The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 53

[bi] _Their disposition_----.--[MS. M.]

[56] [It would seem that Byron's "not ourselves" by no means "made for"

righteousness.]

[bj]

----_the will itself dependent_ _Upon a storm, a straw, and both alike_ _Leading to death_----.--[MS. M.]

[57] [Compare--"The boldest steer but where their ports invite." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxx. lines 7-9; and Canto IV. stanza x.x.xiv., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 260, 353, and 74, note 1.]

[58] {152}[Compare--

"Our voices took a dreary tone, An echo of the dungeon stone."

_Prisoner of Chillon_, lines 63, 64.

Compare, too--

"----prisoned solitude.

And the Mind's canker in its savage mood, When the impatient thirst of light and air Parches the heart."

_Lament of Ta.s.so_, lines 4-7.]

[59] {153}[For inscriptions on the walls of the _Pozzi_, see note 1 to _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto IV., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii.

465-467. Hobhouse transferred these "scratchings" to his pocket-books, and thence to his _Historical Notes_; but even as prison inscriptions they lack both point and style.]

[60] [Compare--

"Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she."

_As You Like It_, act iii. sc. 2, lines 9, 10.]

[bk]

_Which never can be read but, as 'twas written,_ _By wretched beings_.--[MS.]

[bl] {154}

_Of the familiar's torch, which seems to love_ _Darkness far more than light_.--[MS.]

[61] {157}[Compare--

"Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza ii. lines 1-3, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 217, note 1.]

[bm] _At once by briefer means and better_.--[MS.]

[62] {158} In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy, I perceive the expression of "Rome of the Ocean" applied to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the "Two Foscari." My publisher can vouch for me, that the tragedy was written and sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which I only received on the 16th of August. I hasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public.

[Byron calls Lady Morgan's _Italy_ "fearless" on account of her strictures on the behaviour of Great Britain to Genoa in 1814. "England personally stood pledged to Genoa.... When the British officers rode into their gates bearing the white flag consecrated by the holy word of '_independence_,' the people ... '_kissed their garments_.'... Every heart was open.... Lord William Bentinck's flag of '_Independenza_' was taken down from the steeples and high places at sunrise; before noon the arms of Sardinia blazoned in their stead; and yet the Genoese did not rise _en ma.s.se_ and ma.s.sacre the English" (_Italy_, 1821, i. 245, 246).

The pa.s.sage which Byron feared might be quoted to his disparagement runs as follows: "As the bark glides on, as the sh.o.r.e recedes, and the city of waves, the Rome of the ocean, rises on the horizon, the spirits rally; ... and as the spires and cupolas of Venice come forth in the l.u.s.tre of the mid-day sun, and its palaces, half-veiled in the aerial tints of distance, gradually a.s.sume their superb proportions, then the dream of many a youthful vigil is realized" (_ibid_., ii. 449).]

[63] [Compare _Marino Faliero_, act ii. sc. 2, line 110, _Poetical Works_, 901, iv. 386, note 3.]

[64] {159} The Calenture.--[From the Spanish _Calentura_, a fever peculiar to sailors within the tropics--

"So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean's azure bed, Enamelled fields and verdant trees: With eager haste he longs to rove In that fantastic scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And in he leaps, and down he sinks."

Swift, _The South-Sea Project_, 1721, ed. 1824, xiv. 147.]

[65] Alluding to the Swiss air and its effects.--[The _Ranz des Vaches_, played upon the bag-pipe by the young cowkeepers on the mountains:--"An air," says Rousseau, "so dear to the Swiss, that it was forbidden, under the pain of death, to play it to the troops, as it immediately drew tears from them, and made those who heard it desert, or die of what is called _la maladie du pas_, so ardent a desire did it excite to return to their country. It is in vain to seek in this air for energetic accents capable of producing such astonishing effects, for which strangers are unable to account from the music, which is in itself uncouth and wild. But it is from habit, recollections, and a thousand circ.u.mstances, retraced in this tune by those natives who hear it, and reminding them of their country, former pleasures of their youth, and all their ways of living, which occasion a bitter reflection at having lost them." Compare Byron's Swiss "Journal" for September 19, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, ii. 355.]

[bn] _That malady, which_----.--[MS. M.]

[66] [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto XVI. stanza xlvi. lines 6, 7--

"The calentures of music which o'ercome The mountaineers with dreams that they are highlands."]

[bo] {160} ----_upon your native towers_.--[MS. M.]

[bp] {162} _Come you here to insult us_----.--[MS. M.]

[67] {163}[For "steeds of bra.s.s," compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV.

stanza xiii. line I, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 338, and 336, note 1.]

[68] [The first and all subsequent editions read "skimmed the coasts."

Byron wrote "skirred," a word borrowed from Shakespeare. Compare _Siege of Corinth_, line 692, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 480, note 4.]

[bq] {165} ----_which this n.o.ble lady worst_,--[MS. M.]

[69] {169}[According to the law, it rested with the six councillors of the Doge and a majority of the Grand Council to insist upon the abdication of a Doge. The action of the Ten was an usurpation of powers to which they were not ent.i.tled by the terms of the Const.i.tution.]

[70] {170}[A touching incident is told concerning an interview between the Doge and Jacopo Memmo, head of the Forty. The Doge had just learnt (October 21, 1457) the decision of the Ten with regard to his abdication, and noticed that Memmo watched him attentively. "Foscari called to him, and, touching his hand, asked him whose son he was. He answered, 'I am the son of Messer Marin Memmo.'--' He is my dear friend,' said the Doge; 'tell him from me that it would be pleasing to me if he would come and see me, so that we might go at our leisure in our boats to visit the monasteries'" (_The Two Doges_, by A. Weil, 1891, p. 124; see, too, Romanin, _Storia, etc._, 1855, iv. 291).]

[71] {171}[_Vide ante_, p. 139, note 1.]

[br] _Decemvirs, it is surely_----.--[MS. M.]

[72] {172}[Romanin (_Storia, etc._, 1855, iv. 285, 286) quotes the following anecdote from the _Cronaca Dolfin_:--

"Alla commozione, alle lagrime, ai singulti che accompagnavano gli ultimi abbraciamenti, Jacopo piu che mai sentendo il dolore di quel distacco, diceva: _Padre ve priego, procure per mi, che ritorni a casa mia_. E messer lo doxe: _Jacomo va e obbedisci quel che vuol la terra e non cerear piu oltre_. Ma, uscito l'infelice figlio dalla stanza, piu non resistendo alla piena degli affetti, si getto piangendo sopra una sedia e lamentando diceva: _O pieta grande_!"]

[73] [_Vide ante_, act ii. sc. I, line 174, p. 143, note 1.]

[74] {175}[So, too, Coleridge of Keats: "There is death in that hand;"

and of Adam Steinmetz: "Alas! there is _death_ in that dear hand." See _Table Talk_ for August 14, 1832, and _Letter to John Peirse Kennard_, August 13, 1832, _Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, ii. 764. Jacopo Foscari was sent back to exile in Crete, and did not die till February, 1457. His death at Venice, immediately after his sentence, is contrived for the sake of observing "the unities."]