"Upon the sixteen hunder year

Of God, and fifty-three,

From Christ was born, that bought us dear,

As writings testifie," etc.

[nz] {451} But those winged days——.—[MS.]

[337] [Compare Kingsley's Last Buccaneer—

"If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main—

To the pleasant isle of Aves, to look at it once again."]

[oa] The kindly few who love my lay.—[MS.]

[338] [The MS. is dated Jy (January) 31, 1815. Lady Byron's copy is dated November 2, 1815.]

[ob] Many a year, and many an age.—[MS. G. Copy.]

[oc] A marvel from her Moslem bands.—[MS. G.]

[339] {452} [Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards put him to death for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth. Warton says that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Akenside had the same design (Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., 1806, ii. 83).]

[od] Or could the dead be raised again.—[MS. G. erased.]

[oe]

——through yon clear skies

Than tower-capt Acropolis.—[MS. G.]

[of] Stretched on the edge——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[340] [Turkish holders of military fiefs.]

[og]

The turbaned crowd of dusky hue

Whose march Morea's fields may rue.—[MS. G. erased.]

[341] {453} The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents.

[342] [Compare The Giaour, line 639 (vide ante, p. 116)—"The deathshot hissing from afar."]

[343] {454} [Professor Kolbing admits that he is unable to say how "Byron met with the name of Alp." I am indebted to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, for the suggestion that the name is derived from Mohammed (Lhaz-ed-Dyn-Abou-Choudja), surnamed Alp-Arslan (Arsslan), or "Brave Lion," the second of the Seljuk dynasty, in the eleventh century. "He conquered Armenia and Georgia ... but was assassinated by Yussuf Cothuol, Governor of Berzem, and was buried at Merw, in Khorassan." His epitaph moralizes his fate: "O vous qui avez vu la grandeur d'Alparslan élevée jusq'au ciel, regardez! le voici maintenant en poussière."—Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire de l'Empire Othoman, i. 13-15.]

[oh] But now an exile——.—[MS. G.]

[344] {455} ["The Lions' Mouths, under the arcade at the summit of the Giants' Stairs, which gaped widely to receive anonymous charges, were no doubt far more often employed as vehicles of private malice than of zeal for the public welfare."—Sketches from Venetian History, 1832, ii. 380.]

[oi] To waste its future——.—[MS. G.]

[345] Ali Coumourgi [Damad Ali or Ali Cumurgi (i.e. son of the charcoal-burner)], the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day [August 16, 1716]. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners, and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a greater, and at his expense."

[For his letter to Prince Eugene, "Eh bien! la guerre va décider entre nous," etc., and for an account of his death, see Hammer-Purgstall, Historie de l'Empire Othoman, xiii. 300, 312.]

[oj] {456} And death-like rolled——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[ok] Like comets in convulsion riven.—[MS. G. Copy erased.]

[ol]

Impervious to the powerless sun,

Through sulphurous smoke whose blackness grew.—

[MS. G. erased.]

[om] {457} In midnight courtship to Italian maid.—[MS. G.]

[346] {458} [The siege of Vienna was raised by John Sobieski, King of Poland (1629-1696), September 12, 1683. Buda was retaken from the Turks by Charles VII., Duke of Lorraine, Sobieski's ally and former rival for the kingdom of Poland, September 2, 1686. The conquest of the Morea was begun by the Venetians in 1685, and completed in 1699.]

[on] By Buda's wall to Danube's side.—[MS. G.]

[oo] Pisani held——.—[MS. G.]

[op] Than she, the beauteous stranger, bore.—[MS. G. erased.]

[347] {459} [For Byron's use of the phrase, "Forlorn Hope," as an equivalent of the Turkish Delhis, or Delis, see Childe Harold, Canto II. ("The Albanian War-Song"), Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 149, note 1.]

[oq] By stepping o'er——.—[MS. G.]

[348] ["Brown" is Byron's usual epithet for landscape seen by moonlight. Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxii. line 6, etc., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 113, note 3.]

