Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds, XVII. Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate, Apostasy 's so fashionable, too, To keep one creed 's a task grown quite Herculean; Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian ? 2 Venice, Sept. 16, 1818. 1. [Charles James Fox and the Whig Club of his time adopted a uniform of blue and buff. Hence the livery of the Edinburgh Review.] 2. I allude not to our friend Landor's hero, the traitor Count Julian, but to Gibbon's hero, vulgarly yclept "The Apostate." DON JUAN. CANTO THE FIRST.' I. I WANT a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don JuanWe all have seen him, in the pantomime,2 Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time. 1. [Begun at Venice, September 6; finished November 1, 1818.] 2. The pantomime which Byron and his readers "all had seen," was an abbreviated and bowdlerized version of Shadwell's Libertine. "First produced by Mr. Garrick on the boards of Drury Lane Theatre," it was recomposed by Charles Anthony Delpini, and performed at the Royalty Theatre, in Goodman's Fields, in 1787. It was entitled Don Juan; or, The Libertine Destroyed: A Tragic Pantomimical Entertainment, In Two Acts. Music Composed by Mr. Gluck. "Scaramouch," the "Sganarelle" of Molière's Festin de Pierre, was a favourite character of Joseph Grimaldi. He was cast for the part, in 1801, at Sadler's Wells, and, again, on a memorable occasion, November 28, 1809, at Covent Garden Theatre, when the O. P. riots were in full swing, and (see the Morning Chronicle, November 29, 1809) "there was considerable tumult in the pit." According to "Boz" (Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, 1846, ii. 81, 106, 107), Byron patronized Grimaldi's "benefits at Covent Garden," was repeatedly in his company, and when he left England, in 1816,"presented him with a valuable silver snuff-box." At the end of the pantomime "the Furies gather round him [Don Juan], and the Tyrant being bound in chains is hurried away and thrown into flames." The Devil is conspicuous by his absence.] II. Vernon,1 the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now; Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk, Followers of Fame, "nine farrow" 2 of that sow: France, too, had Buonaparté 3 and Dumourier 4 Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier. 1. [Edward Vernon, Admiral (1684-1757), took Porto Bello in 1739. William Augustus, second son of George II. (1721-1765), fought at the battles of Dettingen, 1743; Fontenoy, 1745; and at Culloden, 1746. For the "severity of the Duke of Cumberland," see Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, Prose Works, 1830, vii. 852, sq. James Wolfe, General, born January 2, 1726, was killed at the siege of Quebec, September 13, 1759. Edward, Lord Hawke, Admiral (1715-1781), totally defeated the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759. Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1721-1792), gained the victory at Minden, August 1, 1759. John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721-1790), commanded the British forces in Germany (1766-1769). John Burgoyne, General, defeated the Americans at Germantown, October 3, 1777, but surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, October 17, 1778. He died in 1792. Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral (1725-1786), was tried by courtmartial, January-February, 1779, for allowing the French fleet off Ushant to escape, July, 1778. He was honourably acquitted. Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral (1725-1799), known by the sailors as "Black Dick," defeated the French off Ushant, June 1, 1794.] 2. [Compare Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1, line 65.] 3. "In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Hazlitt's canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution (The English Poets, 1870, pp. 203, 204), I am accused of having 'lauded Buonaparte to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreaking my disappointment on the god of my idolatry. The first lines I ever wrote upon Buonaparte were the Ode to Napoleon,' after his abdication in 1814. All that I have ever written on that subject has been done since his decline;-I never met him in the hour of his success.' I have considered his character at different periods, in its strengh and in its weakness: by his zealots I am accused of injustice-by his enemies as his warmest partisan, in many publications, both English and foreign. "For the accuracy of my delineation I have high authority. A year and some months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing at Venice my friend the honourable Douglas Kinnaird. In his way through Germany, he told me that he had been honoured with a presentation to, and some interviews with, one of the nearest family connections of Napoleon (Eugène Beauharnais). During one of these, he read and translated the lines alluding to Buonaparte, in the Third Canto of Childe Harold. He informed me, that he was authorized by the illustrious personage-(still recognized as such by the Legitimacy in Europe)-to whom they III. Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette were read, to say, that the delineation was complete,' or words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact ;-but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt that I never flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are the incredible antitheses of his character. "Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating myself in Childe Harold, etc., etc. I have denied this long ago-but, even were it true, Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of human understanding was derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by imputing the basest of crimes,-viz. praising publicly the same man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity :-the first lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,-the last, though not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more fortunate since 1814?" For Byron's various estimates of Napoleon's character and career, see Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xxxvi. line 7, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 238, note 1.] 4. [Charles François Duperier Dumouriez (1739-1823) defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, November 6, 1792, etc. He published his Mémoires (Hamburg et Leipsic), 1794. For the spelling, see Memoirs of General Dumourier, written by himself, translated by John Fenwick, London, 1794. See, too, Lettre de Joseph Servan, Ex-ministre de la Guerre, Sur le mémoire lu par M. Dumourier le 13 Juin à l'Assemblée Nationale; Bibliothèque Historique de la Révolution, "Justifications," 7, 8, 9.] 5. [Antoine Pierre Joseph Barnave, born 1761, was appointed President of the Constituent Assembly in 1790. He was guillotined November 30, 1793. Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville, philosopher and politician, born January 14, 1754, was one of the principal instigators of the revolt of the Champ de Mars, July, 1789. He was guillotined October 31, 1793. Marie Jean Antoine, Marquis de Condorcet, born September 17, 1743, was appointed President of the Legislative Assembly in 1792. Proscribed by the Girondins, he poisoned himself to escape the guillotine, March 28, 1794. Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, born March 9, 1749, died April 2, 1791. Jérôme Petion de Villeneuve, born 1753, Mayor of Paris in 1791, took an active part in the imprisonment of the king. In 1793 he fell under Robespierre's displeasure, and to escape proscription took refuge in the department of Calvados. In 1794 his body was found in a field, half eaten by wolves. Jean Baptiste, Baron de Clootz (better known as Anacharsis Clootz), was born in 1755. In 1790, at the bar of the National Convention, he described himself as the "Speaker of Mankind." Being suspected by |