The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 74

_Dares not ascend the summit_---- or, _Clothes a more rocky summit_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[454] In the greater part of Switzerland, the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine.

[Byron is again at fault with his German. "Lawine" (see Schiller, _Wilhelm Tell_, act iii. sc. 3) signifies an avalanche, not avalanches.

In stanza xii. line 7 a similar mistake occurs. It may seem strange that, for the sake of local colouring, or for metrical purposes, he should subst.i.tute a foreign equivalent which required a note, for a fine word already in vogue. But in 1817 "avalanche" itself had not long been naturalized. Fifty years before, the Italian _valanca_ and _valanche_ had found their way into books of travel, but "avalanche" appears first (see _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Avalanche") in 1789, in c.o.xe's _Trav.

Switz._, x.x.xviii. ii. 3, and in poetry, perhaps, in Wordsworth's _Descriptive Sketches_, which were written in 1791-2. Like "canon" and "veldt" in our own day, it might be regarded as on probation. But the fittest has survived, and Byron's unlovely and misbegotten "lauwine" has died a natural death.]

[ni] _But I have seen the virgin Jungfrau rear_.--[D.]

[455] {386} These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks, "D--n h.o.m.o," etc.;[-] but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic antic.i.p.ation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest pa.s.sages of Shakspeare ("To be or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appet.i.te palled. In some parts of the continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best cla.s.sics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason;--a part of the time pa.s.sed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury, was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late when I have erred,--and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with grat.i.tude and veneration--of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely following his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor.

[[-] "'Don't pretend to more ignorance than you have, Mr. Northerton; I suppose you have heard of the Greeks and Trojans, though, perhaps, you have never read Pope's Homer.'--'D--n Homer with all my heart,' says Northerton: 'I have the marks of him ... yet. There's Thomas of our regiment always carries a h.o.m.o in his pocket.'"--_The History of Tom Jones_, by H. Fielding, vii. 12.]

[456] [The construction is somewhat involved, but the meaning is obvious. As a schoolboy, the Horatian Muse could not tempt him to take the trouble to construe Horace; and, even now, Soracte brings back unwelcome memories of "confinement's lingering hour," say, "3 quarters of an hour past 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 3rd school" (see _Life_, p.

28). Moore says that the "interlined translations" on Byron's school-books are "a proof of the narrow extent of his cla.s.sical attainments." He must soon have made up for lost time, and "conquered for the poet's sake," as numerous poetical translations from the cla.s.sics, including the episode of Nisus and Euryalus, evidently a labour of love, testify. Nor, too, does the trouble he took and the pride he felt in _Hints from Horace_ correspond with this profession of invincible distaste.]

[nj] {388} _My mind to a.n.a.lyse_----.--[MS. M.]

[nk] _Yet such the inveterate impression_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[nl] ----_but what it then abhorred must still abhor_.--[MS. M.]

[nm] {389} ----_in her tearless woe_.--[MS. M.]

[457] [The tomb of the Scipios, by the Porta Latina, was discovered by the brothers Sa.s.si, in May, 1780. It consists of "several chambers excavated in the tufa." One of the larger chambers contained the famous sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, which is now in the Vatican in the Atrio Quadrate. When the sarcophagus was opened, in 1780, the skeleton was found to be entire.

The bones were collected and removed by Angelo Quirini to his villa at Padua. The chambers contained numerous inscriptions, which were detached and removed to the Vatican. Hobhouse (_Hist. Ill.u.s.t_., pp. 169-171) is at pains to point out that the discovery of 1780 confirmed the authenticity of an inscription to Lucius, son of Barbatus Scipio, which had been brought to light in 1615, and rejected by the Roman antiquaries as a forgery. He prints two of the inscriptions (_Handbook for Rome_, pp. 278, 350, 351, ed. 1899).]

[458] [The sepulchres were rifled, says Hobhouse (_ibid_., p. 173), "either to procure the necessary relics for churches dedicated to Christian saints or martyrs, or" (a likelier hypothesis) "with the expectation of finding the ornaments ... buried with the dead. The sarcophagi were sometimes transported from their site and emptied for the reception of purer ashes." He instances those of Innocent II. and Clement XII., "which were certainly constructed for heathen tenants."]