[or] Bespangled with her isles——.—[MS. G.]

[349] ["Stars" are likened to "isles" by Campbell, in The Pleasures of Hope, Part II.—

"The seraph eye shall count the starry train,

Like distant isles embosomed on the main."

And "isles" to "stars" by Byron, in The Island, Canto II. stanza xi. lines 14, 15—

"The studded archipelago,

O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles."

For other "star-similes," see Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza lxxxviii. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 270, note 2.]

[os]

And take a dark unmeasured tone.—[MS. G.]

And make a melancholy moan,

To mortal voice and ear unknown.—[MS. G. erased.]

[350] {461} [Compare Scott's Marmion, III. xvi. 4—

"And that strange Palmer's boding say,

That fell so ominous and drear."]

[ot]

——by fancy framed,

Which rings a deep, internal knell,

A visionary passing-bell.—[MS. G. erased.]

[ou] The thoughts tumultuously roll.—[MS. G.]

[ov] {462} To triumph o'er——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[ow]

They but provide, he fells the prey.—[MS. G.]

As lions o'er the jackal sway

By springing dauntless on the prey;

They follow on, and yelling press

To gorge the fragments of success.—[MS. G. erased.]

[351] [Lines 329-331 are inserted in the copy. They are in Byron's handwriting. Compare Don Juan, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 1, seq.—"That's an appropriate simile, that jackal."]

[ox] {463}

He vainly turned from side to side,

And each reposing posture tried.—[MS. G. erased.]

[oy] Beyond a rougher——.—[MS. G.]

[oz] ——to sigh for day.—[MS. G.]

[pa] {464}

Of Liakura—his unmelting snow

Bright and eternal——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[352] [Compare The Giaour, line 566 (vide ante, p. 113)—

"For where is he that hath beheld

The peak of Liakura unveiled?"

The reference is to the almost perpetual "cap" of mist on Parnassus (Mount Likeri or Liakura), which lies some thirty miles to the north-west of Corinth.]

[pb] {465} Her spirit spoke in deathless song.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pc] And in this night——.—[MS. G.]

[pd] He felt how little and how dim.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pe] Who led the band——.—[MS. G.]

[353] [Compare The Giaour, lines 103, seq. (vide ante, p. 91)—"Clime of the unforgotten brave!" etc.]

[pf] {466} Their memory hallowed every fountain.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pg] Here follows, in the MS.—

Immortal—boundless—undecayed—

Their souls the very soil pervade.—

[In the Copy the lines are erased.]

[ph] Where Freedom loveliest may be won.—[MS. G. erased.]

[354] The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean.

[pi] So that fiercest of waves——.—[MS. G.]

[pj] {467} A little space of light grey sand.—[MS. G. erased.]

[355] [Compare The Island, Canto IV. sect. ii. lines 11, 12—

"A narrow segment of the yellow sand

On one side forms the outline of a strand."]

[pk]

Or would not waste on a single head

The ball on numbers better sped.—[MS. G. erased]

[pl] I know not in faith——.—[MS. G.]

[356] [Gifford has drawn his pen through lines 456-478. If, as the editor of The Works of Lord Byron, 1832 (x. 100), maintains, "Lord Byron gave Mr. Gifford carte blanche to strike out or alter anything at his pleasure in this poem as it was passing through the press," it is somewhat remarkable that he does not appear to have paid any attention whatever to the august "reader's" suggestions and strictures. The sheets on which Gifford's corrections are scrawled are not proof-sheets, but pages torn out of the first edition; and it is probable that they were made after the poem was published, and with a view to the inclusion of an emended edition in the collected works. See letter to Murray, January 2, 1817.]

[357] {468} This spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's Travels [in Albania, 1855, ii. 215]. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

[358] This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superstition that Mahomet will draw them into Paradise by it.

[pm] {469} Deep in the tide of their lost blood lying.—[MS. G. Copy.]

[359] ["Than the mangled corpse in its own blood lying."—Gifford.]

[pn] Than the rotting dead——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[360] [Strike out—

"Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain,

Than the perishing dead who are past all pain."

