The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 61

As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticizing some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a "Song of Bards" is by his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on the roar of clouds? whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He "was," etc. After detaining this "brown chief" some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to "raise his fair locks;"

then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow;" and to "smile through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of thing there are no less than _nine_ pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome.

It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) on being "an infant bard,"--("The artless Helicon I boast is youth")--should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it," but really "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a n.o.ble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle.

As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalise his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called "Granta," we have the following magnificent stanzas:--

There, in apartments small and damp, The candidate for college prizes, Sits poring by the midnight lamp, Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

Who reads false quant.i.ties in Sele, Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle, Deprived of many a wholesome meal, In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle:

Renouncing every pleasing page, From authors of historic use; Preferring to the letter'd sage, The square of the hypothenuse.

Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations, Which bring together the imprudent."

We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas:--

"Our choir would scarcely be excused Even as a band of raw beginners; All mercy now must be refused To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended: In furious mood he would have tore 'em!"

But, whatever judgment may be pa.s.sed on the poems of this n.o.ble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parna.s.sus: he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage.

Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid G.o.d bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.

APPENDIX III.

REVIEW OF GELL'S GEOGRAPHY OF ITHACA', AND 'ITINERARY OF GREECE'.

(From the Monthly Review for August, 1811.)

That laudable curiosity concerning the remains of cla.s.sical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in Mr. Gell. Whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants in the famous Trojan controversy [1], or, indeed, relating to the present author's merits as an inspector of the Troad, it must universally be acknowledged that any work, which more forcibly impresses on our imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the attention of every scholar.

Of the two works which now demand our report, we conceive the former to be by far the most interesting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably the most serviceable to the traveller. Excepting, indeed, the running commentary which it contains on a number of extracts from Pausanias and Strabo, it is, as the t.i.tle imports, a mere itinerary of Greece, or rather of Argolis only, in its present circ.u.mstances. This being the case, surely it would have answered every purpose of utility much better by being printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the Morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travelling companion. The maps [2] and drawings, we shall be told, would not permit such an arrangement; but as to the drawings, they are not in general to be admired as specimens of the art; and several of them, as we have been a.s.sured by eye-witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not compensate for their mediocrity in point of execution, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. Others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our informants. The true reason, however, for this costly mode of publication is in course to be found in a desire of gratifying the public pa.s.sion for large margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we have before expressed our dissatisfaction with Mr.

Gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a species of knowledge, which ought to be accessible to a much greater portion of cla.s.sical students than can at present acquire it by his means:--but, as such expostulations are generally useless, we shall be thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the manner in which Mr. Gell has chosen to present it.

The former of these volumes, we have observed, is the most attractive in the closet. It comprehends a very full survey of the far-famed island which the hero of the 'Odyssey' has immortalized; for we really are inclined to think that the author has established the ident.i.ty of the modern 'Theaki' with the 'Ithaca' of Homer. At all events, if it be an illusion, it is a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an ingenious interpretation of the pa.s.sages in Homer that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes which our traveller has visited. We shall extract some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to the modern scene, marking the points of resemblance which appear to be strained and forced, as well as those which are more easy and natural; but we must first insert some preliminary matter from the opening chapter. The following pa.s.sage conveys a sort of general sketch of the book, which may give our readers a tolerably adequate notion of its contents:--

"The present work may adduce, by a simple and correct survey of the island, coincidences in its geography, in its natural productions, and moral state, before unnoticed. Some will be directly pointed out; the fancy or ingenuity of the reader may be employed in tracing others; the mind familiar with the imagery of the 'Odyssey' will recognise with satisfaction the scenes themselves; and this volume is offered to the public, not entirely without hopes of vindicating the poem of Homer from the scepticism of those critics who imagine that the 'Odyssey' is a mere poetical composition, unsupported by history, and unconnected with the localities of any particular situation.

"Some have a.s.serted that, in the comparison of places now existing with the descriptions of Homer, we ought not to expect coincidence in minute details; yet it seems only by these that the kingdom of Ulysses, or any other, can be identified, as, if such an idea be admitted, every small and rocky island in the Ionian Sea, containing a good port, might, with equal plausibility, a.s.sume the appellation of Ithaca.

