The Sun, which yearly melts the polar ice, CLVIII. Thus in the East they are extremely strict, It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame; CLIX. Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; End of Canto 5th Finished Ravenna, Nov. 27th 1820. and finished copying out, Dec. 26. with some intermediate additions, 1820. B. i. Meanwhile as Homer sometimes sleeps, much more The modern muse may be allowed to snore. e.—[MS.] 1. [This stanza, which Byron composed in bed, February 27, 1821 (see Extracts from a Diary, Letters, 1901, v. 209), is not in the first edition. On discovering the omission, he wrote to Murray: "Upon what principle have you omitted one of the concluding stanzas sent as an addition?-because it ended, I suppose, with ... 'And do not link two virtuous souls for life Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis)-particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages."—Letter to Murray, August 31, 1821, ibid., p. 351.] PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII. THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (ie. the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie.1 Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry," but written some time before his decease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That he was an amiable man in private life, may or may not be true: but with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in 1. [The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author of an Essai sur L'Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie (Sec. Ed. 3 tom. 1827), was, at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met and made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, Duc de Richelieu, who took part in the siege of Ismail. M. Léon de Crousaz-Crétet describes him as ancien surintendant des théâtres sous l'Empereur Paul."-Le Duc de Richelieu, 1897, p. 83.] 2. [For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), see Letters, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1.] intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannised over a country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop. 66 Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson,1 had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a crossroad, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide-he merely cut the carotid artery," (blessings on their learning !) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of dolour yelled forth " 2 by the newspapers-and the harangue of the Coroner in a eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased—(an Anthony worthy of such a Cæsar)—and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law3-a felon or a madman—and in either case no great subject for panegyric.4 1. [Samuel Ferrand Waddington, born 1759, hop-grower and radical politician, first came into notice as the chairman of public meetings in favour of making peace with the French in 1793. He was the author, inter alia, of A Key to a Delicate Investigation, 1812, and An Address to the People of the United Kingdom, 1812. He was alive in 1822. James Watson (1766-1838), a radical agitator of the following of Thomas Spence, was engaged, in the autumn of 1816, in an abortive conspiracy to blow up cavalry barracks, barricade the streets, and seize the Bank and the Tower. He was tried for high treason before Lord Ellenborough, and acquitted.] 2. [Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3, línes 7, 8.] 3. say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, let them here make the most of it. it 4. [Mr. Joseph Carttar, of Deptford, coroner for the County of Kent, addressed the jury at some length. The following sentences are taken from the report of the inquest, contained in The Annual Biography and Obituary for the year 1823, vol. vii. p. 57: "As a public man, is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can hold. In private life I believe the world will admit that a more amiable man could not be found. . . . If it should unfortunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder. The Bible declares that a man clings to nothing so strongly as In his life he was—what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani1 of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!!! With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire :-"La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." . . . " Plus les mœurs sont dépravés, plus les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu." This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer-which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc., are the changes his own life, I therefore view it as an axiom, and an abstract principle, that a man must necessarily be out of his mind at the moment of destroying himself." Byron, probably, read the report of the inquest in Cobbett's Weekly Register (August 17, 1822, vol. 43, pp. 389-425). The "eulogy" was in perfectly good taste, but there can be little doubt that if "Waddington or Watson" had cut their "carotid arteries," the verdict would have been different.] 1. From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If ever man saved his country, Canning can, but will he? I for one, hope so. 44 [The phrase, great moral lesson," was employed by the Duke of Wellington, à propos of the restoration of pictures and statues to their 'rightful owners," in a despatch addressed to Castlereagh, under date, Paris, September 19, 1815 (The Dispatches, etc. (ed. by Colonel Gurwood), 1847, viii. 270). The words, moral lesson," as applied to the French generally, are to be found in Scott's Field of Waterloo (conclusion, stanza vi. line 3), which was written about the same time as the despatch. Byron quotes them in his Ode from the French," stanza iv. line 8 (see Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 434, note 1). There is a satirical allusion to the Duke's "assumption of the didactic" about teaching a "great moral lesson" in the Preface to the first number of he Liberal (1822, p. xi.).] which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen-should be welcome to all who recollect on whom it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been and may be many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to dothey may be right or wrong-but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox1 Prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!"" I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this doubledealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and -but enough for the present. 1. When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is my doxy, and heterodoxy is another man's doxy." A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism.' " [For the ''prelate," see Letters, 1902, vi. 101, note 2.] 2. [For the Duke of Wellington and the Holy Alliance, see the Introduction to The Age of Bronze, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 538, 561.] |