What is a "perishing dead"?—Gifford.]

[361] [Lines 487, 488 are inserted in the copy in Byron's handwriting.]

[po] And when all——.—[MS. G.]

[362] ["O'er the weltering limbs of the tombless dead."—Gifford.]

[pp]

All that liveth on man will prey,

All rejoicing in his decay,

or, Nature rejoicing in his decay.

All that can kindle dismay and disgust

Follow his frame from the bier to the dust.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pq] {470}

——it hath left no more

Of the mightiest things that have gone before.—[MS. G. erased.]

[363] [Omit this couplet.—Gifford.]

[pr] After this follows in the MS. erased—

Monuments that the coming age

Leaves to the spoil of the season's rage—

Till Ruin makes the relics scarce,

Then Learning acts her solemn farce,

And, roaming through the marble waste,

Prates of beauty, art, and taste.

XIX.

That Temple was more in the midst of the plain—

or, What of that shrine did yet remain

Lay to his left more in midst of the plain.—[MS. G.]

[364] [From this all is beautiful to—"He saw not—he knew not—but nothing is there."—Gifford. For "pillar's base," compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza x. line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 105.]

[ps] {471}

Is it the wind that through the stone.

or, ——o'er the heavy stone.—[MS. G. erased.]

[365] I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

[The lines in Christabel, Part the First, 43-52, 57, 58, are these—

"The night is chill; the forest bare;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

There is not wind enough in the air

To move away the ringlet curl

From the lovely lady's cheek—

There is not wind enough to twirl

The one red leaf, the last of its clan,

That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."

" ... What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,

Drest in a silken robe of white."

Byron (vide ante, p. 443), in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself against a charge of plagiarism, by explaining that lines 521-532 of stanza xix. were written before he heard Walter Scott repeat Christabel in the preceding June. Now, as Byron himself perceived, perhaps for the first time, when he had the MS. of Christabel before him, the coincidence in language and style between the two passages is unquestionable; and, as he hoped and expected that Coleridge's fragment, when completed, would issue from the press, he was anxious to avoid even the semblance of pilfering, and went so far as to suggest that the passage should be cancelled. Neither in the private letter nor the published note does Byron attempt to deny or explain away the coincidence, but pleads that his lines were written before he had heard Coleridge's poem recited, and that he had not been guilty of a "wilful plagiarism." There is no difficulty in accepting his statement. Long before the summer of 1815 Christabel "had a pretty general circulation in the literary world" (Medwin, Conversations, 1824, p. 261), and he may have heard without heeding this and other passages quoted by privileged readers; or, though never a line of Christabel had sounded in his ears, he may (as Kölbing points out) have caught its lilt at second hand from the published works of Southey, or of Scott himself.

Compare Thalaba the Destroyer, v. 20 (1838, iv. 187)—

"What sound is borne on the wind?

Is it the storm that shakes

The thousand oaks of the forest?

Is it the river's roar

Dashed down some rocky descent?" etc.

Or compare The Lay of the Last Minstrel, I. xii. 5. seq. (1812, p. 24)—

"And now she sits in secret bower

In old Lord David's western tower,

And listens to a heavy sound,

That moans the mossy turrets round.

Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,

That chafes against the scaur's red side?

Is it the wind that swings the oaks?

Is it the echo from the rocks?" etc.

Certain lines of Coleridge's did, no doubt, "find themselves" in the Siege of Corinth, having found their way to the younger poet's ear and fancy before the Lady of the vision was directly and formally introduced to his notice.]

[pt] {473}There sate a lady young and bright.—[MS. G. erased.]

[366] [Contemporary critics fell foul of these lines for various reasons. The Critical Review (February, 1816, vol. iii. p. 151) remarks that "the following couplet [i.e. lines 531, 532] reminds us of the persiflage of Lewis or the pathos of a vulgar ballad;" while the Dublin Examiner (May, 1816, vol. i. p. 19) directs a double charge against the founders of the schism and their proselyte: "If the Cumberland Lakers were not well known to be personages of the most pious and saintly temperament, we would really have serious apprehensions lest our noble Poet should come to any harm in consequence of the envy which the two following lines and a great many others through the poems, might excite by their successful rivalship of some of the finest effects of babyism that these Gentlemen can boast."]