"The Venetian geographers have in a great degree contributed to raise those doubts which have existed on the ident.i.ty of the modern with the ancient Ithaca, by giving, in their charts, the name of Val di Compare to the island. That name is, however, totally unknown in the country, where the isle is invariably called Ithaca by the upper ranks, and Theaki by the vulgar. The Venetians have equally corrupted the name of almost every place in Greece; yet, as the natives of Epactos or Naupactos never heard of Lepanto, those of Zacynthos of Zante, or the Athenians of Settines, it would be as unfair to rob Ithaca of its name, on such authority, as it would be to a.s.sert that no such island existed, because no tolerable representation of its form can be found in the Venetian surveys.

"The rare medals of the Island, of which three are represented in the t.i.tle-page, might be adduced as a proof that the name of Ithaca was not lost during the reigns of the Roman emperors. They have the head of Ulysses, recognised by the pileum, or pointed cap, while the reverse of one presents the figure of a c.o.c.k, the emblem of his vigilance, with the legend [Greek:IThAK_ON]. A few of these medals are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and one also, with the c.o.c.k, found in the island, is in the possession of Signor Zavo, of Bathi.

The uppermost coin is in the collection of Dr. Hunter; the second is copied from Newman; and the third is the property of R.P. Knight, Esq.

"Several inscriptions, which will be hereafter produced, will tend to the confirmation of the idea that Ithaca was inhabited about the time when the Romans were masters of Greece; yet there is every reason to believe that few, if any, of the present proprietors of the soil are descended from ancestors who had long resided successively in the island. Even those who lived, at the time of Ulysses, in Ithaca, seem to have been on the point of emigrating to Argos, and no chief remained, after the second in descent from that hero, worthy of being recorded in history. It appears that the isle has been twice colonised from Cephalonia in modern times, and I was informed that a grant had been made by the Venetians, ent.i.tling each settler in Ithaca to as much land as his circ.u.mstances would enable him to cultivate."

Mr. Gell then proceeds to invalidate the authority of previous writers on the subject of Ithaca. Sir George Wheeler and M. le Chevalier fall under his severe animadversion; and, indeed, according to his account, neither of these gentlemen had visited the island, and the description of the latter is "absolutely too absurd for refutation." In another place, he speaks of M. le C. "disgracing a work of such merit by the introduction of such fabrications;" again, of the inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca, which has no existence. This observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which Gibbon [3], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some a.s.sertion of his antagonist, Mr. Davies. In truth, our traveller's words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist; but we must conclude that their justice warrants their severity.

In the second chapter, the author describes his landing in Ithaca, and arrival at the rock Korax and the fountain Arethusa, as he designates it with sufficient positiveness.--This rock, now known by the name of Korax, or Koraka Petra, he contends to be the same with that which Homer mentions as contiguous to the habitation of Eumaeus, the faithful swineherd of Ulysses.--We shall take the liberty of adding to our extracts from Mr. Gell some of the pa.s.sages in Homer to which he _refers_ only, conceiving this to be the fairest method of exhibiting the strength or the weakness of his argument.

"Ulysses," he observes, "came to the extremity of the isle to visit Eumaeus, and that extremity was the most southern; for Telemachus, coming from Pylos, touched at the first south-eastern part of Ithaca with the same intention."

[Greek:

Kai tote dae r Odysaea kakos pothen aegage daim_on Agrou ep eschatiaen, hothi d_omata naie sub_otaes Enth aelthen philos uhios Odyssaeos theioio, Ek Pylon aemathoentos i_on sun naei melainae.

Odyssei _O.

Autar epaen pr_otaen aktaen Ithakaes aphikaeai, Naea men es polin otrunai kai pantas etairous Autos de pr_otista sub_otaen eisaphikesthai, k.t.l.

Odyssei O.]

These citations, we think, appear to justify the author in his attempt to identify the situation of his rock and fountain with the place of those mentioned by Homer. But let us now follow him in the closer description of the scene.--After some account of the subjects in the plate affixed, Mr. Gell remarks:

"It is impossible to visit this sequestered spot without being struck with the recollection of the Fount of Arethusa and the rock Korax, which the poet mentions in the same line, adding, that there the swine ate the _sweet_ [4] acorns, and drank the black water."

[Greek:

Daeeis ton ge suessi paraemenon ai de nemontai Par Korakos petrae, epi te kraenae Arethousae, Esthousai balanon menoeikea, kai melan hud_or Pinousai.

Odyssei N.]

