Line 666. A Prince. [The Prince Regent, afterwards George IV.] Line 688. As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos. A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over a nation of freemen. Page 942, line 50. Right honestly, he liked an honest hater!' [Alluding to the well-known saying of Dr. Johnson's.] Line 98. To venture a solution: Davus sum !' [Davus sum, non (Edipus:' I'm an ignorant slave, not (Edipus. - TERENCE, Andria, I. ii.] Page 943, line 138. But do you more, Sempronius- don't deserve it.' ['Tis not in mortals to command success; But we'll do more, Sempronius · - we'll deserve it.' ADDISON, Cato.] Page 944, line 201. Also there bin another pious reason. With every thing that pretty bin, SHAKSPEARE [Cymbeline, II. iii.] Line 209. I might have chosen Piccadilly. [Byron himself lived here during the years 1815 and 1816.] Page 946, line 353. Arcadians both.' 'Arcades ambo. [Virgil, Ecl. vii. 4.] Page 947, line 373. Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!' ['Thus the rich travel.'] Page 948, line 433. To Norman Abbey. [Here follows a description of Newstead Abbey.] Page 950, line 564. Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's. Salvator Rosa. The wicked necessity of rhyming obliges me to adapt the name to the verse. Line 575. Makes me feel quite Danish. If I err not, your Dane' is one of Iago's catalogue of nations exquisite in their drinking." Page 951, line 621. The plains of Dura. In Assyria. Line 655. The very Siria of the spheres. Siria, i. e. bitch-star. Page 952, line 730. Longbow from Ireland, Strongbow from the Tweed. [Curran and Erskine.] Page 953, line 768.That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies.' 'Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was blasphemous to talk of Scripture out of church.' This dogma was broached to her husband-the best Christian in any book. See Joseph Andrews. Page 954, line 848. Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it. It would have taught him humanity at least. This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish ; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single bite is worth to him more than all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, etc. are more humane and useful. But angling! No angler can be a good man. -One of the best men I ever knew, -as humane, delicate-minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world, -was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagancies of I. Walton.' The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS. — Audi alteram partem.' I leave it to counterbalance my own observation. Page 958, line 167. Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit.' [Horace, Od. III. ii. 26. Byron quotes from memory and not with perfect accuracy. Gladstone thus translates: One, Ceres, blabs thy sacred rite: No common bark to tempt the sea.'] Page 959, line 259. And never craned. Craning. To crane' is, or was, an expression used to denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, to look before he leaped;'-a pause in his vaulting ambition,' which in the field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. Sir, if you don't choose to take the leap, let me!' - was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant on again; and to good purpose: for though the horse and rider' might fall, they make a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the field might follow. . Line 280. Ask'd next day, 'If men ever hunted twice? See his Letters to his Son. . Page 961, line 384. Go to the coffee-house, and take another. In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think it is mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered by an universal Pylades: When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's Coffee-house, and take another.' I recollect having heard an anecdote of the same kind. - Sir W. D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the club of which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy. What is the matter, Sir William?' cried Hare, of facetious memory. Ah!' replied Sir W., I have just lost poor Lady D.'— Lost! What at? Quinze or Hazard?' was the consolatory rejoinder of the querist. Page 963, line 472. And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern. The famous Chancellor Oxenstiern [1583-1654] said to his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics: You see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are governed.' [The true story is;-young Ox. enstiern, on being told he was to proceed on some diplomatic mission, expressed his doubts of his own fitness for such an office. The old Chancellor, laughing, answered, — Nescis, mi fili, quantulâ scientiâ gubernatur mundus.'] Page 965, line 600. Or Swiss Rousseau, cry 'Voilà la Pervenche!' See La Nouvelle Héloise. Line 609. Beatus ille procul!' from 'negotiis.' Horace, Epod. ii. 1. [Noscitur à sociis ' is not in Horace.] Line 657. Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander! [The bald-coot is a small bird of prey in marshes. The Emperor Alexander was baldish.] Page 969, line 64. A draft on Ransom.' [Ransom, Kinnaird, and Co. were Lord Byron's bankers.] Page 970, line 138. Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still. As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean, by Diviner still,' CHRIST. If ever God was man or man God - he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use or abuse made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified, that black men might be scourged? If so, he had better been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation. Line 161. Omnia vult belle Matho dicere dic aliquando.' [Martial, x. 46. Vult should be vis; Byron as usual quotes loosely. - Elphinstone thus translates: Thou finely wouldst say all? Say something well: Say something ill, if thou wouldst bear the bell.'] Page 972, line 273. When Rapp the Harmonist embargo'd marriage. This extraordinary and flourishing German colony in America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the 'Shakers' do; but lays such restrictions upon it as prevents more than a certain quantum of births within a certain number of years; which births (as Mr. Hulme observes) generally arrive in a little flock like those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same month perhaps.' These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent writers on America. Page 974, line 386. Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius. See Tacitus, b. vi. [From this passage is derived the common saying, conspicuous by his absence.] Page 976, line 515. Wines too, which might again have slain young Ammon. [Referring to the death Alexander, reputed to be the son of Zeus Ammon.] Line 527. While great Lucullus' Robe_triumphal muffles. A dish'à la Lucullus.' This hero, who conquered the East, has left his more extended celebrity to the transplantation of cherries (which he first brought into Europe), and the nomenclature of some very good dishes; - and I am not sure that (barring indigestion) he has not done more service to mankind by his cookery than by his conquests. A cherry-tree may weigh against a bloody laurel; besides, he has contrived to earn celebrity from both. Line 544. There's pretty picking in those 'petits puits. Petits puits d'amour garnis des confitures,' -a classical and well-known dish for part of the flank of a second course. Page 979, line 732. As Eldon on a lunatic commission. [John Scott, Earl of Eldon, Chancellor of England (with the intermission of fourteen months) from 1801 to 1830.] Page 980, line 768. The philosopher of Malmsbury. Hobbes: who, doubting of his own soul, paid that compliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of which he had some apprehension. Line 2. To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth. [Xenophon gives an elaborate account of the education of the Persian youth, but the particular fact to which Byron here refers is from Herodotus, i. 136.] Line 10. For this effect defective comes by cause.' Hamlet, Act II. sc. ii. Page 981, line 40. Quiets at once with 'quia impossible." [The phrase is from Tertullian's De Carne Christi.] Line 49. I merely mean to say what Johnson said. That the dead are seen no more,' said Imlac, I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and sonie, who deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears. Rasselas, chap. xxx.] Line 85. Titus exclaim'd, '1've lost a day!' [Remembering once at dinner that during the whole day he had granted a favour to no one, he uttered the memorable and deservedly praised words: Friends, I have lost a day." -SUETONIUS, Titus, viii.] Page 985, line 281. Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?' [* During a visit to Newstead, in 1814, Lord Byron actually fancied he saw the ghost of the Black Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the Abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.' MOORE.] Page 986, line 391. For a spoil'd carpet. I think it was a carpet on which Diogenes trod, with-Thus I trample on the pride of Plato!' With greater pride,' as the other replied. But as carpets are meant to be trodden upon, my memory probably misgives me, and it might be a robe, or tapestry, or a table-cloth, or some other expensive and uncynical piece of furni neto' is the inscription (and well inscribed in this instance) on the sea walls between the Adriatic and Venice. The walls were a republican work of the Venetians; the inscription, I believe, Imperial; and inscribed by Napoleon the First. It is time to continue to him that title there will be a second by and by, 'Spes altera mundi,' if he live; let him not defeat it like his father. But, in any case, he will be preferable to Imbeciles. There is a glorious field for him, if he know how to cultivate it. Line 526. Untying' squires to fight against the churches.' Page 991, line 695. The very powerful parson, Peter Pith. Query, Sidney Smith, author of Peter Plimley's Letters? PRINTER'S DEVIL. Page 993, line 820. What is call'd mobility. In French mobilité.' I am not sure that mobility is English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs to other climates, though it is sometimes seen to a great extent in our own. It may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions at the same time without losing the past; and is, though sometimes apparently useful to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy attribute. Page 994, line 913. Who would