NOTES. CANTO THE FIRST. STANZA 1. Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, THE little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock: "One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of Castalie." STANZA XX. And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of woe;" The Convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Señora de Pena *, on the summit of the rock. Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty of the view. * Since the publication of this Poem, I have been informed of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Señora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the , which alters the signification of the word: with it, Peña signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as though the common acceptation affixed to it is "Our Lady of the Rock," I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. Q STANZA XXI. Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have " adorned a tale" instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal: in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished! STANZA XXIV. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders; he has perhaps changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors.-1812. STANZA XXIX. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay, The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld in point of decoration; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. STANZA XXXIII. Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterised them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. STANZA Xxxv. When Cara's traitor-sire first call'd the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore? Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Grenada. STANZA XLVIII. No! as he speeds, he chants, " Vivă el Rey!" "Viva el Rey Fernando!"-Long live King Ferdinand! is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs: they are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them; some of the airs are beautiful. Don Manuel Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, of an ancient but decayed family, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. STANZA L. Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet: The red cockade with "Fernando Septimo" in the centre. STANZA LI. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match, All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville. STANZA LVI. Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall? Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by her valour elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. STANZA LVIII. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath imprest Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch: "Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem.”—AUL. GEL. STANZA LX. Oh, thou Parnassus ! These stanzas were written in Castri (Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now called Alakúрa-Liakura, Dec. 1809. STANZA LXV. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days; Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. STANZA LXX. Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why? This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question; not as the birth-place of Pindar, but as the capital of Boeotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved. STANZA LXXXII. Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. "Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat."—Luc. STANZA LXXXV. A traitor only fell beneath the feud: Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the Governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809. STANZA LXXXVI. "War even to the knife!" “War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French General at the siege of Saragoza. STANZA XCI. And thou, my friend! &c. The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired, while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. 233 CANTO THE SECOND. STANZA I. despite of war and wasting fire, PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. STANZA I. But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire Of men who never felt the sacred glow That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow. We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld; the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of generals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry. "The wild foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Babylon," were surely less degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest ; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained for the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire during the Venetian |