Chapter XVII: Canto I: stanzas i.-vi

[193] {156}[For some admirable stanzas in the metre and style of _Beppo_, by W.S. Rose, who passed the winter of 1817-18 in Venice, and who sent them to Byron from Albaro in the spring of 1818, see _Letters_, 1900 iv. 211-214, note 1.]

[194] {159}[The MS. of _Beppo_, in Byron's handwriting, is now in the possession of Captain the Hon. F. L. King Noel. It is dated October 10, 1817.]

[195] [The use of "persuasion" as a synonime for "religion," is, perhaps, of American descent. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address as President of U.S.A., speaks "of whatever state or persuasion, political or religious." At the beginning of the nineteenth century theological niceties were not regarded, and the great gulph between a religion and a sect or party was imperfectly discerned. Hence the solecism.]

[196] [Compare the lines which Byron enclosed in a letter to Moore, dated December 24, 1816 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 30)--

"But the Carnival's coming,
Oh Thomas Moore,
* * * * *
Masking and humming,
Fifing and drumming,
Guitarring and strumming,
Oh Thomas Moore."]

[197] {160}[Monmouth Street, now absorbed in Shaftesbury Avenue (west side), was noted throughout the eighteenth century for the sale of second-hand clothes. Compare--

"Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits,
Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits."

Gay's _Trivia_, ii. 547, 548.

Rag Fair or Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street, was the Monmouth Street of the City. Compare--

"Where wave the tattered ensigns of Rag Fair."

Pope's _Dunciad_, i. 29, _var_.

The Arcade, or "Piazza," so called, which was built by Inigo Jones in 1652, ran along the whole of the north and east sides of the _Piazza_ or Square of Covent Garden. The Arcade on the north side is still described as the "Piazzas."--_London Past and Present_, by H. B. Wheatley, 1891, i. 461, ii. 554, iii. 145.]

[198] {162}["At Florence I remained but a day.... What struck me most was ... the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici Gallery ..."--Letter to Murray, April 27, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 113. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xlix. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 365, note 2.]

[199] ["I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mareschalchi Gallery [in the Via Delle Asse, formerly celebrated for its pictures] in Bologna."--Letter to William Bankes, February 26, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 411.]

[200] ["I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous for its pictures. Among them, there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian [now in the possession of the Earl of Rosebery], surpassing all my anticipations of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame.... What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day amongst the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer,"--Letter to Murray, April 14, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 105. The picture which caught Byron's fancy was the so-called _Famiglia di Giorgione_, which was removed from the Manfrini Palace in 1856, and is now in the Palazzo Giovanelli. It represents "an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy, seated with a child in her lap, and a standing warrior gazing upon her, a storm breaking over the landscape."--_Handbook of Painting_, by Austen H. Layard, 1891, part ii. p. 553.]

[201] {163}[According to Vasari and others, Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli, b. 1478) was never married. He died of the plague, A.D. 1511.]

[202] {164} "Quæ septem dici, sex tanien esse solent."--Ovid., [_Fastorum_, lib. iv. line 170.]

[202A] [Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). His play, _Belisarius_, was first performed November 24, 1734; _Le Bourru Bienfaisant_, November 4, 1771. _La Bottega del Caffé_, _La Locandiera, etc_., still hold the stage. His _Mémoires_ were published in 1787.]

[202B]
["Look to't:
* * * * *
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown."

_Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 206-208.]

[203] {165}[Compare--

"An English lady asked of an Italian,
What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing, some women set a value on,
Which hovers oft about some married beauties,
Called 'Cavalier Servente,' a Pygmalion
Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is)
Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to disclose them,
Said--'Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_.'"

_Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza li.

A critic, in the _Monthly Review_ (March, 1818, vol. lxxxv. p. 286), took Byron to task for omitting the _e_ in _Cavaliere_. In a letter to Murray, April 17, 1818, he shows that he is right, and takes his revenge on the editor (George Edward) Griffiths, and his "scribbler Mr. Hodgson."--_Letters_, 1900, iv. 226.]

[204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge, but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134], 'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza è annoverata fra le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says--

"'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft,
In the Rialto you have rated me.'

'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.]

[205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii. (See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.")

Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2--

Quando si giugne ad una certa età,
Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual è," etc.]

[206] {167}[A clean bill of health after quarantine. Howell spells the word "pratic," and Milton "pratticke."]

[207] Beppo is the "Joe" of the Italian Joseph.

