Selected Poems (165 page)

1
. ‘All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master’s knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted.’

2
. ‘At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon ball, to wrench it off with the other, and throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, “Vive l’Empereur, jusqu’à la mort!” There were many other instances of the like: this you may, however, depend on as true’ —
Private Letter from Brussels
.

1
. Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810–11; and in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness; but the voyage being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, &c, and the coast of the Continent.

1
. The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble.

1
. The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents.

1
. Ali Coumourgi, the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners; and his last words, ‘Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!’ a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, ’was a great general,’ he said, ‘I shall become a greater, and at his expense.’

1
. The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean.

1
. The spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse’s Travels. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

2
. This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superstition that Mahomet will draw them into Paradise by it.

1
. I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr Coleridge, called ‘Christabel.’ It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

1
. I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it: but it is not original – at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182–3–4 of the English version of ‘Vathek’ (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.

1
. The horsetails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha’s standard.

1
. In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.

1.
I believe I have taken a poetical licence to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece, I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies.

1
. Ludovico Sforza, and others. – The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette’s, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect: to such, and not to fear, this change in
hers
was to he attributed.

1
. The Château de Chillon is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent: below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet, French measure: within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the fettered: in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. He was confined here several years. It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his Héloïse, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death. The château is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white.

1
. Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view.

1
. McGann’s edition restores a couplet between lines 388 and 389 that Murray’s had removed without Byron’s authorization (
CPW
, Vol. 4, p. 449):

Nor slew I of my subjects one,

What Sovereign hath so little done?

[Editors]

1
. ‘Pride of place’ is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, &c. ‘An eagle towering in his pride of place,’ &c.

1
. See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. The best English translation is in Blan’s Anthology, by Mr (Now Sir Thomas) Denman, – With myrtle my sword will I wreathe,’ &c.

2
. On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels.

1
. Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the ’gentle Lochiel’ of the ‘forty-five.’

2
. The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the forest of Ardennes, famous in Boiardo’s Orlando, and immortal in Shakspeare’s ‘As You Like It.’ It is also celebrated in Tacitus as being the spot of successful defence by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. I have ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter.

1
. My guide from Mont St Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway’s side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. – After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, ‘Here Major Howard lay: I was near him when wounded.’ I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination: I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chæronea, and Marathon; and the field around Mont St Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned.

1
. The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes were said to be air without, and, within, ashes. Vide Tacitus, Histor. lib. v. 7.

1
. The great error of Napoleon, ‘if we have writ our annals true,’ was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for, or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, ‘This is pleasanter than Moscow,’ would probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark.

1
. ‘What wants that knave that a king should have?’ was King James’s question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements. – See the Ballad.

1
. The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of ‘the Seven Mountains,’ over the Rhine banks: it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions: it is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river; on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew’s Castle, and a large cross commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful.

1
. The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day of the fourth year of the French republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough; France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle,
he
had not the good fortune to die there: his death was attended by suspicions of poison. A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau’s) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau’s, and the inscription more simple and pleasing: – ‘The Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander-in-Chief Hoche.’ This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France’s earlier generals, before Buonaparte monopolised her triumphs. He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland.

1
. Ehrenbreitstein,
i.e.
‘the broad stone of honour,’ one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison; but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a tall struck immediately below it.

1
. The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the service of France; who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors’ less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country), and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, who carried them off to sell for knife-handles; a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preservation which I intend for them.

1
. Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Helvetia, where Avenches now stands.