[pu] He would have made it——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pv] She who would——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[pw] {474} The ocean spread before their view.—[Copy.]

[367] ["And its thrilling glance, etc."—Gifford.]

[368] [Warton (Observations en the Fairy Queen, 1807, ii. 131), commenting on Spenser's famous description of "Una and the Lion" (Faëry Queene, Book I. canto iii. stanzas 5, 6, 7), quotes the following passage from Seven Champions of Christendom: "Now, Sabra, I have by this sufficiently proved thy true virginitie: for it is the nature of a lion, be he never so furious, not to harme the unspotted virgin, but humbly to lay his bristled head upon a maiden's lap."

Byron, according to Leigh Hunt (Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, 1828, i. 77), could not "see anything" in Spenser, and was not familiar with the Fairy Queen; but he may have had in mind Scott's allusion to Spenser's Una—

"Harpers have sung and poets told

That he, in fury uncontrolled,

The shaggy monarch of the wood,

Before a virgin, fair and good,

Hath pacified his savage mood."

Marmion, Canto II. stanza vii. line 3, seq.

(See Kölbing's note to Siege of Corinth, 1893, pp. 110-112.)]

[px] {476}

She laid her fingers on his hand,

Its coldness thrilled through every bone.—[MS. G. erased.]

[py] As he looked on her face——.—[MS. G.]

[pz] ——on her bosom's swell.—[MS. G. erased. Copy.]

[369] [Compare Shakespeare, Macbeth, act v. sc. 1, line 30—

"You see, her eyes are open,

Aye, but their sense is shut."

Compare, too, Christabel, Conclusion to Part the First (lines 292, 293)—

"With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)

Asleep, and dreaming fearfully."]

[qa] {477}

Like a picture, that magic had charmed from its frame,

Lifeless but life-like, and ever the same.

or, Like a picture come forth from its canvas and frame.—

[MS. G. erased.]

[qb]

And seen——.—[MS. G.]

——its fleecy mail.—[MS. G. erased.]

[370] [In the summer of 1803, Byron, then turned fifteen, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at first to return every night to Newstead; alleging that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, which he fancied "had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from their frames to haunt him." Moore thinks this passage may have been suggested by the recollection (Life, p. 27). Compare Lara, Canto I. stanza xi. line 1, seq. (vide ante, p. 331, note 1).]

[371] [Compare Southey's Roderick, Canto XXI. (ed. 1838, ix. 195)—

" ... and till the grave

Open, the gate of mercy is not closed."]

[372] {478} I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it; but it is not original—at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.—[The following is the passage: "'Deluded prince!' said the Genius, addressing the Caliph ... 'This moment is the last, of grace, allowed thee: ... give back Nouronihar to her father, who still retains a few sparks of life: destroy thy tower, with all its abominations: drive Carathis from thy councils: be just to thy subjects: respect the ministers of the Prophet: compensate for thy impieties by an exemplary life; and, instead of squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy crimes on the sepulchres of thy ancestors. Thou beholdest the clouds that obscure the sun: at the instant he recovers his splendour, if thy heart be not changed, the time of mercy assigned thee will be past for ever.'"

"Vathek, depressed with fear, was on the point of prostrating himself at the feet of the shepherd ... but, his pride prevailing ... he said, 'Whoever thou art, withhold thy useless admonitions.... If what I have done be so criminal ... there remains not for me a moment of grace. I have traversed a sea of blood to acquire a power which will make thy equals tremble; deem not that I shall retire when in view of the port; or that I will relinquish her who is dearer to me than either my life or thy mercy. Let the sun appear! let him illumine my career! it matters not where it may end!' On uttering these words ... Vathek ... commanded that his horses should be forced back to the road.

