The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 79

[In the _London Gazette Extraordinary_ of June 22, 1815, Captain Grove, 1st Guards, is among the list of killed. In the supplement to the _London Gazette_, published July 3, 1815, the mistake was corrected, and the entry runs, "1st Guards, 3d Batt. Lieut. Edward Grose, (Captain)." I am indebted to the courtesy of the Registrar of the University of Cambridge for the information that Edward Grose matriculated at St.

John's College as a pensioner, December 7, 1805. Thanks to the "misprint" in the _Gazette_, and to Byron, he is "a name for ever."--_Vir nulla non donatus lauru!_]

{337}[423] [At the Battle of Mollwitz, April 10, 1741, "the king vanishes for sixteen hours into the regions of Myth 'into Fairyland,'

... of the king's flight ... the king himself, who alone could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured character, set a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."--Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_, 1862, iii. 314, 322, sq.]

[424] See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence Parsons.

[Charles Vallancey (1721-1812), general in the Royal Engineers, published an "Essay on the Celtic Language," etc., in 1782. "The language [the Iberno-Celtic]," he writes (p. 4), "we are now going to explain, had such an affinity with the Punic, that it may be said to have been, in a great degree, the language of Hanibal (_sic_), Hamilcar, and of Asdrubal." Sir Laurence Parsons (1758-1841), second Earl of Rosse, represented the University of Dublin 1782-90, and afterwards King's County, in the Irish House of Commons. He was an opponent of the Union. In a pamphlet ent.i.tled _Defence of the Antient History of Ireland_, published in 1795, he maintains (p. 158) "that the Carthaginian and the Irish language being originally the same, either the Carthaginians must have been descended from the Irish, or the Irish from the Carthaginians."]

{338}[425] The Portuguese proverb says that "h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions."--[See _Vision of Judgment_, stanza x.x.xvii. line 8, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 499, note 2.]

[ib] _At least the sharp faints of that "burning marle."_--[MS. erased.]

{339}[426] ["The Nervii marched to the number of sixty thousand, and fell upon Caesar, as he was fortifying his camp, and had not the least notion of so sudden an attack. They first routed his cavalry, and then surrounded the twelfth and the seventh legions, and killed all the officers. Had not Caesar s.n.a.t.c.hed a buckler from one of his own men, forced his way through the combatants before him, and rushed upon the barbarians; or had not the tenth legion, seeing his danger, ran from the heights where they were posted, and mowed down the enemy's ranks, not one Roman would have survived the battle."--Plutarch, _Caesar_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 502.]

[427]

["As near a field of corn, a stubborn a.s.s ...

E'en so great Ajax son of Telamon."

_The Iliad_, Lord Derby's translation, bk. xi. lines 639, 645.]

{339}[ic] _Nor care a single d.a.m.n about his corps_.--[MS. erased.]

[428] ["N'apercevant plus le commandant du corps dont je faisais partie, et ignorant ou je devais porter mes pas, je crus reconnaitre le lieu ou le rempart etait situe; on y faisait un feu a.s.sez vif, que je jugeai etre celui ... du general-major de Lascy."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210. The speaker is the Duc de Richelieu. See, for original, his _Journal de mon Voyage, etc., Soc. Imp. d'Hist. de Russie_, tom. liv. p. 179]

[id]

_For he was dizzy, busy, and his blood_ _Lightening along his veins, and where he heard_ _The liveliest fire, and saw the fiercest flood_ _Of Friar Bacon's mild discovery, shared_ _By Turks and Christians equally, he could_ _No longer now resist the attraction of gunpowder_ _But flew to where the merry orchestra played louder_.--[MS. erased.]

[429] Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar. [N.B.

Though Friar Bacon seems to have discovered gunpowder, he had the _humanity_ not to record his discovery in intelligible language.]

{341}[ie]

---- _whose short breath, and long faces_ _Kept always pushing onwards to the Glacis_.--[MS. erased.]

{342}[430] [_I Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 1, line 53.]

[if] _And that mechanic impulse_----.--[MS. erased.]

[431] [_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 1, lines 79, 80.]

