Chapter VII: Canto THE FIRST: I.19 (2)

[21] ["We [i.e. Byron and C.S. Matthews] went down [April, 1809] to Newstead together, where I had got a famous cellar, and _Monks'_ dresses from a masquerade warehouse. We were a company of some seven or eight, ... and used to sit up late in our friars' dresses, drinking burgundy, claret, champagne, and what not, out of the _skull-cup_, and all sorts of glasses, and buffooning all round the house, in our conventual garments" (letter to Murray, November 19, 1820. See, too, the account of this visit which Matthews wrote to his sister in a letter dated May 22, 1809 [_Letters_, 1898, i. 150-160, and 153, note]). Moore (_Life_, p. 86) and other apologists are anxious to point out that the Newstead "wassailers" were, on the whole, a harmless crew of rollicking schoolboys "--were, indeed, of habits and tastes too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery." And as to the "alleged 'harems,'" the "Paphian girls," there were only one or two, says Moore, "among the ordinary menials." But, even so, the "wassailers" were not impeccable, and it is best to leave the story, fact or fable, to speak for itself.]

[22] {17} ["Hight" is the preterite of the passive "hote," and means "was called." "Childe Harold he hight" would be more correct. Compare Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, bk. i. c. ix. 14. 9, "She Queene of Faeries hight." But "hight" was occasionally used with the common verbs "is," "was." Compare _The Ordinary_, 1651, act iii. sc. 1--

"... the goblin
That is _hight_ Good-fellow Robin."
Dodsley (ed. Hazlitt), xii. 253.]

[p] _Childe Burun_------.--[MS.]

[23] [William, fifth Lord Byron (the poet's grand-uncle), mortally wounded his kinsman, Mr. Chaworth, in a duel which was fought, without seconds or witnesses, at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall, January 29, 1765. He was convicted of wilful murder by the coroner's jury, and of manslaughter by the House of Lords; but, pleading his privilege as a peer, he was set at liberty. He was known to the country-side as the "wicked Lord," and many tales, true and apocryphal, were told to his discredit (_Life of Lord Byron_, by Karl Elze, 1872, pp. 5, 6).]

[q] ------_nor honied glose of rhyme_.--[D. pencil.]

[r] _Childe Burun_------.--[MS.]

[s] {18} _For he had on the course too swiftly run_.--[MS. erased.]

[t] _Had courted many_----.--[MS. erased.]

[24] [Mary Chaworth. (Compare "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England," passim: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 285.)]

[u] ----_Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[25] {19} [Compare _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto I, stanza ix. 9--

"And burning pride and high disdain
Forbade the rising tears to flow."]

[v]
_And strait he fell into a reverie_.--[MS.]
----_sullen reverie_.--[D.]

[26] [_Vide post_, stanza xi. line 9, note.]

[w] _Strange fate directed still to uses vile_.--[MS. erased.]

[x]
_Now Paphian jades were heard to sing and smile_.--[MS. erased.]
_Now Paphian nymphs_----.--[D. pencil.]

[27] [The brass eagle which was fished out of the lake at Newstead in the time of Byron's predecessor contained, among other documents, "a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime ... which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding (_Murdris_, per ipsos _post decimum nonum Diem Novembris_, ultimo praeteritum perpetratis, si quae fuerint, _exceptis_)" (_Life_, p. 2, note). The monks were a constant source of delight to the Newstead "revellers." Francis Hodgson, in his "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country" (_Poems_, 1809), does not spare them--

"'Hail, venerable pile!' whose ivied walls
Proclaim the desolating lapse of years:
And hail, ye hills, and murmuring waterfalls,
Where yet her head the ruin'd Abbey rears.
No longer now the matin tolling bell,
Re-echoing loud among the woody glade,
Calls the fat abbot from his drowsy cell,
And warns the maid to flee, if yet a maid.
No longer now the festive bowl goes round,
Nor monks get drunk in honour of their God."]

