is but an even- ing's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano. - Stanza CLXXIV. And afar The Tyber zvinds, and the broad ocean laves The Laticm coast ^ ^c. dec* The whole declivity of the Albaa hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Ju- piter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cited stanza : the Mediterranean ; the whole scene of the latter half of the ^neid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tyber to the headland of Circasum and the Cape of Terracina. The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata, or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Buonaparte. 2^6 NOTES. The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as may be seen from Middleton's Life of Cicero. » At present it has lost something of its credit, except for the Domenichinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the adjoinmg villa is a cardinaFs summer house. The other villa, called Rufinella, is on the summit of the hill above Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been found there, besides seventy-two statues of different merit and preservation, and seven busts. From the same eminence are seen the Sabine hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There are several circumstances which tend to esta- blish the identity of this valley with the *' Ustica" of Horace ; and it seems possible that the mosaic pave- ment which the peasants uncover by throwing up the earth of a vineyard, may belong to his villa. Rustica is pronounced short, not according to our stress upon — " Usticce cuba7itis "-^It is more rational to think that we are wrong than that the inhabitants » Sect. xii. p. 328. vol. iii. This opportunity is taken of raentioning that an allusion to Laberius in page 217 of these notes is a mistatement into which the writer was seduced by putting too implicit a trust in Dr. Middleton's Life of Cicero, sect. viii. He has since consulted Macrobius, lib. ii. cap. vii. and cap. xi. iu whom, as well as Suetonius, (vit» J. Caes. cap. SQ.) he has seen the librarian's error and his own. NOTES. 227 of this secluded valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition of the consonant prefixed is nothing : yet it is necessary to be aware that Rustica may be a modern name which the peasants may have caught from the antiquaries. *. The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll covered with chestnut trees. A stream runs down the valley, and although it is not true, as said in the guide books, that this stream is called Licenza, yet there is a village on a rock at the head of the valley which is so de- nominated, and which may have taken its name from the Digentia. Licenza contains 700 inhabitants. On a peak a little way beyond is Civitella, containing 300. On the banks of the Anio, a little before you turn up into Valle Rustica, to the left, about an hour from the villa, is a town called Vico-varo, another favourable coincidence with the Varia of the poet. At the end of the valley, towards the Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town called Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza flows, and is almost ab- sorbed in a wide sandy bed before it reaches the Anio. Nothing can be more fortunate for the lines of the poet, whether in a metaphorical or direct sense : '* Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus. Quem Mandela bibit rugosus frigore pagus.'* The stream is clear high up the valley, but before it a2 $m NOTES. reaches the hill of Bardela looks green and yellow like a sulphur rivulet. Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's walk from the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does seem to be the site of the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription found there tells that this temple of the Sabine victory was repaired by Vespa- sian. ' With these helps, and a position correspond- ing exactly to every thing which the poet has told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our site. The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Cam- panile, and by following up the rivulet to the pre- tended Bandusia, you come to the roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. Singularly enough the only spot of ploughed land in the whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia rises, " . . . . ta frigus amabile Fessis vomere tauris ' Praebes, et pecori vago.