{343}[432] ["_Talus:_ the slope or inclination of a wall, whereby, reclining at the top so as to fall within its base, the thickness is gradually lessened according to the height."--_Milit. Dict._]

[433] ["Appelant ceux des cha.s.seurs qui etaient autour de moi en a.s.sez grand nombre, je m'avancai et reconnus ne m'etre point trompe dans mon calcul; c'etait en effet cette colonne qui a l'instant parvenait au sommet du rempart. Les Turcs de derriere les travers et les flancs des bastions voisins fasaient sur elle un feu tres-vif de canon et de mousqueterie. Je gravis, avec les gens qui m'avaient suivi, le talus interieur du rempart."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210.]

{344}[434] [Baron Menno van Coehoorn (circ. 1641-1704), a Dutch military engineer, the contemporary and rival of Vauban, invented a mortar which bore his name. He was the author of a celebrated work on fortification, published in 1692.]

[435] ["Ce fut dans cet instant que je reconnus combien l'ignorance du constructeur des palissades etait importante pour nous; car, comme elles etaient placees au milieu du parapet," etc.--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 211.]

[436] They were but two feet above the level.--[MS.]

["Il y avait de chaque cote neuf a dix pieds sur lesquels on pouvait marcher; et les soldats, apres etre montes, avaient pu se ranger commodement sur l'es.p.a.ce exterieur et enjamber ensuite les palissades, qui ne s'elevaient que d'a-peu-pres deux pieds au-dessus du niveau de la terre."--_Ibid._, p. 211.]

{345}[437] [Friederich Wilhelm, Baron von Bulow (1755-1816), was in command of the 4th corps of the Prussian Army at Waterloo. August Wilhelm Antonius Neidhart von Gneisenau (1760-1831) was chief of staff, and after Blucher was disabled by a fall at Ligny, a.s.sumed temporary command, June 16-17, 1815. He headed the triumphant pursuit of the French on the night of the battle. For Blucher's official account of the battles of Ligny and Waterloo (subscribed by Gneisenau), see W.H.

Maxwell's _Life of the Duke of Wellington_, 1841, iii. 566-571; and for Wellington's acknowledgment of Blucher's "cordial and timely a.s.sistance," see _Dispatches_, 1847, viii. 150. See, too, _The Life of Wellington_, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., 1899, ii. 88, et pa.s.sim.]

{346}[ig]

---- _as feminine of feature_.--[MS.]

_Led him on--although he was the gentlest creature_, _As kind in heart as feminine of feature_.--[MS. erased.]

{347}[438] [Pistol's "_Bezonian_" is a corruption of _bisognoso_--a rogue, needy fellow. Byron, quoting from memory, confuses two pa.s.sages.

In _2 Henry VI._, act iv. sc. 1, line 134, Suffolk says, "Great men oft die of vile bezonians;" in _2 Henry IV._, act v. sc. 3, line 112, Pistol says, "Under which King, Besonian? speak or die."]

[439] ["Le General Lascy, voyant arriver un corps, si a-propos a son secours, s'avanca vers l'officier qui l'avait conduit, et, le prenant pour un Livonien, lui fit, en allemand, les complimens les plus flatteurs; le jeune militaire (le Duc de Richelieu) qui parlait parfaitement cette langue, y repondit avec sa modestie ordinaire."-_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 211.]

{348}[440] [_The Task_, bk. i. line 749. It was pointed out to Cowper that the same thought had been expressed by Isaac Hawkins Browne, in _The Fire-side, a Pastoral Soliloquy_, lines 15, 16 (_Poems_, ed. 1768, p. 125)--

"I have said it at home, I have said it abroad, That the town is Man's world, but that this is of G.o.d."

There is a parallel pa.s.sage in M.T. Varro, _Rerum Rusticarum_, lib. iii.

I. 4, "Nee minim, quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humami aedificavit urbes."--See _The Task, etc._, ed. by H.T. Griffith, 1896, ii. 234.]

[441] [Sulla spoke of himself as the "fortunate," and in the twenty-second book of his Commentaries, finished only two days before his death, "he tells us that the Chaldeans had predicted, that after a life of glory he would depart in the height of his prosperity." He was fortunate, too, with regard to his funeral, for, at first, a brisk wind blew which fanned the pile into flame, and it was not till the fire had begun to die out that the rain, which had been expected throughout the day, began to fall in torrents.--Langhorne's _Plutarch_, 1838, pp. 334, 335. See, too, _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, stanza vii. _Poetical Works_, 1900, in. 308, note I.]