[y] {20} The original MS. inserts two stanzas which were rejected during the composition of the poem:--

_Of all his train there was a henchman page,_
_peasant_ _served_
_A {-dark eyed-} boy, who {-loved-} his master well;_
_And often would his pranksome prate engage_
_Harold's_
_Childe {-Burun's-} ear, when his proud heart did swell_
_With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell_.
_Alwin_
_Then would he smile on him, as {-Rupert-} smiled,_
_{-Robin-}_
_When aught that from his young lips archly fell_
_Harold's_
_The gloomy film from {-Burun's-} eye beguiled;_
_And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled_.}
_And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe_. }

_Him and one yeoman only did he take_
_To travel Eastward to a far countree;_
_And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake_
_On whose firm banks he grew from Infancy,_
_Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily_
_With hope of foreign nations to behold,_
_And many things right marvellous to see,_
_vaunting_
_Of which our {-lying-} voyagers oft have told,_
_{-From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold.-}_ }
or, _In tomes pricked out with prints to monied ... sold_}
_In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old_. }

[z] ----_Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[aa] {21} Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (_vide supra_, p. 20, _var_. i.), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:--

_And none did love him though to hall and bower_
_{-few could-}_
_Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near_
_{-An evil smile just bordering on a sneer-}_
_He knew them flatterers of the festal hour_
_{-Curled on his lip-}_
_The heartless Parasites of present cheer,_
_As if_
_{-And deemed no mortal wight his peer-}_
_Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear_
_{-To gentle Dames still less he could be dear-}_
_{-Were aught-} But pomp and power alone are Woman's care_
_{-But-} And where these are let no Possessor fear_
_{-The sex are slaves-} Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare_
_{-Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling-} glare_
_And Mammon_
_{-That Demon-} wins his_ [MS. torn] _where Angels might despair._

[28] [The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friendship!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, _Recollections, etc._, pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.]

[ab] {22} _No! none did love him_----.--[D. pencil.]

[29] The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.--[_MS. M._]

[30] "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their _feires_, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's _Reliques_, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines--

"As with the woful _fere_,
And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."
_Titus Andronicus_, act iv. sc. 1.

Compare, too, "That woman and her fleshless Pheere" (_The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere_, line 180 of the reprint from the first version in the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1798; _Poems_ by S. T. Coleridge, 1893, App. E, p. 515).]

[ac] {23} _Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[31] [In a suppressed stanza of "Childe Harold's Good Night" (see p. 27, _var._ ii.), the Childe complains that he has not seen his sister for "three long years and moe." Before her marriage, in 1807, Augusta Byron divided her time between her mother's children, Lady Chichester and the Duke of Leeds; her cousin, Lord Carlisle; and General and Mrs. Harcourt. After her marriage to Colonel Leigh, she lived at Newmarket. From the end of 1805 Byron corresponded with her more or less regularly, but no meeting took place. In a letter to his sister, dated November 30, 1808 (_Letters_, 1898, i. 203), he writes, "I saw Col. Leigh at Brighton in July, where I should have been glad to have seen you; I only know your husband by sight." Colonel Leigh was his first cousin, as well as his half-sister's husband, and the incidental remark that "he only knew him by sight" affords striking proof that his relations and connections were at no pains to seek him out, but left him to fight his own way to social recognition and distinction. (For particulars of "the Hon. Augusta Byron," see _Letters_, 1898, i. 18, note.)]

[ad] _Of friends he had but few, embracing none_.--[MS. erased.]

[ae] _Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel_.--[MS. D.]

[32] [Compare Campbell's _Gertrude of Wyoming_, ii. 8. 1--"Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy."]

[af] {24} _His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands_.--[MS. D.]

[ag]

_The Dalilahs_----.--[MS. D.]
_His damsels all_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ah] ----_where brighter sunbeams shine_.--[MS. erased.]

[33] "Your objection to the expression 'central line' I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial" (letter to Dallas, September 7, 1811; see, too, letter to his mother, October 7, 1808: _Letters_, 1898, i. 193; ii. 27).

[ai] _The sails are filled_----.--[MS.]

[34] He experienced no such emotion on the resumption of his Pilgrimage in 1816. With reference to the confession, he writes (Canto III. stanza i. lines 6-9)--

"... I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye."

[35] {25} [See Lord Maxwell's "Good Night" in Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ (_Poetical Works_, ii. 141, ed. 1834): "Adieu, madam, my mother dear," etc. [MS.]. Compare, too, Armstrong's "Good Night" _ibid._--

"This night is my departing night,
For here nae langer mun I stay;
There's neither friend nor foe of mine,
But wishes me away.
What I have done thro' lack of will,
I never, never can recall;
I hope ye're a' my friends as yet.
Good night, and joy be with you all."]