** The peasants show another spring near the mosaic pavement which they call " Oradina," and which flows » MP. C-ffiSAR VESPASIANVS PONTIFEX MAXIMVS. TRIB. POTEST. CENSOR. MI>EM VICTORIiE. VBTVSTATE ILLAPSAM. SVA. IMP]SNSA. RBSTITVIT. KOTES. Jfei9 down the hills into a tank^ or mill ^itif and thence trickles over into the Digentia. But we must not hope *' To trace the Muses upwards to their spring" by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in search of the Bandusian fountain. It seems strangs that any one should have thought Bandusia a fountain of the Digentia — Horace has not let drop a word of it ; and this immortal spring has in fact been disco- vered in possession of the holders of many good things in Italy, the monks. It was attached to the church of St. Gervais and Protais near Venusia, where it was most likely to be found. * We shall not be so lucky as a late traveller in finding the occasional pine still pend- ant on the poetic villa. There is not a pine in the whole valley, but there are two cypresses, which he evidently took, or mistook, for the tree in the ode. * The truth is, that the pine is now, as it was in the days of Virgil, a garden tree, and it was not at all likely to be found in the craggy acclivities of the valley of Rus* tica. Horace probably had one of them in the orchard close above his farm, immediately overshadowing his villa, not on the rocky heights at some distance from his abode. The tourist may have easily supposed himself » See — Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto, p. 43. ^ See«-»Classical Tour, &c. chap* vii. p. 2dO. vol. ii. ^0 NOTES. to have seen this pine figured in the above cypresses, for the orange and lemon trees which throw such a bloom over his description of the royal gardens at Naples, unless they have been since displaced, were as- suredly only acacias and other common garden shrubs.* The extreme disappointment experienced by choosing the Classical Tourist as a guide in Italy must be allowed to find vent in a few observations, which, it is asserted without fear of contradiction, will be confirmed by every one who has selected the same conductor through the same country. This author is in fact one of the most inaccurate, unsatisfactory writers that have in our times attained a temporary reputa- tion, and is very seldom to be trusted even when he speaks of objects which he must be presumed to have seen. His errors, from the simple exaggeration to the downright mistatement, are so frequent as to induce a suspicion that he had either never visited the spots described, or had trusted to the fidelity of former writers. Indeed the Classical Tour has every charac- teristic of a mere compilation of former notices, strung together upon a very slender thread of personal observa- tion, and swelled out by those decorations which are so easily supplied by a systematic adoption of all the » ** Under our windows, and bordering on the beach, is the royal garden, laid out in parterres, and walks shaded by rows of orange trees." Classical Tour, &c, chap. xi. vol. ii. oct. 365. NOTES. 231 common places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing. The style which one person thinks cloggy and cum- brous, and unsuitable, may be to the taste of others, and such may experience some salutaiy excitement in ploughing through the periods of the Classical Tour. It must be said, however, that polish and weight are apt to beget an expectation of value. It is amongst the pains of the damned to toil up a climax with a huge round stone. The tourist had the choice of his words, but there was no such latitude allowed to that of his sentiments. The love of virtue and of liberty, which must have dis- tinguished the character, certainly adorns the pages of Mr. Eustace, and the gendemanly spirit, so recom- mendatory either in an author or his productions, is very conspicuous throughout the Classical Tour. But these generous qualities are the foliage of such a per- formance, and may be spread about it so prominently and profusely, as to embarrass those who wish to see and find the fruit at hand. The unction of the divine, and the exhortations of the moralist, may have made this work something more and better than a book of travels, but they have not made it a book of tra- vels ; and this observation applies more especially to that enticing method of instruction conveyed by the perpetual introduction of the same Gallic Helot to reel and bluster before the rising generation, and terrify it ^32 NOTES. into decency by the display of all the excesses of the revolution. An animosity against atheists and regicides in general, and Frenchmen specifically, may be honour- able, and may be useful, as a record ; but that antidote should either be administered in any work rather than a tour, or, at least, should be served up apart, and not so mixed with the whole mass of information and re- flection, as to give a bitterness to every page : (or who would choose to have the antipathies of any man, how- ever just, for his travelling companions ? A tourist, unless he aspires to the credit of prophecy, is not an- swerable for the changes which may take place in the country which he describes ; but his reader may very fairly esteem all his political portraits and