The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 113

[690] [Perhaps Sir James Mackintosh--a frequent guest at Holland House.]

{508}[691] [Possibly Colonel (afterwards Sir James) Macdonell [d. 1857], "a man of colossal stature," who occupied and defended the Chateau of Hougoumont on the night before the battle of Waterloo. (See Gronow, _Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 76, 77.)]

[692] [Sir George Prevost (1767-1816), the Governor-General of British North America, and nominally Commander-in-chief of the Army in the second American War, contributed, by his excess of caution, supineness, and delay, to the humiliation of the British forces. The particular allusion is to his alleged inaction at a critical moment in the engagement of September 11, 1814, between Commodore Macdonough and Captain Downie in Plattsburg Bay. "A letter was sent to Capt. Downie, strongly urging him to come on, as the army had long been waiting for his co-operation.... The brave Downie replied that he required no urging to do his duty.... He was as good as his word. The guns were scaled when he got under way, upon hearing which Sir George issued an _order_ for the troops to _cook_, instead of _that of instant co-operation_."--To Editor of the _Montreal Herald_, May 23, 1815, _Letters of Veritas_, 1815, pp. 116, 117. See, too, _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1822, vol.

xxvii. p. 446.]

[693] [George Hardinge (1744-1816), who was returned M.P. for Old Sarum in 1784, was appointed, in 1787, Senior Justice of the Counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. According to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1816 (vol. lx.x.xvi. p. 563), "In conversation he had few equals.... He delighted in pleasantries, and always afforded to his auditors abundance of mirth and entertainment as well as information." Byron seems to have supposed that these "pleasantries" found their way into his addresses to condemned prisoners, but if the charges printed in his _Miscellaneous Works_, edited by John Nichols in 1818, are reported in full, he was entirely mistaken. They are tedious, but the "waggery" is conspicuous by its absence.]

{509}[mq] _With all his laurels growing upon one tree_.--[MS. erased.]

[694] [John Philpot Curran (1750-1817). "Did you know Curran?" asked Byron of Lady Blessington (_Conversations_, 1834, p. 176); "he was the most wonderful person I ever saw. In him was combined an imagination the most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would have justified the observation applied to----that his heart was in his head." (See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 24, _Letters_, 1901, v.

421.)]

[695] [For Thomas Lord Erskine (1750-1823), see _Letters_, 1898, ii.

390, note 5. See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 93, _Letters_, 1901, v.

455, 456. In his _Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 297, 298, Hazlitt contrasts "the impa.s.sioned appeals and flashes of wit of a Curran ...

the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy of a Burke," with the "dashing and graceful manner" which concealed the poverty and "deadness"

of the matter of Erskine's speeches.]

{510}[mr]

---- _all cla.s.ses mostly pull At the same oar_----.--[MS. erased.]

{511}[696] ["Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was blasphemous to talk of Scripture out of church." This dogma was broached to her husband--the best Christian in any book.--See _The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews_, Bk. IV. chap. xi. ed. 1876, p. 324.]

[ms] _---- in the ripe age._--[MS.]

[697] [Probably Richard Sharp (1759-1835), known as "Conversation Sharp." Byron frequently met him in society in 1813-14, and in "Extracts from a Diary," January 9, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 161, describes him as "the Conversationist." He visited Byron at the Villa Diodati in the autumn of 1816 (_Life_, p. 323).]

[698] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 5, line 22.]

[mt] _Nor bate (read bait)_----.--[MS.]

{512}[699] [See letters to the Earl of Blessington, April 5, 1823, _Letters_, 1891, vi. 187.]

{513}[mu]

_But full of wisdom_----.--[MS.]

_A sort of rose entwining with a thistle_.--[MS. erased.]

[700] [_Iliad_, x. 341, sq.]

[701] It would have taught him humanity at least. This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling,--the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single _bite_ is worth to him more than all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of n.o.ble and perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and useful. But angling!--no angler can be a good man.

"One of the best men I ever knew,--as humane, delicate-minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world,--was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagancies of I. Walton."

The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.--"Audi alteram partem."--I leave it to counter-balance my own observation.

{515}[702] B. Fy. 19^th^ 1823.--[MS.]

CANTO THE FOURTEENTH.

I.

IF from great Nature's or our own abyss[703]

Of Thought we could but s.n.a.t.c.h a certainty, Perhaps Mankind might find the path they miss-- But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.

One system eats another up, and this[704]

Much as old Saturn ate his progeny; For when his pious consort gave him stones In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

II.

But System doth reverse the t.i.tan's breakfast, And eats her parents, albeit the digestion Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast, After due search, your faith to any question?

Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.

Nothing more true than _not_ to trust your senses; And yet what are your other evidences?

III.

For me, I know nought; nothing I deny, Admit--reject--contemn: and what know _you_, Except perhaps that you were born to die?

And both may after all turn out untrue.

An age may come, Font of Eternity, When nothing shall be either old or new.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of Life is pa.s.sed in sleep.

IV.

A sleep without dreams, after a rough day Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!

The very Suicide that pays his debt At once without instalments (an old way Of paying debts, which creditors regret), Lets out impatiently his rushing breath, Less from disgust of Life than dread of Death.

V.

'T is round him--near him--here--there--everywhere-- And there's a courage which grows out of fear, Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare The worst to _know_ it:--when the mountains rear Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there You look down o'er the precipice, and drear The gulf of rock yawns,--you can't gaze a minute, Without an awful wish to plunge within it.

VI.

'T is true, you don't--but, pale and struck with terror, Retire: but look into your past impression!

And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession, The lurking bias,[705] be it truth or error, To the _unknown_; a secret prepossession, To plunge with all your fears--but where? You know not, And that's the reason why you do--or do not.

VII.

But what's this to the purpose? you will say.

Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation, For which my sole excuse is--'t is my way; Sometimes _with_ and sometimes without occasion, I write what's uppermost, without delay; This narrative is not meant for narration, But a mere airy and fantastic basis, To build up common things with common places.

VIII.

You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, "Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"[706]

And such a straw, borne on by human breath, Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows; A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and Death, A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws: And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise, But just to play with, as an infant plays.