The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 50

" ... he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe He held his dialogues! and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries."]

[je] {260} ----_through Eternity._--[MS.]

[318] [Sh.e.l.ley seems to have taken Byron at his word, and in the _Adonais_ (x.x.x. 3, _seq._) introduces him in the disguise of--

"The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument."

Notwithstanding the splendour of Sh.e.l.ley's verse, it is difficult to suppress a smile. For better or for worse, the sense of the ludicrous has a.s.serted itself, and "brother" cannot take "brother" quite so seriously as in "the brave days of old." But to each age its own humour.

Not only did Sh.e.l.ley and Byron wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of Rousseau, but they took delight in reverently tracing the footsteps of St. Preux and Julie.]

[319] {261} [The name "Tigris" is derived from the Persian _tir_ (Sanscrit _Tigra_), "an arrow." If Byron ever consulted Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_, he would have read, "_Tigris_, a velocitate dictus quasi _sagitta_;" but most probably he neither had nor sought an authority for his natural and beautiful simile.]

[jf] _To its young cries and kisses all awake._--[MS.]

[320] [Compare _Tintern Abbey_. In this line, both language and sentiment are undoubtedly Wordsworth's--

"The sounding cataract Haunted me like a pa.s.sion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours, and their forms, were then to me An appet.i.te, a _feeling_, and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm."

But here the resemblance ends. With Wordsworth the mood pa.s.sed, and he learned

"To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, but of amplest power To chasten and subdue."

He would not question Nature in search of new and untainted pleasure, but rests in her as inclusive of humanity. The secret of Wordsworth is acquiescence; "the still, sad music of humanity" is the key-note of his ethic. Byron, on the other hand, is in revolt. He has the ardour of a pervert, the rancorous scorn of a deserter. The "hum of human cities" is a "torture." He is "a link reluctant in a fleshly chain." To him Nature and Humanity are antagonists, and he cleaves to the one, yea, he would take her by violence, to mark his alienation and severance from the other.]

[jg] _Of peopled cities_----[MS.]

[jh] {262} ----_but to be_ _A link reluctant in a living chain_ _Cla.s.sing with creatures_----[MS.]

[ji] _And with the air_----[MS.]

[jj] _To sink and suffer_----[MS.]

[jk] ----_which partly round us cling._--[MS.]

[321] [Compare Horace, _Odes_, iii. 2. 23, 24--

"Et udam Spernit humum fugiente penna."]

[jl] {263} ----_in this degrading form._--[MS.]

[jm] ----_the Spirit in each spot._--[MS.]

[322][The "bodiless thought" is the object, not the subject, of his celestial vision. "Even now," as through a gla.s.s darkly, and with eyes

"Whose half-beholdings through unsteady tears Gave shape, hue, distance to the inward dream,"

his soul "had sight" of the spirit, the informing idea, the essence of each pa.s.sing scene; but, hereafter, his bodiless spirit would, as it were, encounter the place-spirits face to face. It is to be noted that warmth of feeling, not clearness or fulness of perception, attends this spiritual recognition.]

[jn] [_Is not_] _the universe a breathing part?_--[MS.]

[jo] {264} _And gaze upon the ground with sordid thoughts and slow._--[MS.]

[323] [Compare Coleridge's _Dejection. An Ode_, iv. 4-9--

"And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd; Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth."]

[jp] _But this is not a time--I must return._--[MS.]

[jq] _Here the reflecting Sophist_----.--[MS.]

[jr] {265} _O'er sinful deeds and thoughts the heavenly hue_ _With words like sunbeams dazzling as they pa.s.sed_ _The eye that o'er them shed deep tears which flowed too fast_.--[MS.]

_O'er deeds and thoughts of error the bright hue_.--[MS. erased.]

[js] _Like him enamoured were to die the same_.--[MS.]

[jt] {266} ----_self-consuming heat_.--[MS. erased.]

[324] [As, for instance, with Madame de Warens, in 1738; with Madame d'Epinay; with Diderot and Grimm, in 1757; with Voltaire; with David Hume, in 1766 (see "Rousseau in England," _Q. R._, No. 376, October, 1898); with every one to whom he was attached or with whom he had dealings, except his illiterate mistress, Theresa le Va.s.seur. (See _Rousseau_, by John Morley, 2 vols., 1888, _pa.s.sim_.)]

[ju] _For its own cruel workings the most kind_.--[MS. erased.]

[jv] _Since cause might be yet leave no trace behind_.--[MS.]

[325] ["He was possessed, as holier natures than his have been, by an enthusiastic vision, an intoxicated confidence, a mixture of sacred rage and prodigious love, an insensate but absolutely disinterested revolt against the stone and iron of a reality which he was bent on melting in a heavenly blaze of splendid aspiration and irresistibly persuasive expression."--_Rousseau_, by John Morley, 1886, i. 137.]

[326] {267} [Rousseau published his _Discourses_ on the influence of the sciences, on manners, and on inequality (_Sur l'Origine ... de l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes_) in 1750 and 1753; _emile, ou, de l'Education_, and _Du Contrat Social_ in 1762.]

[327] ["What Rousseau's Discourse [_Sur l'Origine ... de l'Inegalite_, etc.] meant ... is not that all men are born equal. He never says this.... His position is that the artificial differences, springing from the conditions of the social union, do not coincide with the differences in capacity springing from original const.i.tution; that the tendency of the social union as now organized is to deepen the artificial inequalities, and make the gulf between those endowed with privileges and wealth, and those not so endowed, ever wider and wider.... It was ... [the influence of Rousseau ... and those whom he inspired] which, though it certainly did not produce, yet did as certainly give a deep and remarkable bias, first to the American Revolution, and a dozen years afterwards to the French Revolution."--_Rousseau_, 1888, i. 181, 182.]

[jw]

----_thoughts which grew_ _Born with the birth of Time_----.--[MS.]

[jx]

----_even let me view_ _But good alas_----.--[MS.]

[jy] {268} ----_in both we shall lie slower_.--[MS. erased.]

[328] [The subst.i.tution of "one" for "both" (see _var._ i.) affords conclusive proof that the meaning is that the next revolution would do its work more thoroughly and not leave things as it found them.]

[329] {269} [After sunset the Jura range, which lies to the west of the Lake, would appear "darkened" in contrast to the afterglow in the western sky.]

[jz] {270} _He is an endless reveller_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ka] _Him merry with light talking with his mate_.--[MS. erased.]

[330] [Compare Anacreon (??? t?tt??a [Ei)s te/ttiga]), _Carm._ xliii.

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