deductions as so much waste paper, the moment they cease to assist, and more particularly if they obstruct, his actual survey. Neither encomium nor accusation of any govern* ment, or governors, is meant to be here offered, but it is stated as an incontrovertible fact, that the change operated, either by the address of the late imperial^ system, or by the disappointment of every expectation by those who have succeeded to the Italian thrones, has been so considerable, and is so apparent, as not only to put Mr. Eustace's Antigallican philippics entirely out of date, but even to throw some suspicion upon the compe- tency and candour of the author himself. A remark- able example may be found in the instance of Bologna, NOTES. S3? over whose papal attachments, and consequent desola- tion, the tourist pours forth such strains of condolence and revenge, made louder by the borrowed trumpet of Mr. Burke. Now Bologna is at this moment, and has been for some years, notorious amongst the states of Italy for its attachment to revolutionary principles, and was almost the only city which made any demon- strations in favour of the unfortunate Murat. This change may, however, have been made since Mr. Eus- tace visited this country; but the traveller whom he has thrilled with horror at the projected stripping of the copper from the cupola of St. Peter's, must be much relieved to find that sacrilege out of the power of the French, or any other plunderers, the cupola being covered with lead. ' If the conspiring voice of otherwise rival critics had not given considerable currency to the Classical Tour, it would have been unnecessary to warn the reader, that however it may adorn his library, it will be of little or no service to him in his carriage ; and if the judgment * " What, then, will be the astonishment, or rather the horror, of my reader when I inform him the French Committee turned its attention to Saint Peter's, and employed a company of Jews to estimate and purchase the gold, silver, and bronze that adorn the inside of the edifice, as well as the copper that covers the vaults and dome on the outside." Chap. iv. p. 130. vol. ii. The story about the Jews is positively denied at Rome. 2S4 NOTES. of those critics had hitherto been suspended, no attempt would have been made to anticipate their decision. As it is, those who stand in the relation of posterity to Mr. Eustace, may be permitted to appeal from cotemporary praises, and are perhaps more likely to be just in pro- portion as the causes of love and hatred are the farther removed. This appeal had, in some measure, been made before the above remarks were written ; for one of the most respectable of the Florentine publishers, who had been persuaded by the repeated inquiries of those on their journey southwards, to reprint a cheap edition of the Classical Tour, was, by the concurring ad- vice of returning travellers, induced to abandon his de- sign, although he had already arranged his types and paper, and had struck off one or two of the first sheets. The writer of these notes would wish to part (like Mr. Gibbon) on good terms with the Pope and the Cardinals, but he does not think it necessary to extend the banie discreet silence to their humble partisans. After the frank avowal contained in the prefatory address, it may appear somewhat a presumption to at- tempt the task which is there formally declined as above the means of the author who writes, and of the friend to whom he addresses, the letter. In fact it had been the wish of Lord Byron, and of the compiler of the foregoing notes, to say something of the literary and political condition of Italy, and they had made preparation of some materials, the deli- berate rejection of which was the origin of the above confession. Time and opportunity have, however, very much in- creased those materials in number, and, it is believed, in value, and the consequence has been the appearance of a short memoir on Italian literature, at the end of the Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto, and the commencement of a longer treatise, which will be pub- lished separately in the course of the present year. This latter work will attempt a survey of the revolu- tions of Italy, from the French invasion in 1796 to the present day. It is compiled from information on which the author believes he may implicitly rely, and it con- tains a series of facts and portraits which, he presumes, are for the most part unknown to his countrymen. ERRATA. Page 103,/ar s'armo, read s'armb. Pages T 1 8, 120, 20 1 ,/or ce, read ae. Page 157. The dates of the three decrees against Dante are A. D. 1302, 1314, and 1316. Page 160, /or Fosculo (in some copies)^ read Foscok). Page 163, /or Speron, read Speroqc. POEMS. The eflFect of the original ballad (which existed both in Spanish and Arabic) was such that it was forbidden to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Granada. iur. 240 POEMS. ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO SmO Y TOMA DE ALHAMA, EL QUAL DEZIA EN ARAVrCO ASSI. 1. Passeavase el Rey Moro Por la ciudad de Granada, Desde las puertas de Elvira Hasta las de Bivarambla. Ay de mi, Alhama ! Cartas le fiieron venidas Que Alhama era ganada. Las cartas echo en el fuego, Y al mensagero matava. Ay de mi, Alhama t POEMS. ^1 A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA, Whkhf in the Arabic language, is to the following purport. 1. The Moorish King rides up and down Through Granada's royal town. From Elvira's gates to those Of Bivarambla on he goes. Woe is me, Alhama ! Letters to the monarch tell How Alhama's city fell ; In the fire the scroll he threw, And the messenger he slew. Woe is me, Alhama ! 242 POEMS. 3. Descavalga de una mula, Y en un cavallo cavalga. Por el Zacatin arriba Subido se avia al Alhambra. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 4. , Como en el Alhambra estuvo, Al mismo punto mandava Que se toquen las trompetas Con anafiles de plata. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 5. Y que atambores de guerra Apriessa toquen alarma ; Por que lo oygan sus Moros, Los de la Vega y Granada. Ay demi, Alhama! POEMS. 243 3. He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, And through the street directs his course ; Through the street of Zacatin To the Alhambra spurring in. Woe is me, Alhama ! 4. When the Alhambra walls he gained, On the moment he ordained That the trumpet straight should sound With the silver clarion round. Woe is me, Alhama ! 5. And when the hollow drums of war Beat the loud alarm afar, That the Moors of town and plain Might answer to the martial strain. Woe is me, Alhama ! . R 2 244l POEMS. a Los Moros que el son oyeron, Que al saugriento Marte llama, Uno a uno, y dos a dos, Un gran esquadron formavan. Ay de mi, Alhama I 7. Alii hablo un Moro viejo ; Desta manera hablava : — Para que nos llamas, Rey ? Para que es este llamada ? Ay de mi, Alhama ! 8. Aveys de saber, amigos, Una nueva desdichada : Que Cristianos, con braveza, Ya nos han tomado Alhama. Ay de mi, Alhama ! POEMS. *45 a Then the Moors by this aware That bloody Mars recalled tHem thare, (I One by one, and two by two, In increasing squadrons flew. Woe is me, Alhama ! Out then spake an aged Moor In these words the king before, " Wherefore call on us, oh king ? " What may mean this gathering ?" Woe is me, Alhama ! a ** Friends ! ye have alas ! to know " Of a most disastrous blow, " That the Christians, stem and bold, " Have obtained Albania's hold * Woe is me, Alhama ! 246 POEMS. . 9. Alii hablo un viejo Alfaqui, De barba crecida y cana :— Bien se te emplea, buen Rey, Buen Rey ; bien se te empleava. Ay de mi, Alhama 1 10. Mataste los Bencerrages, Que era la flor de Granada ; Cogiste los tornadizos De Cordova la nombrada. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 11. Por esso mereces, Rey Una pena bien doblada ; Que te pierdas tu y el reyno, Y que se pierda Granada. Ay de mi, Alhama I POEMS. 247 9. Out then spake old Alfaqui, With his beard so white to see, ^* Good King ! thou art justly served, " Good King ! this thou hast deserved. Woe is me, Alhama ! 10. ^* By thee were slain, in evil hour, *' The Abencerrage, Granada''s flower ; " And strangers were received by thee " Of Cordova the chivalry. Woe is me, Alhama ! 11. " And for this, oh King ! is sent *' On thee a double chastisement, " Thee and thine, thy crown and realm *' One last wreck shall overwhelm. Woe is me, Alhama ! 248 POEMS. Si no se respetan leyes, Es ley que todo se pierda ; Y que se pierda Granada, Y que te pierdas en ella< Ay de mi, Alliama t ■''''■ ■-■■'. la Fuego por los ojos vierte. El Rey que esto oyera. . Y como el otro de leyes De leyes tambien hablava. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 14 Sabe un Rey que no ay leyes De darle a Reyes disgusto.— Esso dize el Rey Moro Relinchando de colera. Ay de mi, Alhama ! POEMS. S49 12. " He who holds no laws in awe, *' He must perish by the law ; " And Grenada must be won, '^ And thyself with her undone." Woe is me, Alhama ! 13. Fire flashed from out the old Moor's eyes. The Monarch's wrath began to rise. Because he answered, and because He spake exceeding well of laws. Wo^ is me, Alhama ! 14. " There is no law to say such things " As may disgust the ear of kings :" — Thus, snorting with his choler, s^d The Moorish King, and doomed him dead. Woe is me, Alhama ! ^ ^0 POEMS. 15. Moro Alfaqui, Moro Alfaqui, El de la vellida barba. El Rey te manda prender, Por la perdida de Alhama. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 16. Y cortarte la cabeza, Y ponerla en el Alhambra, Por que a ti castigo sea, Y otros tiemblen en miralla. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 17. Cavalleros, hombres buenos, Dezid de mi parte al Rey, Al Rey Moro de Granada, Como no le devo nada. Ay de mi, Alhama ! POEMS. 251 15. Moor Alfaqui ! Moor Alfaqui ! Though thy beard so hoary be, The King hath sent to have thee seized. For Albania's loss displeased. Woe is me, Alhama ! 16. And to fix thy head upon High AJhambra's loftiest stone ; That this for thee should be the law. And others tremble when they saw. Woe is me, Alhama I ■ - iv. " Cavalier ! and man of worth ! " Let these words of mine go forth ; " Let the Moorish Monarch know, " That to him I nothing owe : Woe is me, Alhama ! 252 POEMS. 18. De averse Alhama perdido A mi me pesa en el alma. Que si el Rey perdio su tierra, Otro mucho mas perdiera. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 19. Perdieran hijos padres, Y casados las casadas : Las cosas que mas amara Perdio V un y el otro fama. Ay de mi, Alhama ! 20. Perdi una hija donzella Que era la flor d' esta tierra, Cien doblas dava por ella. No me las estimo en nada. Ay de mi, Alhama ! POEMS. 253 ~ 18. " But on my soul Alhama weighs, " And on my inmost spirit preys ; " And if the King his land hath lost, " Yet others may have lost the most. Woe is me, Alhama ! 19. " Sires have lost their children, wives " Their lords, and valiant men their Uves ; *' One what best his love might claim '* Hath lost, another wealth, or fame. Woe is me, Alhama ! m " I lost a damsel in that hour, " Of all the land the loveliest flower ; " Doubloons a hundred I would pay, " And think her ransom cheap that day." Woe is me, Alhama! S54 POEMS. SI. Diziendo assi al hacen Alfaqui, Le cortaron la cabe^a, Y la elevan al Alhambra, Assi come el Rey lo manda. Ay de mi, Alhama ! Hombres, ninos y mugeres^ Lloran tan grande perdida. * Lloravan todas las damas Quantas en Granada avia. Ay de mi, Alhama ! Por las calles y ventanas Mucho luto parecia ; Llora el Rey como fembra, Qu' es mucho lo que perdia. Ay de mi, Alhama ! POEMS. 255 21. And as these things the old Moor said. They severed from the trunk his head ; And to the Alhambra's wall with speed 'Twas carried, as the King decreed. Woe is me, Alhama ! And men and infants therein weep Their loss, so heavy and so deep ; Granada's ladies, all she rears Within her walls, burst into tears. Woe is me^ AJhama ! And from the windows o'er the walls The sable web of mourning falls ; The King weeps as a woman o'er His loss, for it is much and sore. Woe is me, Alhama! ^6 ^ POEMS. SONETTO Dl VITTORELLI. PER MONACA. Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cui era morta poco innaim una figlia appena maritata ; k diretto al genitore della sacra sposa. Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo, II ciel, che degne di piu nobil sorte L' una e Y altra veggendo, ambo chiedeo. La mia fu tolta da veloce morte A le fumanti tede d' imeneo : La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte Etema pri^oniera or si rendeo. Ma tu almeno potrai da la gelosa Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde, La sua tenera udir voce pietosa. lo verso un fiume d' amarissim' onda, Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa, Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde. POEMS- 257 TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI. ON A NUK Sonnet composed in the name of a father whose daughter, had recently died shortly after her marriage ; and addressed to the father of her wljo harf lately taken the veil. Of two fair vir^ns, modest, though admired, Heaven made us happy ; and now, wretched sires, Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires, And gazing upon either, both required. Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired Becomes extinguished, soon — too soon — expires : But thine, within the closing grate retired. Eternal captive, to her God aspires. But thou at least from out the jealous door, Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes, May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more : / to the marble, where my daughter lies, Rush, — the swoln flood of bitterness I pour. And knock, and knock, and knock — ^but none replies. T. UAVISON; LOMBARD-STREET, WHITEFRIARS, LONDON. LORD BYRON'S POEMS. Printed uniformly, and sold separately, in OcTAVO. I. CHILDE HAROLD, Cantos I. and IL I2s. 2. m. 5s. 6d. 3. IV. I2s. 4. THE GIAOUR, 5s, 6d. 5. THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS, 5s. Qd, 6. THE CORSAIR, 5s. 6d. 7. LARA, 5s. 6d. 8. SIEGE OF CORINTH and PARISINA, 5s. 6d. g. PRISONER OF CHILLON, 5s. 6d. 10. ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, Is, 6d. II. HEBREW MELODIES, 5s. 6d. 12. POEMS, containing Fare thee well ! &c. 2s. 13. MONODY ON SHERIDAN, \s. 14. MANFRED, A Dramatic Poem, 5s. 6d. 15. LAMENT OF TASSO, 15. 6d. 16. BEPPO 3 A Venetian Story, 8vo. 3s. 6d. Forming together Three Volumes in Octavo. 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