[36] {26} [Robert Rushton, the son of one of the Newstead tenants. "Robert I take with me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal. Tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well" (letter to Mrs. Byron, Falmouth, June 22, 1809: _Letters_, 1898, i. 224).]

[aj] {27}

_Our best gos-hawk can hardly fly_
_So merrily along_.--[MS.]
_Our best greyhound can hardly fly_.--[D. erased.]

[ak] Here follows in the MS. the following erased stanza:--

_My mother is a high-born dame_,
_And much misliketh me;_
_She saith my riot bringeth shame_
_On all my ancestry_.
_I had a sister once I ween_,
_Whose tears perhaps will flow;_
_But her fair face I have not seen_
_For three long years and moe._

[al]
_Oh master dear I do not cry_
_From fear of wave or wind_.--[MS.]

[37] [Robert was sent back from Gibraltar under the care of Joe Murray (see letter to Mr. Rushton, August 15, 1809: _Letters_, 1898, i. 242).]

[38] {28} [William Fletcher, Byron's valet. He was anything but "staunch" in the sense of the song (see Byron's letters of November 12, 1809, and June 28, 1810) (_Letters_, 1898, i. 246, 279); but for twenty years he remained a loyal and faithful servant, helped to nurse his master in his last illness, and brought his remains back to England.]

[am] {29}
_Enough, enough, my yeoman good_.
_All this is well to say;_
_But if I in thy sandals stood_
_I'd laugh to get away_.--[MS. erased, D.]

[an]
_For who would trust a paramour_
_Or e'en a wedded feere_--
_Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er_,
_And torn her yellow hair?_--[MS.]

[39] ["I leave England without regret--I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab" (letter to F. Hodgson, Falmouth, June 25, 1809, _Letters_, 1898, i. 230). If this _Confessio Amantis_, with which compare the "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England," is to be accepted as _bona fide_, he leaves England heart-whole, but for the bitter memory of Mary Chaworth.]

[ao] {30} Here follows in the MS., erased:--

_Methinks it would my bosom glad_,
_To change my proud estate_,
_And be again a laughing lad_
_With one beloved playmate_.
_Since youth I scarce have pass'd an hour_
_Without disgust or pain_,
_Except sometimes in Lady's bower_,
_Or when the bowl I drain_.

[40] ["I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the 'Good Night.' I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and Argus we know to be a fable" (letter to Dallas, September 23, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 44).

Byron was recalling an incident which had befallen him some time previously (see letter to Moore, January 19, 1815): "When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him." See, too, for another thrust at Argus, _Don Juan_, Canto III. stanza xxiii. But he should have remembered that this particular Argus "was half a _wolf_ by the she side." His portrait is preserved at Newstead (see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 280, _Edition de Luxe_).

For the expression of a different sentiment, compare _The Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog_ (first published in Hobhouse's _Imit. and Transl_., 1809), and the prefatory inscription on Boatswain's grave in the gardens of Newstead, dated November 16, 1808 (_Life_, p. 73).]

[41] {31} [Cintra's "needle-like peaks," to the north-west of Lisbon, are visible from the mouth of the Tagus.]

[42] [Compare Ovid, _Amores_, i. 15, and Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, iv. 22. Small particles of gold are still to be found in the sands of the Tagus, but the quantity is, and perhaps always was, inconsiderable.]

[ap] ----_where thronging rustics reap_.--[MS. erased.]

[aq] {32} _What God hath done_--[MS. D.]

[ar] _Those Lusian brutes and earth from worst of wretches purge_.--[MS.]

[43] ["_Lisboa_ is the Portuguese word, consequently the very best. Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I have _Hellas_ and _Eros_ not very long before, there would be something like an affectation of Greek terms, which I wish to avoid" (letter to Dallas, September 23, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 44. See, too, _Poetical Works_, 1883, p. 5).]

[as] _Ulissipont, or Lisbona_.--[MS. pencil.]