[208] {168}["The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection ... who are considered as over-stepping the modesty of marriage.... There is no convincing a woman here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right, or the fitness of things, in having an _Amoroso._"--Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 40, 41.]

[bk] {169}

_A Count of wealth inferior to his quality,_
_Which somewhat limited his liberality_.--[MS.]

[209]["Some of the Italians liked him [a famous improvisatore], others called his performance '_seccatura_' (a devilish good word, by the way), and all Milan was in controversy about him."--Letter to Moore, November 6, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 384.]

[210] {170}[The saying, "Il n'y a point de héros pour son valet de chambre," is attributed to Maréchal (Nicholas) Catinat (1637-1712). His biographer speaks of presenting "_le héros en déshabillé_." (See his _Mémoires_, 1819, ii. 118.)]

[211] {171}[The origin of the word is obscure. According to the _Vocab. della Crusca_, "cicisbeo" is an inversion of "bel cece," beautiful chick (pea). Pasqualino, cited by Diez, says it is derived from the French _chiche beau_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cicisbeo."]

[212] Cortejo is pronounced Corte_h_o, with an aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name for in England, though the practice is as common as in any tramontane country whatever.

[213] [Stanzas xxxviii., xxxix., are not in the original MS.]

[214] {172}[For the association of bread and butter with immaturity, compare, "Ye bread-and-butter rogues, do ye run from me?" (Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Humorous Lieutenant_, act iii. sc. 7). (See _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Bread.")]

[215] {173}[Compare--

" ... the Tuscan's siren tongue?
That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
The poetry of speech?"

_Childe Harold,_ Canto IV. stanza lviii. lines 4-6,
_Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 374, note i.]

[216] _Sattin,_ eh? Query, I can't spell it.--[MS.]

[bl] _From the tall peasant with her ruddy bronze_.--[MS.]

[bm] _Like her own clime, all sun, and bloom, and skies_.--[MS.]

[217] {174}[For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death, see his Lives. "Fidem matrimonii quidem dederat nepti cuidam Cardinal. Bibiani, sed partim Cardinalatûs spe lactatus partim pro seculi locique more, Romæ enim plerumque vixit, vagis amoribus delectatus, morbo hinc contracto, obiit A.C. 1520, ætat. 37."--Art. "Raphael," _apud_ Hofmann, _Lexicon Universale_. It would seem that Raphael was betrothed to Maria, daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, the nephew of Cardinal Bibiena (see his letter to his uncle Simone di Battista di Ciarla da Urbino, dated July 1, 1514), and it is a fact that a girl named Margarita, supposed to be his mistress, is mentioned in his will. But the "causes of his death," April 6, 1520, were a delicate constitution, overwork, and a malarial fever, caught during his researches among the ruins of ancient Rome" (_Raphael of Urbino_, by J. D. Passavant, 1872, pp. 140, 196, 197. See, too, _Raphael_, by E. Muntz, 1888).]

[218] [Compare the lines enclosed in a letter to Murray, dated November 25, 1816--

"In this belovéd marble view,
Above the works and thoughts of man,
What Nature _could_ but _would not_ do,
And Beauty and Canova can."]

[219]

["(In talking thus, the writer, more especially
Of women, would be understood to say,
He speaks as a Spectator, not officially,
And always, Reader, in a modest way;
Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he
Appear to have offended in this lay,
Since, as all know, without the Sex, our Sonnets
Would seem unfinished, like their untrimmed bonnets.)
"(Signed) Printer's Devil."]

[220] [_The Task_, by William Cowper, ii. 206. Compare _The Farewell_, line 27, by Charles Churchill--

"Be England what she will,
With all her faults, she is my Country still."]

[221] {175}[The allusion is to Gally Knight's _Ilderim,_ a Syrian Tale. See, too, Letter to Moore, March 25, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 78: "Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it [_Lalla Rookh_] a '_Persian Tale_.' Say a 'Poem,' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very sorry that I called some of my own things 'Tales.' ... Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales." _Beppo_, it must be remembered, was published anonymously, and in the concluding lines of the stanza the satire is probably directed against his own "Tales."]

[222] {176}["The expressions '_blue-stocking_' and '_dandy_' may furnish matter for the learning of a commentator at some future period. At this moment every English reader will understand them. Our present ephemeral dandy is akin to the maccaroni of my earlier days. The first of these expressions has become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of '_Bas-Bleu_' and the other by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's poems. Though now become familiar and rather trite, their day may not be long.

' ... Cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula.'"

--Translation of Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, by Lord Glenbervie, 1822 (note to stanza v.).

Compare, too, a memorandum of 1820. "I liked the Dandies; they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people ... The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four-and-twenty."--_Letters_, 1901, v. 423.]

[223] {177}[The _Morning Chronicle_ of June 17, 1817, reports at length "Mrs. Boehm's Grand Masquerade." "On Monday evening this distinguished lady of the _haut ton_ gave a splendid masquerade at her residence in St. James's Square." "The Dukes of Gloucester, Wellington, etc., were present in plain dress. Among the dominoes were the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, etc." Lady Caroline Lamb was among the guests.]

[224] {178}[The reference is, probably, to the _Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics_ (1809-1829), which was illustrated by coloured plates of dresses, "artistic" furniture, Gothic cottages, park lodges, etc.]

[225] [For "Ridotto," see Letter to Moore, January 28, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 49, note 1.]

[bn] _Of Imited_ (_sic_) _Imitations, how soon! how._--[MS.]

[226] ["When Brummell was obliged ... to retire to France, he knew no French; and having obtained a Grammar for the purposes of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummell had made in French ... he responded, 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the _Elements_.' I have put this pun into _Beppo,_ which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself), by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the Morning."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 422, 423.]

[227] ["Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things depend upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. I am not aware of any one thought or action, worthy of being called good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the Good Goddess--Fortune!"--_Ibid_., p. 451.]

[228] "January 19th, 1818. To-morrow will be a Sunday, and full Ridotto."--[MS.]

[bo] {181} ----_philoguny,_--[MS.]

[229] {182}[Botherby is, of course, Sotheby. In the _English Bards_ (line 818) he is bracketed with Gifford and Macneil _honoris causti,_ but at this time (1817-18) Byron was "against" Sotheby, under the impression that he had sent him "an anonymous note ... accompanying a copy of the _Castle of Chillon,_ etc. [_sic_]." Sotheby affirmed that he had not written the note, but Byron, while formally accepting the disclaimer, refers to the firmness of his "former persuasion," and renews the attack with increased bitterness. "As to _Beppo,_ I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. If there are resemblances between Botherby and Sotheby, or Sotheby and Botherby, the fault is not mine, but in the person who resembles,--or the persons who trace a resemblance. _Who_ find out this resemblance? Mr. S.'s _friends._ _Who_ go about moaning over him and laughing? Mr. S.'s _friends"_ (Letters to Murray, April 17, 23, 1818, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 226-230). A writer of satires is of necessity satirical, and Sotheby, like "Wordswords and Co.," made excellent "copy." If he had not written the "anonymous note," he was, from Byron's point of view, ridiculous and a bore, and "ready to hand" to be tossed up in rhyme as _Botherby._ (For a brief account of Sotheby, see _Poetical Works,_ i. 362, note 2.)]

[bp] {183}_Gorging the slightest slice of Flattery raw_.--[MS. in a letter to Murray, April 11, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 218.]

[230] {184}[So, too, elsewhere. Wordsworth and Coleridge had depreciated Voltaire, and Byron, _en revanche_, contrasts the "tea-drinking neutrality of morals" of the _school_, i.e. the Lake poets, with "their convenient treachery in politics" (see _Letters,_ 1901, v. 600).]

[231] {184}["Lady Byron," her husband wrote, "would have made an excellent wrangler at Cambridge." Compare--

"Her favourite science was the mathematical."

_Don Juan,_ Canto I. stanza xii. line 1.]

[232] {185}[Stanza lxxx. is not in the original MS.]

[bq] {186}_Sate Laura with a kind of comic horror_.--[MS.]

[233] {189}[Cap Bon, or Ras Adden, is the northernmost point of Tunis.]

ODE ON VENICE

ODE ON VENICE[234]

I.

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do?--anything but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers--as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam, 10
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.
Oh! agony--that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years[235]
Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,[236]
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng
Of gondolas[237]--and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors,
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors,
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And Hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere Death,
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain,
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, 40
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay,
To him appears renewal of his breath,
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain;
And then he talks of Life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek;
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him--and the dizzy 50
Chamber swims round and round--and shadows busy,
At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream,
And all is ice and blackness,--and the earth
That which it was the moment ere our birth.[238]

II.