[459] {390} [The reference is to the historical inundations of the Tiber, of which a hundred and thirty-two have been recorded from the foundation of the city down to December, 1870, when the river rose to fifty-six feet--thirty feet above its normal level.]

[460] [The Goths besieged and sacked Rome under Alaric, A.D. 410, and Totila, 546. Other barbarian invaders--Genseric, a Vandal, 455; Ricimer, a Sueve, 472; Vitiges, a Dalmatian, 537; Arnulph, a Lombard, 756--may come under the head of "Goth." "The Christian," "from motives of fanaticism"--Theodosius, for instance, in 426; and Stilicho, who burned the Sibylline books--despoiled, mutilated, and pulled down temples.

Subsequently, popes, too numerous to mention, laid violent hands on the temples for purposes of repair, construction, and ornamentation of Christian churches. More than once ancient structures were converted into cannon-b.a.l.l.s. There were, too, Christian invaders and sackers of Rome: Robert Guiscard (Hofmann calls him Wiscardus), in 1004; Frederic Barbarossa, in 1167; the Connetable de Bourbon, in 1527, may be instanced. "Time and War" speak for themselves. For "Flood," _vide supra_. As for "Fire," during the years 1082-84 the Emperor Henry IV.

burnt "a great part of the Leonine city;" and Guiscard "burnt the town from the Flaminian gate to the Antonine column, and laid waste the Esquiline to the Lateran; thence he set fire to the region from that church to the Coliseum and the Capitol." Of earthquakes Byron says nothing; but there were earthquakes, e.g. in 422 and 1349. Another foe, a destroying angel who "wasteth at noonday," modern improvement, had not yet opened a seventh seal. (See _Historical Ill.u.s.trations_, pp.

91-168.)]

[nn] {391} _She saw her glories one by one expire_.--[MS. M.]

[461] [Compare Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_, "Prophecy of Capys,"

stanza x.x.x.--

"Blest and thrice blest the Roman Who sees Rome's brightest day, Who sees that long victorious pomp Wind down the Sacred Way, And through the bellowing Forum, And round the Suppliant's Grove, Up to the everlasting gates Of Capitolian Jove."]

[no] _The double night of Ruin_----.--[MS. M.]

[462] [The construction is harsh and puzzling. Apparently the subject of "hath wrapt" is the "double night of ages;" the subjects of "wrap," the "night of ages" and the "night of Ignorance;" but, even so, the sentence is ambiguous. Not less amazing is the confusion of metaphors. Rome is a "desert," through which we steer, mounted, presumably, on a camel--the "s.h.i.+p of the desert." Mistaken a.s.sociations are, as it were, stumbling-blocks; and no sooner have we verified an a.s.sociation, discovered a ruined temple in the exact site which Livy's "pictured page" has a.s.signed to it--a discovery as welcome to the antiquarian as water to the thirsty traveller--than our theory is upset, and we perceive that we have been deluded by a mirage.]

[463] {392} Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs [i.e. from Romulus to the double triumph of Vespasian and t.i.tus (_Hist._, vii. 9)].

He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers.

[np]

_Alas, for Tully's voice, and t.i.tus' sway_ _And Virgil's verse; the first and last must be_ _Her Resurrection_----.--[MS. M.]

[464] Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The _atonement_ of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.--("Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idees, de la facon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucun amour pour la gloire; je voyois bien que votre ame etoit haute; mais je ne soupconnois pas qu'elle fut grande."--_Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate_.) _Considerations ... de la Grandeur des Romains, etc._, Paris, 1795, ii. 219. By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.