[at]
_Which poets, prone to lie, have paved with gold_.--[MS.]
_Which poets sprinkle o'er with sands of gold_.--[MS. pencil.]
_Which fabling poets_--[D. pencil.]

[44] {33} [For Byron's estimate of the Portuguese, see _The Curse of Minerva_, lines 233, 234, and note to line 231 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 469, 470). In the last line of the preceding stanza, the substitution of the text for _var._ i. was no doubt suggested by Dallas in the interests of prudence.]

[au]
_Who hate the very hand that waves the sword_
_To shield them, etc_.--[MS. D.]
_To guard them, etc_.--[MS. pencil.]

[av]
_Mid many things that grieve both nose and ee_.--[MS.]
_Midst many_----.--[MS. D.]

[aw] ----_smelleth filthily_.--[MS. D.]

[ax] ----_dammed with dirt_.--[MS. erased.]

[45] {34} [For a fuller description of Cintra, see letter to Mrs. Byron, dated August 11, 1808 (_Life_, p. 92; _Letters_, 1898, i. 237). Southey, not often in accord with Byron, on his return from Spain (1801) testified that "for beauty all English, perhaps all existing, scenery must yield to Cintra" (_Life and Corr. of R. Southey_, ii. 161).]

[ay] ----_views too sweet and vast_----.--[MS. erased.]

[az]
----_by tottering convent crowned_.--[MS. erased.]
_Alcornoque_.--[Note (pencil).]

[46] "The sky-worn robes of tenderest blue." Collins' _Ode to Pity_ [MS. and D.].

[ba] _The murmur that the sparkling torrents keep_.--[MS. erased.]

[47] {35} [The convent of Nossa Senora (now the Palazio) da Pena, and the Cork Convent, were visited by Beckford (circ. 1780), and are described in his _Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal_ (8vo, 1834), the reissue of his _Letters Picturesque and Poetical_ (4to, 1783).

"Our first object was the convent of Nossa Senhora da Penha, the little romantic pile of white building I had seen glittering from afar when I first sailed by the coast of Lisbon. From this pyramidical elevation the view is boundless; you look immediately down upon an immense expanse of sea.

... A long series of detached clouds of a dazzling whiteness suspended low over the waves had a magic effect, and in pagan times might have appeared, without any great stretch of fancy, the cars of marine divinities, just risen from the bosom of their element."--_Italy, etc._, p. 249.

"Before the entrance, formed by two ledges of ponderous rock, extends a smooth level of greensward.... The Hermitage, its cell, chapel, and refectory, are all scooped out of the native marble, and lined with the bark of the cork tree. Several of the passages are not only roofed, but floored with the same material ... The shrubberies and garden-plots dispersed amongst the mossy rocks ... are delightful, and I took great pleasure in ... following the course of a transparent rill, which was conducted through a rustic water-shoot, between bushes of lavender and roses, many of the tenderest green."--_Ibid._, p. 250.

The inscription to the memory of Honorius (d. 159, aet. 95) is on a stone in front of the cave--

"Hic Honorius vitam finivit;
Et ideo cum Deo in coelis revivit."]

[48] {36} "I don't remember any crosses there."--[Pencilled note by J.C. Hobhouse.]

[The crosses made no impression upon Hobhouse, who, no doubt, had realized that they were nothing but guideposts. For an explanation, see letter of Mr. Matthew Lewtas to the _Athenaeum_, July 19, 1873: "The track from the main road to the convent, rugged and devious, leading up to the mountain, is marked out by numerous crosses now, just as it was when Byron rode along it in 1809, and it would appear he fell into the mistake of considering that the crosses were erected to show where assassinations had been committed."]

[49] [Beckford, describing the view from the convent, notices the wild flowers which adorned "the ruined splendour." "Amidst the crevices of the mouldering walls ... I noticed some capillaries and polypodiums of infinite delicacy; and on a little flat space before the convent a numerous tribe of pinks, gentians, and other Alpine plants, fanned and invigorated by the fresh mountain air."--_Italy, etc.,_ 1834, p. 229.

The "Prince's palace" (line 5) may be the royal palace at Cintra, "the Alhambra of the Moorish kings," or, possibly, the palace (_vide post_, stanza xxix. line 7) at Mafra, ten miles from Cintra.]

