NOTES ΤΟ CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO III. I. In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew. Stanza xviii. line 5. "PRIDE of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, etc. "An eagle towering in his pride of place Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed." ["A falcon towering in her pride of place," etc. Macbeth, act ii. sc. 4, line 12.] 2. Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant Lord. See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. Denman "With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," etc. [Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, etc., 1806, pp. 24, 25. The Scholium, attributed to Callistratus (Poet Lyrici Græci, Bergk. Lipsia, 1866, p. 1290), begins thus Εν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω, Ισονόμους τ' Αθήνας ἐποιησάτην. "Hence," says Mr. Tozer, "the sword in myrtles drest' (Keble's Christian Year, Third Sunday in Lent) became the emblem of assertors of liberty."-Childe Harold, 1885, p. 262.] 3. And all went merry as a marriage bell. Stanza xxi. line 8. On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. [See notes to the text.] 4. And Evan's-Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears! Stanza xxvi. line 9. Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant, Donald, the “gentle Lochiel" of the "forty-five.” [Sir Evan Cameron (1629–1719) fought against Cromwell, finally yielding on honourable terms to Monk, June 5, 1658, and for James II. at Killiecrankie, June 17, 1689. His grandson, Donald Cameron of Lochiel (1695-1748), celebrated by Campbell, in Lochiel's Warning, 1802, was wounded at Culloden, April 16, 1746. His great-great-grandson, John Cameron, of Fassieferne (b. 1771), in command of the 92nd Highlanders, was mortally wounded at Quatre-Bras, June 16, 1815. Compare Scott's stanzas, The Dance of Death, lines 33, sq. "Where through battle's rout and reel, Valiant Fassiefern. And Morven long shall tell, And proud Ben Nevis hear with awe, How, upon bloody Quatre-Bras, Compare, too, Scott's Field of Waterloo, stanza xxi. lines 14, 15 "And Cameron, in the shock of steel, Die like the offspring of Lochiel."] 5. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the forest of Ardennes, famous in Bojardo's Orlando, and immortal in Shakspeare's As You Like It. It is also celebrated in Tacitus, as being the spot of successful defence by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. I have ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter. [It is a far cry from Soignies in South Brabant to Ardennes in Luxembourg. Possibly Byron is confounding the "saltus quibus nomen Arduenna" (Tacitus, Ann., 3. 42), the scene of the revolt of the Treviri, with the "saltus Teutoburgiensis " (the Teutoburgen or Lippische Wald, which divides Lippe Detmold from Westphalia), where Arminius defeated the Romans (Tacitus, Ann., 1. 60). (For Boiardo's "Ardenna," see Orlando Innamorato, lib. i. canto 2, st. 30.) Shakespeare's Arden, the "immortal" forest, in As You Like It, "favours" his own Arden in Warwickshire, but derived its name from the "forest of Arden" in Lodge's Rosalynd.] 6. I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. Stanza xxx. line 9. My guide from Mount St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, “Here Major Howard lay: I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback 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, Chæronea, and Marathon; and the field around Mount St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned. [For particulars of the death of Major Howard, see Personal Memoirs, etc., by Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 323.] 7. Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltites were said to be fair without, and, within, ashes. [Compare Tacitus, Histor., lib. v. 7, "Cuncta sponte edita, aut manu sata, sive herbæ tenues, aut flores, ut solitam in speciem adolevere, atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt." See, too, Deut. xxxii. 32, "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter." They are a species of gall-nut, and are described by Curzon (Visits to Monasteries of the Levant, 1897, p. 141), who met with the tree that bears them, near the Dead Sea, and, mistaking the fruit for a ripe plum, proceeded to eat one, whereupon his mouth was filled "with a dry bitter dust." "The apple of Sodom... is supposed by some to refer to the fruit of Solanum Sodomeum (allied to the tomato), by others to the Calotropis procera" (N. Eng. Dict., art. Apple").] 8. For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide 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; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to |