The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 105

[635] ["Enfin partout la bonne societe regle tout."--Voltaire.]

{471}[636] ["This game originated, I believe, in Germany.... It is called the game of the _goose_, because at every fourth and fifth compartment of the table in succession a _goose_ is depicted; and if the cast thrown by the player falls upon a _goose_, he moves forward double the number of his throw" (_Sports and Pastimes, etc._, by Joseph Strutt, 1801, p. 250).

Goldsmith, in his _Deserted Village_, among other "parlour splendours,"

mentions "the twelve good rules, the royal game of goose."]

{472}[lq]

_Most young beginners may be taken so, But those who have been a little used to roughing Know how to end this half-and-half flirtation_.--[MS. erased.]

[637] ["I'll grow a talker for this gear."

_Merchant of Venice_, act i. sc. 1, line 110.]

{473}[lr] _Country where warm young people_----.--[MS. erased.]

[638] [Pope and Scott use the quasi-contracted "gynocracy" for "gynaecocracy." (See _N. Engl. Dict._)]

[ls]

_Of white cliffs--and white bosoms--and blue eyes-- And stockings--virtues, loves and Chast.i.ties_.--[MS. erased.]

{474}[639] [Hor., _Epist._, lib. 1, ep. xiv. line 43. The meaning is that Europe makes but little progress in the discovery and settlement of Africa, and, as it were, "ploughs the sands."]

[lt]

_Though many thousands both of birth and pluck too, Have ventured past the jaws of Moor and Tiger_.[*]

[*]_Note. By particular licence, "positively for the last time, by desire," etc., to be p.r.o.nounced "tydger." Such is what Gifford calls "the necessity of rhyming."_--[MS. erased.]

[640] ["Though many degrees nearer our own fair and blue-eyed beauties in complexion ... yet no people ever lost more by comparison than did the white ladies of Moorzuk [capital of Fezzan] with the black ones of Bornou and Soudan."--_Narrative of Travels ... in Northern and Central Africa_, 1822-24, by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, 1828, ii. 133.]

{475}[lu] _Above, all sunshine, and, below, all ice_.--[MS. erased.]

[641] [Compare _Prisoner of Chillon_, lines 82-85, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 17.]

[642] The Russians, as is well known, run out from their hot baths to plunge into the Neva; a pleasant practical ant.i.thesis, which it seems does them no harm.

{476}[lv] _But once there (few have felt this more than I)_.--[MS.

erased.]

[643] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lviii. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 59, note 1.]

{477}[644] [See Plutarch's _Caius Marius_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, pp. 304, 305.]

[lw] _That Lady who is not at home to all_.--[MS. erased.]

{478}[645] For a description and print of this inhabitant of the polar region and native country of the Aurorae Boreales, see Sir E. Parry's _Voyage In Search of a North-West Pa.s.sage_, [1821, p. 257. The print of the Musk-Bull is drawn and engraved by W. Westall, A.R.A., from a sketch by Lieut. Beechy. He is a "fearful wild-fowl!"]

[646] [Charles, second Earl Grey, born March 13, 1764, succeeded to the peerage in 1807, died July 17, 1847.]

[647] [William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, born November 15, 1708, died May 11, 1778.]

[648] ["His person was undoubtedly cast by Nature in an elegant and pleasing mould, of a just height, well-proportioned, and with due regard to symmetry.... His countenance was handsome and prepossessing.... His manners were captivating, n.o.ble, and dignified, yet unaffectedly condescending.... Homer, as well as Virgil, was familiar to the Prince of Wales; and his memory, which was very tenacious, enabled him to cite with graceful readiness the favourite pa.s.sages of either poet."--_The Historical ... Memoirs_ of Sir N.W. Wraxall, 1884, v. 353, 354.]

[649] ["Waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities; he preferred you to every other bard past and present.... He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both.... [All] this was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_ certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_."--Letter to Sir Walter Scott, July 6, 1812, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 134.]

{479}[650] B. 10^bre^ 7^th^ 1822.--[MS.]

A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over a nation of freemen.

[It was an architect named Stasicrates who proposed to execute this imperial monument. But Alexander bade him leave Mount Athos alone. As it was, it might be christened "Xerxes, his Folly," and, for his part, he preferred to regard Mount Caucasus, and the Himalayas, and the river Don as the symbolic memorials of his acts and deeds.--Plutarch's _Moralia_.

"De Alexandri Fortuna et Virtute," Orat. II. cap. ii.]

{480}[651] [The "Political Economy" Club was founded in April, 1821.

James Mill, Thomas Tooke, and David Ricardo were among the original members, See _Political Economy Club_, Revised Report, 1876, p. 60.]

[652] [Stanzas lx.x.xviii. and lx.x.xix. are not in the MS.]

CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.[653]

I.

I now mean to be serious;--it is time, Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious; A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime, And critically held as deleterious: Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime, Although, when long, a little apt to weary us; And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn, As an old temple dwindled to a column.

II.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville ('T is an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees, by those who wander still Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will, And beauteous, even where beauties most abound, In Britain--which, of course, true patriots find The goodliest soil of Body and of Mind.

III.

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue; I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best; An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue, Is no great matter, so 't is in request; 'T is nonsense to dispute about a hue-- The kindest may be taken as a test.

The fair s.e.x should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.

IV.

And after that serene and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turned for days More quiet, when our moon's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because Indifference begins to lull Our pa.s.sions, and we walk in Wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place.

V.

I know that some would fain postpone this era, Reluctant as all placemen to resign Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera, For they have pa.s.sed Life's equinoctial line: But then they have their claret and Madeira, To irrigate the dryness of decline; And County meetings, and the Parliament, And debt--and what not, for their solace sent.

VI.

And is there not Religion, and Reform, Peace, War, the taxes, and what's called the "Nation"?

The struggle to be pilots in a storm?[654]