ADVERTISEMENT.

WHEN this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ancient freedom :

"François de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, originaire de Seyssel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496. Il fit ses études à Turin: en 1510 Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, son oncle, lui résigna le Prieuré de St. Victor, qui aboutissait aux murs de Genève, et qui formait un bénéfice considérable.

"Ce grand homme-(Bonnivard mérite ce titre par la force de son âme, la droiture de son cœur, la noblesse de ses intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage de ses démarches, l'étendue de ses connaissances, et la vivacité de son esprit),-ce grand homme, qui excitera l'admiration de tous ceux qu'une vertu héroïque peut encore émouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive reconnaissance dans les cœurs des Génévois qui aiment Genève. Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus fermes appuis: pour assurer la liberté de notre République, il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia son repos; il méprisa ses richesses; il ne négligea rien pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix: dès ce moment il la chérit comme le plus zélé de ses citoyens; il la servit avec l'intrépidité d'un héros, et il écrivit son Histoire avec la naïveté d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un patriote.

"Il dit dans le commencement de son Histoire de Genève, que, dès qu'il eut commencé de lire l'histoire des nations, il se sentit entraîné par son goût pour les Républiques, dont il épousa toujours les intérêts: c'est ce goût pour la liberté qui lui fit sans doute adopter Genève pour sa patrie.

"Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonça hautement comme le défenseur de Genève contre le Duc de Savoye et l'Evêque.

"En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie: Le Duc de Savoye étant entré dans Genève avec cinq cent hommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Duc; il voulut se retirer à Fribourg pour en éviter les suites; mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l'accompagnaient, et conduit par ordre du Prince à Grolée, où il resta prisonnier pendant deux ans. Bonnivard était malheureux dans ses voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avaient point ralenti son zèle pour Genève, il était toujours un ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la menaçaient, et par conséquent il devait être exposé à leurs coups. Il fut rencontré en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le dépouillèrent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Duc de Savoye : ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Château de Chillon, où il resta sans être interrogé jusques en 1536; il fut alors delivré par les Bernois, qui s'emparèrent du Pays de Vaud.

"Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivité, eut le plaisir de trouver Genève libre et réformée: la République s'empressa de lui témoigner sa reconnaissance, et de le dédommager des maux qu'il avoit soufferts; elle le reçut Bourgeois de la ville au mois de Juin, 1536; elle lui donna la maison habitée autrefois par le Vicaire-Général, et elle lui assigna une pension de deux cent écus d'or tant qu'il séjournerait à Genève. Il fut admis dans le Conseil de Deux-Ċent

en 1537.

"Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'être utile: après avoir travaillé à rendre Genève libre, il réussit à la rendre tolérante. Bonnivard engagea le Conseil à accorder aux ecclésiastiques et aux paysans un tems suffisant pour examiner les propositions qu'on leur faisait; il réussit par sa douceur: on prêche toujours le Christianisme avec succès quand on le prêche avec charité.

"Bonnivard fut savant: ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la bibliothèque publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu les auteurs classiques Latins, et qu'il avait approfondi la théologie et l'histoire. Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et il croyait qu'elles pouvaient faire la gloire de Genève; aussi il ne négligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville naissante; en 1551 il donna sa bibliothèque au public; elle fut le commencement de notre bibliothèque publique ; et ces livres sont en partie les rares et belles éditions du quinzième siècle qu'on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, pendant la même année, ce bon patriote institua la République son héritière, à condition qu'elle employerait ses biens à entretenir le collège dont on projettait la fondation.

"Il parait que Bonnivard mourut en 1570; mais on ne peut l'assurer, parcequ'il y a une lacune dans le Nécrologe depuis le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques en 1571."

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

LORD BYRON said of the Castle of Chillon that all description must fall short of the impression it made. While this impression was fresh in his mind he was detained for two days by stress of weather (June 1816) at a small inn in the village of Ouchy, near Lausanne, and there he composed the pathetic poem, which, in the language of Moore, has added another deathless association to the previously immortalised localities of the Lake." The piece was written contemporaneously with the third canto of "Childe Harold," and exhibits, like the latter, that modification in Lord Byron's mood which was produced by the rupture of his domestic ties. The pilgrim of the first two cantos of "Childe Harold" is cursed with the loathing of satiety. He gazes about him with contempt, and seldom rouses himself except to vent his spleen upon the weakness or wickedness of his fellow-men. The single thing which still has power to engage his sympathy and soothe his spirit, is the incorruptible glory of earth, sea, and sky. In the third canto he is no longer drooping from lassitude. His heart is torn now by an active sorrow, which quickens his verse with deeper emotions and healthier humanity. He continues to inveigh against his species, but in sadness as well as scorn, and his reproaches of others are tempered by the indication of penitent self-regrets. He is more than ever anxious to forget himself and the world in the beauties of nature, and shows a livelier sense of their soul-subduing power. The generous spark which seemed before on the verge of extinction is again reviving. His cynicism is neither so sullen nor so bitter, and he leaves us with a hope that he will learn to pluck a flower out of the nettle which has stung him. The "Prisoner of Chillon" is even a stronger proof of the chastened temper which possessed the poet at the time. He has kept to that circle in which he always walked with a magician's power, and portrays the anguish of an agonised spirit. But it is not here the bitterness of remorse, nor the conflicts of passion. It is the grief of holy instincts and affections, a grief as tender as it is intense. The great defect is to have made the brothers martyrs for their religious faith, and to have nowhere assigned them the consolations of religion. The belief which led them to prefer a prison to apostacy would have accompanied them to their dungeon, and lent triumphant dignity to deaths, which appear to grow in the poem out of the pinings of despair. The copyright was purchased for 500 guineas.

As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,"
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are bann'd, and barr'd-forbidden fare;
But this was for my father's faith
I suffer'd chains and courted death;
That father perish'd at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven-who now are one,
Six in youth, and one in age,

1 Ludovico Sforza, and others.-The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect; to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be attributed. [The transformation was effected in the brief transit from Varennes to Paris. Our own Charles I. was another instance of the phenomenon, his hair turning grey during his confinement at Carisbrooke.]

2

["But with the inward waste of grief."--MS.]

Finish'd as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;"
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
Dying as their father died,

For the God their foes denied;
Three were in a dungeon cast,

Of whom this wreck is left the last.

II.

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprison'd ray,
A sunbeam which hath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left;
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp:
And in each pillar there is a ring,

And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,

For in these limbs its teeth remain, With marks that will not wear away, Till I have done with this new day, Which now is painful to these eyes, Which have not seen the sun so rise For years-I cannot count them o'er, I lost their long and heavy score, When my last brother droop'd and died, And I lay living by his side.

ΙΙΙ.

They chain'd us each to a column stone,
And we were three-yet, each alone:
We could not move a single pace,
We could not see each other's face.
But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight :

3 ["Braving rancour-chains--and rage."-MS.]