not sigh A at rav Kvoepelav. [Alas, Cytherea !] Page 995, line 920. Alma Venus Genetrix ! ' [From the famous opening of the De Rerum Natura.] [Here may be added three poems recently discovered and attributed to Byron with some show of reason. The first was published by H. Buxton Forman in a letter to the Athenæum of June 11, 1904. It is addressed to Mary Chaworth (afterwards Mrs. Musters), and was written by Byron with a pencil on the last endpaper and paste-down of a book belonging to Miss Chaworth - the first volume of an English translation, in two volumes, of the Letters of Madame de Maintenon, published in London in 1772. It consists of three stanzas, as follows:Ah memory torture me no more, The present 's all o'ercast IV Not ten thousand Lovers could feel V May the Ruler of Heaven look down, VI Once more my sweet Girl Adieu While this Heart In my bosom shall beat. A third poem was printed in two issues of Good Words, June and July, 1904, and is vouched for by the editor of that periodical. It is contained in three loose sheets of hand-made paper of the time, used for the rough draft of the composition and the jotting down of rhymes and ideas, and a small quarto copy-book (6 inches by 7 inches) in which a fair transcription has been made of the finished stanzas, with gaps of one or more pages left between the stanzas, or groups of two or more stanzas, to be filled up as the poem progressed. The theme was evidently suggested by the Coronation of George IV., and the stanzas must have been written just before the proposed date of the ceremony, August 1, 1820, or the actual date, July 19, 1821. The completed stanzas with the comment in Good Words are as follows: THE KING OF THE HUMBUGS I The Coronation! Like a Lottery puff, I'll make the world stand forward as my text, "T will catch the passer's eye, and that's enough I don't pretend that George the Fourth is fixed. II I leave the ceremonies in the Abbey To those who see them, which I never shall, (Some thought the Dean and Chapter's conduct shabby, Who sold their Choir at so much every stall, I never could, in spite of all the talk, Then I've no taste for sitting hugger mugger. IV To merit! What, the Congress takes no part? V Where are these Humbugs? O the search I've made To find their country! 'Twas a tedious pro cess, I've turned to every Atlas in the trade, Systems complete with all their texts and glosses. I've called all Tours and Voyages to my aid. Last, in despair, I turned to Captain Ross's, Hoping to see their Kingdom marked perhaps Somewhere near Croker's Mountains on his maps. VI Poor Croker! It is very hard to lose One's Mountains! But a truce with maps and charts. For some one whispers (could it be my Muse?) That Humbugs are found natives of all parts, And scattered through all nations like the Jews, And have, like them, great skill in little arts, Yet not, like them, held up to scorn and laughter, They're feasted, listened to, and followed after. VII Then I have known some few-It is a sect Here there occurs a hiatus in the finished copy, Byron evidently being unable to get the next stanza to his liking. In the draft, however, there are a series of incomplete stanzas and half-worked-out ideas. He seems first to have contemplated describing the procession of Humbugs. Then, breaking off for a time, he turns to the consideration of the question, who is most fit to be King of the Humbugs! The prosecution of this theme being probably for the time not congenial, Byron leaves it, to turn to the discussion of another point in his satire the place where the coronation, or the election, of the Humbug Monarch was to be held. In this direction he was for a brief period more successful, the next three stanzas having apparently been written at once into the copybook, without any previous drafting, the sequence of the rough copy going to prove that no part of it has been lost, and such alternative readings as have occurred to Byron being inserted in the fair copy. VIII Some thought no properer spot could be assigned Than easy Holland's scribbler-sheltering roof, For 't was a haunt familiar to their kind Where they could creep and feed and strut and puff, All had discoursed there, and some few had dined But then my lord's consent was not enough; There was the Princess too of Madagascar And no one had the courage e'en to ask her. IX The number qualified was found prodigious, And all with very palpable pretensions, Both civil, military, and religious, Some there had patents, others stars and pensions, Half those who print, and with their thoughts oblige us, The authors of all manners of inventions. Oxford and Cambridge severally sent Messrs.... With very good degrees... and some professors. X There must be room to swagger and to bluster, are Enough perhaps to lodge them in detail, And by instalments - But a general muster! Another break. That he endeavored to follow up his temporary success is evident from the rough draft, mainly composed of suggestions of various places where the ceremony should be held. At last he gets the idea of holding it in the now vacated booths of Smithfield fair, and goes ahead again : Soaps (aye, if any he should chance to use) Waterproof coats, impenetrable shoes, Or, if he prove a sailing King, air jackets |