[bb] {37} _There too proud Vathek--England's wealthiest son_.--[MS. D.]

[50] [William Beckford, 1760 (?1759)-1844, published _Vathek_ in French in 1784, and in English in 1787. He spent two years (1794-96) in retirement at Quinta da Monserrate, three miles from Cintra. Byron thought highly of _Vathek_. "I do not know," he writes (_The Giaour_, l. 1328, note), "from what source the author ... may have drawn his materials ... but for correctness of costume ... and power of imagination, it surpasses all European imitations.... As an Eastern tale, even _Rasselas_ must bow before it; his happy valley will not bear a comparison with the 'Hall of Eblis.'" In the MS. there is an additional stanza reflecting on Beckford, which Dallas induced him to omit. It was afterwards included by Moore among the _Occasional Pieces_, under the title of _To Dives: a Fragment_ (_Poetical Works_, 1883, p. 548). (For Beckford, see _Letters_, 1898, i. 228, note 1; and with regard to the "Stanzas on Vathek," see letter to Dallas, September 26, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 47.)]

[bc]
_When Wealth and Taste their worst and best have done_,
_Meek Peace pollution's lure voluptuous still must shun_.--[MS.]

[bd]
_But now thou blasted Beacon unto man_.--[MS.]
----_thou Beacon unto erring man_.--[MS. D.]

[be] {38} _Vain are the pleasaunces by art supplied_.--[MS. D.]

[bf] ----_yclad, and by_.--[MS. D.]

[bg] _Where blazoned glares a name spelt "Wellesley."_--[MS. D.]

[bh] ----_are on the roll_.--[MS. erased, D.]

[bi] The following stanzas, which appear in the MS., were excluded at the request of Dallas (see his letter of October 10, 1811, _Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, 1824, pp. 173-187), _Letters_, 1898, ii. 51:--

In golden characters right well designed
First on the list appeareth one "Junot;"
Then certain other glorious names we find,
(Which Rhyme compelleth me to place below:)
Dull victors! baffled by a vanquished foe,
Wheedled by conynge tongues of laurels due,
Stand, worthy of each other in a row--
Sirs Arthur, Harry, and the dizzard Hew
Dalrymple, seely wight, sore dupe of t'other tew.

Convention is the dwarfy demon styled
That failed the knights in Marialva's dome:
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
And turned a nation's shallow joy to gloom.
For well I wot, when first the news did come
That Vimiera's field by Gaul was lost,
For paragraph ne paper scarce had room,
Such Paeans teemed for our triumphant host,
In Courier, Chronicle, and eke in Morning Post.

But when Convention sent his handy work
Pens, tongues, feet, hands combined in wild uproar;
Mayor, Aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork;
The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore;
Stern Cobbett,[Sec.]--who for one whole week forbore
To question aught, once more with transport leapt,
And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore
With foes such treaty never should be kept,
While roared the blatant Beast,[Sec.Sec.] and roared, and raged, and--slept!!

Thus unto Heaven appealed the people: Heaven
Which loves the lieges of our gracious King,
Decreed that ere our Generals were forgiven,
Enquiry should be held about the thing.
But Mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing;
And as they spared our foes so spared we them;
(Where was the pity of our Sires for Byng?)[Sec.Sec.Sec.]
Yet knaves, not idiots should the law condemn;
Then live ye gallant Knights! and bless your Judges' phlegm!

[Sec.] [Sir Hew Dalrymple's despatch on the so-called Convention of Cintra is dated September 3, and was published in the _London Gazette Extraordinary_, September 16, 1808. The question is not alluded to in the _Weekly Political Register_ of September 17, but on the 24th Cobbett opened fire with a long article (pp. 481-502) headed, "Conventions in Portugal," which was followed up by articles on the same subject in the four succeeding issues. Articles iii., iv., v., vi., of the "Definitive Convention" provided for the restoration of the French troops and their safe convoy to France, with their artillery, equipments, and cavalry. "Did the men," asks Cobbett (September 24), "who made this promise beat the Duke d'Abrantes [Junot], or were they like curs, who, having felt the bite of the mastiff, lose all confidence in their number, and, though they bark victory, suffer him to retire in quiet, carrying off his bone to be disposed of at his leisure? No, not so; for they complaisantly carry the bone for him." The rest of the article is written in a similar strain.]