There is no hope for nations!--Search the page
Of many thousand years--the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting _to be_ which _hath been_,
Hath taught us nought or little: still we lean 60
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air;
For't is our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order--they must go
Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter.
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water,
What have they given your children in return?
A heritage of servitude and woes,
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. 70
What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,[239]
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the _real_;
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your Sires have left you, all that Time
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime,
Spring from a different theme!--Ye see and read,
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!
Save the few spirits who, despite of all, 80
And worse than all, the sudden crimes engendered
By the down-thundering of the prison-wall,
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tendered,
Gushing from Freedom's fountains--when the crowd,[240]
Maddened with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore,--in which long yoked they ploughed
The sand,--or if there sprung the yellow grain,
'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bowed, 90
And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain:--
Yes! the few spirits--who, despite of deeds
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth
Cities and generations--fair, when free--
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee! 100

III.

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers[241]
With Freedom--godlike Triad! how you sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench, her spirit--in her fate
All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled--with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship;--even her crimes 110
Were of the softer order, born of Love--
She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead,
But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread;
For these restored the Cross, that from above
Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,[242]
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; 120
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And called the "kingdom"[243] of a conquering foe,--
But knows what all--and, most of all, _we_ know--
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV.

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;[244]
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, 130
For Tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean[245]
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed--a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a Monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 140
Full of the magic of exploded science--
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!--She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,[246]
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earned with blood.--Still, still, for ever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 150
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering:--better be
Where the extinguished Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee![247] 160

FOOTNOTES:

[234] {193}[The _Ode on Venice_ (originally _Ode_) was completed by July 10, 1818 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 245), but was published at the same time as _Mazeppa_ and _A Fragment_, June 28, 1819. The _motif_, a lamentation over the decay and degradation of Venice, re-echoes the sentiments expressed in the opening stanzas (i.-xix.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. A realistic description of the "Hour of Death" (lines 37-55), and a eulogy of the United States of America (lines 133-160), give distinction to the _Ode_.]

[235] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiii. lines 4-6.]

[236] [Compare _ibid._, stanza xi. lines 5-9.]

[237] {194}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii lines 1-4.]

[238] [Compare _The Prisoner of Chillon_, line 178, note 2, _vide ante_, p. 21.]

[239] {195}[In contrasting Sheridan with Brougham, Byron speaks of "the red-hot ploughshares of public life."--_Diary_, March 10, 1814, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 397.]

[240] [Compare--

"At last it [the mob] takes to weapons such as men
Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant.
Then comes 'the tug of war;'--'t will come again,
I rather doubt; and I would fain say 'fie on't,'
If I had not perceived that revolution
Alone can save the earth from Hell's pollution."

_Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanza li. lines 3-8.]

[241] {196}[Compare Lord Tennyson's stanzas--

"Of old sat Freedom on the heights."]

[242] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, note 1, and line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 339, 340.]

[243] {197}[In 1814 the Italian possessions of the Emperor of Austria were "constituted into separate and particular states, under the title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _Europe_, p. 234.]

[244] [The Prince of Orange ... was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of the Low Countries, December 1, 1813; and in the following year, August 13, 1814, on the condition that he should make a part of the Germanic Confederation, he received the title of King of the Netherlands.-_Ibid_., p. 233.]

[245] [Compare "Oceano dissociabili," Hor., _Odes_, I. iii 22.]

[246] [In October, 1812, the American sloop _Wasp_ captured the English brig _Frolic_; and December 29, 1812, the _Constitution_ compelled the frigate _Java_ to surrender. In the following year, February 24, 1813, the _Hornet_ met the _Peacock_ off the Demerara, and reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition. On June 28, 1814, the sloop-of-war _Wasp_ captured and burned the sloop _Reindeer_, and on September 11, 1814, the _Confiance_, commanded by Commodore Downie, and other vessels surrendered."--_History of America_, by Justin Winsor, 1888, vii. 380, _seq_.]

[247] {198}[Byron repented, or feigned to repent, this somewhat provocative eulogy of the Great Republic: "Somebody has sent me some American abuse of _Mazeppa_ and 'the Ode;' in future I will compliment nothing but Canada, and desert to the English."--Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 410. It is possible that the allusion is to an article, "Mazeppa and Don Juan," in the _Analectic Magazine_, November, 1819, vol. xiv, pp. 405-410.]

MAZEPPA.