Selected Poems (166 page)

1
. Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago; – it is thus: – ‘Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos XXIII.’ – I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication.

2
. This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3d, 1816), which even at this distance dazzles mine. - (July 20th.) I this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles.

1
. The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago.

1
. This refers to the account in his ‘Confessions’ of his passion for the Comtesse d’Houdetot (the mistress of St Lambert), and his long walk every morning, for the sake of the single kiss which was the common salutation of French acquaintance. Rousseau’s description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure, description and expression of love that ever kindled into words; which, after all, must be felt, from their very force, to be inadequate to the delineation: a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean.

1
. It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impressive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not in the
Temple
, but on the
Mount
. To wave the question of devotion, and turn to human eloquence, – the most effectual and splendid specimens were not pronounced within walls. Demosthenes addressed the public and popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to their effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be conceived from the difference between what we read of the emotions then and there produced, and those we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is one thing to read the Iliad at Sigæum and on the tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library –
this
I know. Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvass nor question), I should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the
fields
, and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. – The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers, wherever they may be, at the stated hours – of course, frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required): the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication: nothing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within and upon them, made a far greater impression than any general rite which was ever performed in places of worship, of which I have seen those of almost every persuasion under the sun; including most of our own sectaries, and the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free exercise of their belief and its rites: some of these I had a distant view of at Patras; and, from what I could make out of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a spectator.

1
. The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acrocerauniam mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.

1
. Rousseau’s Héloïse, Lettre 17, Part IV., note. ‘Ces montagnes sont si hautes qu‘une demi-heure après le soleil couche, leurs sommets sont éclairés de ses rayons; dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches
une belle couleur de rose
, qu‘on aperçoit de fort loin. ‘ — This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie. – ‘J‘allai à Vevay loger à la Clef, et pendant deux jours que j‘y restai sans voir personne, je pris pour cette ville un amour qui m‘a suivi dans tous mes voyages, et qui m‘y a fait établir enfin les héros de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers à ceux qui ont du goût et qui sont sensibles: Allez à Vevay — visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n‘a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un St Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas. ‘ —
Les Confessions
, livre iv. p. 306, Lyon, ed. 1796. — In July, 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva; and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his ‘Héloïse, ‘ I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Bôveret, St Gingo, Meillerie, Eivan, and the entrances of the Rhone) without being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not all; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory: it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole. – If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same associations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by their adoption; he has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection; but they have done that for him which no human being could do for them. – I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from Meillerie (where we landed for some time) to St Gingo during a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around, although occasionally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. It was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the boat of St Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. On gaining the shore at St Gingo, I found that the wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old chestnut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the opposite height of Clarens is a château. The hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods; one of these was named the ‘Bosquet de Julie; ‘ and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the ‘local habitations’ he has given to ‘airy nothings. ‘ The Prior of Great St Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent one; but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that ‘La route vaut mieux que les souvenirs.’

1
. Voltaire and Gibbon.

1
. —‘If it be thus, For Banquo’s issue have I
filed
my mind.’ – MACBETH

2
. It is said by Rochefoucault, that ‘there is always something in the misfortunes of men’s best friends not displeasing to them.’

1
. Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of ‘Foul-weather Jack.’

‘But, though it were tempest toss’d,

Still his bark could not be lost.’

He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson’s voyage), and subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander of a similar expedition.

1
. This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over the lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly like a rainbow come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it: this effect lasts till noon.

1
. The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It is well told.

1
. The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta (who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedæmonians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch’s life of Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the sophist, in his description of Greece.

1
. ‘And it came to pass, that the
Sons of God
saw the daughters of men, that they were fair,’ &c. – ‘There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the
Sons of God
came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’ –
Genesis,
ch. vi. verses 2 and 4.

1
. Sabellicus, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true. – ‘Quo fit ut qui superne urbem contempletur, turritan telluris imaginem medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere.’

1
.. The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedaemonian general, to the strangers who praised the memory of her son.

1
. That is, the Lion of St Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon — Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon.

2
. The story is told in Plutarch’s Life of Nicias.

1
. Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; the Ghost-Seer, or Armenian; the Merchant of Venice; Othello.

1
.
Tannen
is the plural of
tanne
, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain tree.

1
. The above description may seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening (the eighteenth), as contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta, near La Mira.

1
. The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our own unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude.

1
. The two stanzas XLII and XLIII are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: – ‘Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte!’

2
. The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. ‘On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: Ægina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view.’ – See Middleton’s Cicero, vol. ii, p. 371.

1
. It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, ‘Ut hunc omni: nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi.’

1
. ’Οθμ0στιav ‘Atque oculos pascat uterque suso.’ – OVID.
Amor
. lib. ii.

2
. This name will recall the memory, not only of those whose tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the centre of pilgrimage, the Mecca of Italy, but of her whose eloquence was poured over the illustrious ashes, and whose voice is now as mute as those she sung. CORINNA is no more, and with her should expire the fear, the flattery, and the envy, which threw too dazzling or too dark a cloud round the march of genius, and forbad the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. We have her picture embellished or distorted, as friendship or detraction has held the pencil: the impartial portrait was hardly to be expected from a contemporary. The immediate voice of her survivors will, it is probable, be far from affording a just estimate of her singular capacity. The gallantry, the love of wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which blunted the edge of censure, must cease to exist. – The dead have no sex; they can surprise by no new miracles; they can confer no privilege: Corinna has ceased to be a woman – she is only an author: and it may be foreseen that many will repay themselves for former complaisance, by a severity to which the extravagance of previous praises may perhaps give the colour of truth. The latest posterity, for to the latest posterity they will surely descend, will have to pronounce upon her various productions; and the longer the vista through which they are seen, the more accurately minute will be the object, the more certain the justice, of the decision. She will enter into that existence in which the great writers of all ages and nations are, as it were, associated in a world of their own, and, from that superior sphere, shed their eternal influence for the control and consolation of mankind. But the individual will gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen: some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of involuntary wit, and of easy hospitality, attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet, should rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relationships, the performance of whose duties is rather discovered amongst the interior secrets, than seen in the outward management, of family intercourse; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine affection to qualify for the eye of an indifferent spectator. Some one should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an open mansion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those around her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot be forgotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was known the best; and, to the sorrows of very many friends, and more dependants, may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake, received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the incomparable Corinna.