[Sec.Sec.] "'Blatant beast.'[*] A figure for the mob. I think first used by Smollett, in his _Adventures of an Atom_.[**] Horace has the 'bellua multorum capitum.'[***] In England, fortunately enough, the illustrious mobility has not even one."--[MS.]

[*] [Spenser (_Faerie Queene_, bk. vi. cantos iii. 24; xii. 27, sq.) personifies the _vox populi_, with its thousand tongues, as the "blatant beast."]

[**][In _The History and Adventures of an Atom_ (Smollett's Works, 1872, vi. 385), Foksi-Roku (Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland) passes judgment on the populace. "The multitude, my lords, is a many-headed monster, it is a Cerberus that must have a sop; it is a wild beast, so ravenous that nothing but blood will appease its appetite; it is a whale, that must have a barrel for its amusement; it is a demon, to which we must offer human sacrifice.... Bihn-Goh must be the victim--happy if the sacrifice of his single life can appease the commotions of his country." Foksi-Roku's advice is taken, and Bihn-Goh (Byng) "is crucified for cowardice."]

[***][Horace, _Odes_, II. xiii. 34: "Bellua centiceps."]

[Sec.Sec.Sec.] "By this query it is not meant that our foolish generals should have been shot, but that Byng [Admiral John Byng, born 1704, was executed March 14, 1757] might have been spared; though the one suffered and the others escaped, probably for Candide's reason 'pour encourager les autres.'"[*]--[MS.]

[*]["Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres."--_Candide_, xxii.]

[51] {39} [On August 21, 1808, Sir Harry Burrard (1755-1813) superseded in command Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had, on the same day, repulsed Junot at Vimiera. No sooner had he assumed his position as commander-in-chief, than he countermanded Wellesley's order to give pursuit and make good the victory. The next day (August 22) Sir Hew Dalrymple in turn superseded Burrard, and on the 23rd, General Kellerman approached the English with certain proposals from Junot, which a week later were formulated by the so-called Convention of Cintra, to which Kellerman and Wellesley affixed their names. When the news reached England that Napoleon's forces had been repulsed with loss, and yet the French had been granted a safe exit from Portugal, the generals were assailed with loud and indiscriminate censure. Burrard's interference with Wellesley's plans was no doubt ill-judged and ill-timed; but the opportunity of pursuit having been let slip, the acceptance of Junot's terms was at once politic and inevitable. A court of inquiry, which was held in London in January, 1809, upheld both the armistice of August 22 and the Convention; but neither Dalrymple nor Burrard ever obtained a second command, and it was not until Talavera (July 28, 1809) had effaced the memories of Cintra that Wellesley was reinstated in popular favour.]

[bj] {41} ----_at the mention sweat_.--[MS. D.]

[bk] {42} _More restless than the falcon as he flies_.--[MS. erased.]

[52] [With reference to this passage, while yet in MS., an early reader (?Dallas) inquires, "What does this mean?" And a second (?Hobhouse) rejoins, "What does the question mean? It is one of the finest stanzas I ever read."]

[53] [Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Falmouth, July 2, 1809; reached Lisbon on the 6th or 7th; and on the 17th started from Aldea Galbega ("the first stage from Lisbon, which is only accessible by water") on horseback for Seville. "The horses are excellent--we rode seventy miles a day" (see letters of August 6 to F. Hodgson, and August 11, 1809, to Mrs. Byron; _Letters_, 1898, i. 234, 236).]

[bl] ----_long foreign to his soul_.--[MS. erased.]

[bm] ----_the strumpet and the bowl_.--[MS. D]

[bn] {43} _And countries more remote his hopes engage_.--[MS. erased.]

[bo]
_Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' crazy queen_,--[MS.]
_Where dwelt of yore Lusania's_----.--[D.]

[54] [Her luckless Majesty went subsequently mad; and Dr. Willis, who so dexterously cudgelled kingly pericraniums, could make nothing of hers. (For the Rev. Francis Willis, see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 416.)

