of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. 9. 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. 10. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. Stanza li. line last. 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. 11. Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall. Stanza lvi. line last. When Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza. the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. 12. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch. Stanza lviii. lines 1 and 2. AUL. GEL. Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo 13. Oh, thou Parnassus! Stanza Ix. line 1. These stanzas were written in Castri (Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now called Aanvga-Liakura. 14. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days. Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. 15. Ask ye, Baotian shades! the reason why? Stanza lxx. line 5. 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. 16. Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. "Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat." 17. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. Luc. Stanza lxxxv. line 7. Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the Governor of Cadiz. 18. "War even to the knife !" Stanza lxxxvi. line last. "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French General at the siege of Saragoza. 19. And thou, my friend! &c. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honourable I*. W**. 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. NOTES TO CANTO II. 1. despite of war and wasting fire- Stanza i. line 4. PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. 2. 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. Stanza i. line 6. 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 tri- · umph 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 siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard: it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrilege. But "Man, vain man, "Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven "As make the angels weep." 3. Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. Stanza v. line 2. It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c. and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous. 4. Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne. Stanza x. line 3. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive: originally there were 150. These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon. 5. And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago. |