[Stanza lx.x.xiii. indicates the following events in the life of Sulla. In B.C. 81 he a.s.sumed the name of Felix (or, according to Plutarch, Epaphroditus, Plut, _Vitae_, 1812, iv. 287), (line 1). Five years before this, B.C. 86, during the consuls.h.i.+p of Marius and Cinna, his party had been overthrown, and his regulations annulled; but he declined to return to Italy until he had brought the war against Mithridates to a successful conclusion, B.C. 83 (lines 3-6). In B.C. 81 he was appointed dictator (line 7), and B.C. 79 he resigned his dictators.h.i.+p and retired into private life (line 9).]

[nq] {394} ----_how supine_ _Into such dust deserted Rome should fade,_ or, _In self-woven sackcloth Rome should thus be laid_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[nr]

_The Earth beneath her shadow and displayed_ _Her wings as with the horizon and was hailed,_ or, _The rus.h.i.+ngs of his wings and was Almighty hailed_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ns]

_Sylla supreme of Victors--save our own_ _The ablest of Usurpers--Cromwell--he_ _Who swept off Senates--while he hewed the Throne_ _Down to a block--immortal Villain! See_ _What crimes, etc_.--[MS. M.]

[465] On the 3rd of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar [1650]; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester [1651]; and a few years after [1658], on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died.

[466] {395} [The statue of Pompey in the Sala dell' Udinanza of the Palazzo Spada is no doubt a portrait, and belongs to the close of the Republican period. It cannot, however, with any certainty be identified with the statue in the Curia, at whose base "great Caesar fell." (See _Antike Bildwerke in Rom._, F. Matz, F. von Duhn, i. 309.)]

[467] {396} [The bronze "Wolf of the Capitol" in the Palace of the Conservators is unquestionably ancient, belonging to the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth century B.C., and probably of Graeco-Italian workmans.h.i.+p. The twins, as Winckelmann pointed out (see Hobhouse's _note_), are modern, and were added under the impression that this was the actual bronze described by Cicero, _Cat._, iii. 8, and Virgil, _aen._, viii. 631. (See _Monuments de l'Art Antique_, par Olivier Rayet, Paris, 1884, Livraison II, Planche 7.)]

[468] [The Roman "things" whom the world feared, set the fas.h.i.+on of shedding their blood in the pursuit of glory. The nations, of modern Europe, "b.a.s.t.a.r.d" Romans, have followed their example.]

[469] {397} [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, v.--"The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave."]

[470] [In _Comparison of the Present State of France with that of Rome_, etc., published in the _Morning Post_, September 21, 1802, Coleridge speaks of Buonaparte as the "new Caesar," but qualifies the expression in a note: "But if reserve, if darkness, if the employment of spies and informers, if an indifference to all religions, except as instruments of state policy, with a certain strange and dark superst.i.tion respecting fate, a blind confidence in his destinies,--if these be any part of the Chief Consul's character, they would force upon us, even against our will, the name and history of Tiberius."--_Essays on His Own Times_, ii.

481.]

[471] [According to Suetonius, i. 37, the famous words, _Veni Vidi, Vici_, were blazoned on litters in the triumphal procession which celebrated Caesar's victory over Pharnaces II., after the battle of Zela (B.C. 47).]

[472] {398} [By "flee" in the "Gallic van," Byron means "fly towards, not away from, the foe." He was, perhaps, thinking of the Biblical phrases, "flee like a bird" (_Ps_. xi. 1), and "flee upon horses"

(_Isa_. x.x.x. 16); but he was not careful to "tame down" words to his own use and purpose.]

[nt] _Of pettier pa.s.sions which raged angrily_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[nu] _At what? can he reply? his l.u.s.ting is unnamed_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[nv] ----_How oft--how long, oh G.o.d!_--[MS. M. erased.]

[473] {399} ----"Omnes poene veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; augustos sensus, imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitar, et (ut Democritus) in profundo veritatem esse demersam; opinionibus et inst.i.tutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui: deinceps omnia tenebris circ.u.mfusa esse dixerunt."--_Academ._, lib. I.

cap. 12. The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any of the imperfections of humanity: and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday.

[474] [Compare Gray's _Elegy_, stanza xv.--

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear."]

[nw] _And thus they sleep in some dull certainty_.--[MS. M. erased.]