Maria I. (b. 1734), who married her uncle, Pedro III., reigned with him 1777-86, and, as sole monarch, from 1786 to 1816. The death of her husband, of her favourite confessor, Ignatio de San Caetano, who had been raised by Pombal from the humblest rank to the position of archbishop _in partibus_, and of her son, turned her brain, and she became melancholy mad. She was only queen in name after 1791, and in 1799 her son, Maria Jose Luis, was appointed regent. Beckford saw her in 1787, and was impressed by her dignified bearing. "Justice and clemency," he writes, "the motto so glaringly misapplied on the banner of the abhorred Inquisition, might be transferred, with the strictest truth, to this good princess" (_Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal_, 1834, p. 256). Ten years later, Southey, in his _Letters from Spain_, 1797, p. 541, ascribes the "gloom" of the court of Lisbon to "the dreadful malady of the queen." When the Portuguese royal family were about to embark for Brazil in November, 1807, the queen was once more seen in public after an interval of sixteen years. "She had to wait some while upon the quay for the chair in which she was to be carried to the boat, and her countenance, in which the insensibility of madness was only disturbed by wonder, formed a striking contrast to the grief which appeared in every other face" (Southey's _History of the Peninsular War_, i. 110).]

[bp] {44} _Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[bq]
_Less swoln with culture soon the vales extend_
_And long horizon-bounded realms appear_.--[MS. erased.]

[br] {45} _Say Muse what bounds_----.--[MS. D.]

[55] The Pyrenees.--[MS.]

[56] [If, as stanza xliii. of this canto (added in 1811) intimates, Byron passed through "Albuera's plain" on his way from Lisbon to Seville, he must have crossed the frontier at a point between Elvas and Badajoz. In that case the "silver streamlet" may be identified as the Caia. Beckford remarks on "the rivulet which separates the two kingdoms" (_Italy, etc_., 1834, p. 291).]

[bs] {46} _But eer the bounds of Spain have far been passed_.--[MS. D.]

[bt]
_For ever famed--in many a native song_.--[MS. erased.]
----_a noted song_.--[MS. D.]

[57] [Compare Virgil, _AEneid_, i. 100--

"Ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis
Scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit."]

[58] [The standard, a cross made of Asturian oak (_La Cruz de la Victoria_), which was said to have fallen from heaven before Pelayo gained the victory over the Moors at Cangas, in A.D. 718, is preserved at Oviedo. Compare Southey's _Roderick_, XXV.: _Poetical Works_, 1838, ix. 241, and note, pp. 370, 371.]

[bu] --_which Pelagius bore_.--[MS. D.]

[59] {47} [The Moors were finally expelled from Granada in 1492, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.]

[bv] ----_waxed the Crescent pale_.--[MS. erased.]

[60] [The reference is to the Romanceros and Caballerias of the sixteenth century.]

[bw] ----_thy little date_.--[MS. erased.]

[bx]
----_from rock to rock_
_Blue columns soaring loft in sulphury wreath_
_Fragments on fragments in contention knock_.--[MS. erased, D.]

[61] "The Siroc is the violent hot wind that for weeks together blows down the Mediterranean from the Archipelago. Its effects are well known to all who have passed the Straits of Gibraltar."--[MS. D.]

[62] {49} [The battle of Talavera began July 27, 1809, and lasted two days. As Byron must have reached Seville by the 21st or 22nd of the month, he was not, as might be inferred, a spectator of any part of the engagement. Writing to his mother, August 11, he says, "You have heard of the battle near Madrid, and in England they would call it a victory--a pretty victory! Two hundred officers and five thousand men killed, all English, and the French in as great force as ever. I should have joined the army, but we have no time to lose before we get up the Mediterranean."--_Letters_, i. 241.]

[by]
_Their rival scarfs that shine so gloriously_.--[MS. erased.]
_Their rural scarfs_----.--[MS. D.]

[63] [Compare Campbell's "Hohenlinden"--"Few, few shall part where many meet."]

[64] {50} [Compare _Macbeth_, act i. sc. 2, line 51--"Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky."]

[65] [In a letter to Colonel Malcolm, December 3, 1809, the Duke admits that the spoils of conquest were of a moral rather than of a material kind. "The battle of Talavera was certainly the hardest fought of modern days.... It is lamentable that, owing to the miserable inefficiency of the Spaniards, ... the glory of the action is the only benefit which we have derived from it.... I have in hand a most difficult task.... In such circumstances one may fail, but it would be dishonourable to shrink from the task."--_Wellington Dispatches_, 1844, iii. 621.]