[442] [Daniel Boone (1735-1820) was the grandson of an English settler, George Boone, of Exeter. His great work in life was the conquest of Kentucky. Following in the steps of another pioneer, John Finley, he left his home in North Carolina in May, 1769, and, after numerous adventures, effected a settlement on the Kentucky river. He constructed a fort, which he named Boonesborough, and carried on a protracted campaign with varying but final success against the Indians. When Kentucky was admitted into the Union, February 4, 1791, he failed to make good his t.i.tle to his property at Boonesborough, and withdrew to Mount Pleasant, beyond the Ohio. Thence, in 1795, he removed to Missouri, then a Spanish possession. Napoleon wrested Missouri from the Spaniards, only to sell the territory to the United States, with the result that in 1810 he was confirmed in the possession of 850 out of the 8000 acres which he had acquired in 1795. "Boone was then seventy-five years of age, hale and strong. The charm of the hunter's life clung to him to the last, and in his eighty-second year he went on a hunting excursion to the mouth of the Kansas river."--Appleton's _Encyclopedia, etc_., art. "Boone." His fine and gracious nature reveals itself in his autobiography (_The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, Formerly a Hunter; Containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucky_; Imlay's _North America_, 1793, ii. 52-54). "One day," he writes (pp. 330, _sq_.), "I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature ... expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf.

I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable grandeur. ... All things were still. I kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loins of a buck, which a few hours before I had killed.... No populous city, with all the varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford so much pleasure to my mind as the beauties of nature I found here." (See, too, _The Kentucky Pioneers_, by John Brown, _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_, 1887, vol. lxxv. pp. 48-71.)]

{350}[443] [For John Kyrle, "the Man of Ross" (1635-1724), see Pope's _Moral Essays_, epist. iii. lines 249-284. See, too, _Letters of S.T.

Coleridge_, 1895 (letter to R. Southey, July 13, 1794), i. 77.]

{351}[444] [Byron seems to have derived his knowledge of Catherine's _vie intime_ from the _Memoires Secrets sur la Russie_, of C.F.P.

Ma.s.son, which were published in Amsterdam in 1800, and translated into English in the same year.]

[445] [Michailo Smolenskoi Koutousof (1743-1813), who was raised to eminence through the influence of Potemkin, was in command of the Austro-Russian Army at Austerlitz. During the retreat from Moscow he repulsed Napoleon at Malo-yaroslavetz, and pursued the French to Kalisz.

Tolstoi introduces Koutousof in his novel, _War and Peace_, and dwells on his fatalism.]

{352}[446] ["Parmi les colonnes, une de celles qui souffrirent le plus etait commandee par le general Koutouzow (aujourd'hui Prince de Smolensko). Ce brave militaire reunit l'intrepidite a un grand nombre de connaissances acquises; il marche au feu avec la meme gaiete qu'il va a une fete; il sait commander avec autant de sang froid qu'il deploie d'esprit et d'amabilite dans le commerce habituel de la vie."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 212.]

[447] ["Ce brave Koutouzow se jeta dans le fosse, fut suivi des siens, et ne penetra jusqu'au haut du parapet qu'apres avoir eprouve des difficultes incroyables. (Le brigadier de Ribaupierre perdit la vie dans cette occasion: il avail fixe l'estime generale, et sa mort occasionna beaucoup de regrets.) Les Turcs accoururent en grand nombre; cette mult.i.tude repoussa deux fois le general jusqu'au fosse."--_Ibid._, p.

212.]

[448] ["Quelques troupes russes, emportees par le courant, n'ayant pu debarquer sur le terrain qu'on leur avait prescrit," etc.--_Ibid._, p.

213.]

[449] ["A 'Cavalier' is an elevation of earth, situated ordinarily in the gorge of a bastion, bordered with a parapet, and cut into more or fewer embrasures, according to its capacity."--_Milit. Dict._]

{353}[450] [" ... longerent le rempart, apres la prise du cavalier, et ouvrirent la porte dite _de Kilia_ aux soldats du general Koutouzow."--_Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 213.]

[451] ["Il etait reserve aux Kozaks de combler de leurs corps la partie du fosse ou ils combattaient; leur colonne avail ete divisee entre MM.