"Having pa.s.sed some time at the fountain, taken a drawing, and made the necessary observations on the situation of the place, we proceeded to an examination of the precipice, climbing over the terraces above the source among shady fig-trees, which, however, did not prevent us from feeling the powerful effects of the mid-day sun. After a short but fatiguing ascent, we arrived at the rock, which extends in a vast perpendicular semicircle, beautifully fringed with trees, facing to the south-east. Under the crag we found two caves of inconsiderable extent, the entrance of one of which, not difficult of access, is seen in the view of the fount. They are still the resort of sheep and goats, and in one of them are small natural receptacles for the water, covered by a stalagmatic incrustation.

"These caves, being at the extremity of the curve formed by the precipice, open toward the south, and present us with another accompaniment of the fount of Arethusa, mentioned by the poet, who informs us that the swineherd Eumaeus left his guests in the house, whilst he, putting on a thick garment, went to sleep near the herd, under the hollow of the rock, which sheltered him from the northern blast. Now we know that the herd fed near the fount; for Minerva tells Ulysses that he is to go first to Eumaeus, whom he should find with the swine, near the rock Korax and the fount of Arethusa. As the swine then fed at the fountain, so it is necessary that a cavern should be found in its vicinity; and this seems to coincide, in distance and situation, with that of the poem. Near the fount also was the fold or stathmos of Eumaeus; for the G.o.ddess informs Ulysses that he should find his faithful servant at or above the fount.

"Now the hero meets the swineherd close to the fold, which was consequently very near that source. At the top of the rock, and just above the spot where the waterfall shoots down the precipice, is at this day a stagni, or pastoral dwelling, which the herdsmen of Ithaca still inhabit, on account of the water necessary for their cattle. One of these people walked on the verge of the precipice at the time of our visit to the place, and seemed so anxious to know how we had been conveyed to the spot, that his inquiries reminded us of a question probably not uncommon in the days of Homer, who more than once represents the Ithacences demanding of strangers what ship had brought them to the island, it being evident they could not come on foot. He told us that there was, on the summit where he stood, a small cistern of water, and a kalybea, or shepherd's hut. There are also vestiges of ancient habitations, and the place is now called Amarathia.

"Convenience, as well as safety, seems to have pointed out the lofty situation of Amarathia as a fit place for the residence of the herdsmen of this part of the island from the earliest ages. A small source of water is a treasure in these climates; and if the inhabitants of Ithaca now select a rugged and elevated spot, to secure them from the robbers of the Echinades, it is to be recollected that the Taphian pirates were not less formidable, even in the days of Ulysses, and that a residence in a solitary part of the island, far from the fortress, and close to a celebrated fountain, must at all times have been dangerous, without some such security as the rocks of Korax. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the house of Eumaeus was on the top of the precipice; for Ulysses, in order to evince the truth of his story to the swineherd, desires to be thrown from the summit if his narration does not prove correct.

"Near the bottom of the precipice is a curious natural gallery, about seven feet high, which is expressed in the plate. It may be fairly presumed, from the very remarkable coincidence between this place and the Homeric account, that this was the scene designated by the poet as the fountain of Arethusa, and the residence of Eumaeus; and, perhaps, it would be impossible to find another spot which bears, at this day, so strong a resemblance to a poetic description composed at a period so very remote. There is no other fountain in this part of the island, nor any rock which bears the slightest resemblance to the Korax of Homer.

"The stathmos of the good Eumaeus appears to have been little different, either in use or construction, from the stagni and kalybea of the present day. The poet expressly mentions that other herdsmen drove their flocks into the city at sunset,--a custom which still prevails throughout Greece during the winter, and that was the season in which Ulysses visited Eumaeus. Yet Homer accounts for this deviation from the prevailing custom, by observing that he had retired from the city to avoid the suitors of Penelope. These trifling occurrences afford a strong presumption that the Ithaca of Homer was something more than the creature of his own fancy, as some have supposed it; for though the grand outline of a fable may be easily imagined, yet the consistent adaptation of minute incidents to a long and elaborate falsehood is a task of the most arduous and complicated nature."

After this long extract, by which we have endeavoured to do justice to Mr. Gell's argument, we cannot allow room for any farther quotations of such extent; and we must offer a brief and imperfect a.n.a.lysis of the remainder of the work. In the third chapter the traveller arrives at the capital, and in the fourth he describes it in an agreeable manner. We select his account of the mode of celebrating a Christian festival in the Greek Church:--