[bz]
_There shall they rot--while rhymers tell the fools_
_How honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!_
_Liars avaunt!_----.--[MS.]

[66] Two lines of Collins' _Ode_, "How sleep the brave," etc., have been compressed into one--

"There Honour comes a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay."

[ca] _But Reason's elf in these beholds_----.--[D.]

[cb] {51}
----_a fancied throne_
_As if they compassed half that hails their sway_.--[MS. erased.]

[cc] ----_glorious sound of grief_.--[D.]

[67] [The battle of Albuera (May 16, 1811), at which the English, under Lord Beresford, repulsed Soult, was somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory. "Another such a battle," wrote the Duke, "would ruin us. I am working hard to put all right again." The French are said to have lost between 8000 and 9000 men, the English 4158, the Spaniards 1365.]

[cd] _A scene for mingling foes to boast and bleed_.--[D.]

[ce] _Yet peace be with the perished_---.--[D. erased.]

[cf] _And tears and triumph make their memory long_.--[D. erased.]

[cg] ----_there sink with other woes_.--[D. erased.]

[68] [Albuera was celebrated by Scott, in his _Vision of Don Roderick_. _The Battle of Albuera_, a Poem (anon.), was published in October, 1811.]

[ch] {52} _Who sink in darkness_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ci] ----_swift Rapines path pursued_.--[MS. D.]

[cj] _To Harold turn we as_----.--[MS. erased.]

[69] [In this "particular" Childe Harold did not resemble his _alter ego_. Hobhouse and "part of the servants" (Joe Murray, Fletcher, a German, and the "page" Robert Rushton, constituted his "whole suite"), accompanied Byron in his ride across Spain from Lisbon to Gibraltar. (See _Letters_, 1898, i. 224, 236.)]

[ck] _Where proud Sevilha_----.--[MS. D.]

[70] {53} [Byron, _en route_ for Gibraltar, passed three days at Seville at the end of July or the beginning of August, 1809. By the end of January, 1810, the French had appeared in force before Seville. Unlike Zaragoza and Gerona, the pleasure-loving city, "after some negotiations, surrendered, with all its stores, foundries, and arsenal complete, and on the 1st of February the king [Joseph] entered in triumph" (Napier's _History of the War in the Peninsula_, ii. 295).]

[71] [A kind of fiddle with only two strings, played on by a bow, said to have been brought by the Moors into Spain.]

[cl] _Not here the Trumpet, but the rebeck sounds_.--[MS. erased.]

[cm] _And dark-eyed Lewdness_----.--[MS. erased.]

[72] [See _The Waltz: Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]

[cn] {54} _Not in the toils of Glory would ye sweat._--[MS. erased, D.]

[73] [The scene is laid on the heights of the Sierra Morena. The travellers are looking across the "long level plain" of the Guadalquivir to the mountains of Ronda and Granada, with their "hill-forts ...perched everywhere like eagles' nests" (Ford's _Handbook for Spain_, i. 252). The French, under Dupont, entered the Morena, June 2, 1808. They stormed the bridge at Alcolea, June 7, and occupied Cordoba, but were defeated at Bailen, July 19, and forced to capitulate. Hence the traces of war. The "Dragon's nest" (line 7) is the ancient city of Jaen, which guards the skirts of the Sierras "like a watchful Cerberus." It was taken by the French, but recaptured by the Spanish, early in July, 1808 (_History of the War in the Peninsula_, i. 71-80).]

[74] {55} [The Sierra Morena gets its name from the classical _Montes Mariani_, not, as Byron seems to imply, from its dark and dusky aspect.]

[co] {56} ----_the never-changing watch_.--[MS. D.]

[cp] _The South must own_----.--[MS. D.]

[cq] _When soars Gaul's eagle_----.--[MS. D.]

[75] [As time went on, Byron's sentiments with regard to Napoleon underwent a change, and he hesitates between sympathetic admiration and reluctant disapproval. At the moment his enthusiasm was roused by Spain's heroic resistance to the new Alaric, "the scourger of the world," and he expresses himself like Southey "or another" (_vide post_,