"There was no difficulty in obeying these orders; for the attraction had ceased; the sun shone forth in all his glory, and the shepherd vanished with a lamentable scream" (ed. 1786, pp. 183-185).]

[qc] {479} By rooted and unhallowed pride.—[MS. G. erased.]

[373] [Leave out this couplet.—Gifford.]

[374] {480} [Compare—"While the still morn went out with sandals grey." Lycidas, line 187.]

[375] [Strike out—"And the Noon will look on a sultry day."—Gifford.]

[376] The horsetails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard.

["When the vizir appears in public, three thoughs, or horse-tails, fastened to a long staff, with a large gold ball at top, is borne before him."—Moeurs des Ottomans, par A. L. Castellan (Translated, 1821), iv. 7.

Compare Childe Harold, Canto II., "Albanian War-Song," stanza 10, line 2; and Bride of Abydos, line 714 (vide ante, p. 189).]

[377] [Compare—"Send out moe horses, skirr the country round." Macbeth, act v. sc. 3, line 35.]

[378] [Omit—

"While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,

Bloodstain the breach through which they pass."

—Gifford.]

[379] ["And crush the wall they have shaken before."—Gifford.]

[380] [Compare The Giaour, line 734 (vide ante, p. 120)—"At solemn sound of 'Alla Hu!'" And Don Juan, Canto VIII. stanza viii.]

[381] ["He who first downs with the red cross may crave," etc. What vulgarism is this!—"He who lowers,—or plucks down," etc.—Gifford.]

[382] [The historian, George Finlay, who met and frequently conversed with Byron at Mesalonghi, with a view to illustrating "Lord Byron's Siege of Corinth," subjoins in a note the full text of "the summons sent by the grand vizier, and the answer." (See Finlay's Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination, 1856, p. 266, note 1; and, for the original authority, see Brue's Journal de la Campagne, ... en 1715, Paris, 1871, p. 18.)]

[383] {482}

["Thus against the wall they bent,

Thus the first were backward sent."

—Gifford.]

[qd] With such volley yields like glass.—[MS. G. erased.]

[qe] Like the mowers ridge——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[384] ["Such was the fall of the foremost train."—Gifford.]

[385] {483} [Compare The Deformed Transformed, Part I. sc. 2 ("Song of the Soldiers")—

"Our shout shall grow gladder,

And death only be mute."]

[qf] I have heard——.—[MS. G.]

[386] [Compare Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2, line 55—

"If he do bleed,

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal."]

[387] {484} ["There stood a man," etc.—Gifford.]

[388] ["Lurked"—a bad word—say "was hid."—Gifford.]

[389] ["Outnumbered his hairs," etc.—Gifford.]

[390] ["Sons that were unborn, when he dipped."—Gifford.]

[391] {485} [Bravo!—this is better than King Priam's fifty sons.—Gifford.]

[392] In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.

[393] [There can be no such thing; but the whole of this is poor, and spun out.—Gifford. The solecism, if such it be, was repeated in Marino Faliero, act iii. sc. I, line 38.]

[394] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxix. lines 5-8 (Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 125)—

"Dark Sappho! could not Verse immortal save?...

If life eternal may await the lyre."]

[395] ["Hark to the Alia Hu!" etc.—Gifford.]

[396] {486} [Gifford has erased lines 839-847.]

[qg] Though the life of thy giving would last for ever.—[MS. G. Copy.]

[qh] Where's Francesca?—my promised bride!—[MS. G. Copy.]

[qi] {488} Here follows in MS. G.—

Twice and once he roll'd a space,

Then lead-like lay upon his face.

[qj] Sigh, nor sign, nor parting word.—[MS. G. erased.]

[397] [The Spanish "renegado" and the Anglicized "renegade" were favourite terms of reprobation with politicians and others at the beginning of the century. When Southey's Wat Tyler was reprinted in 1817, William Smith, the Member for Norwich, denounced the Laureate as a "renegado," an attack which Coleridge did his best to parry by contributing articles to the Courier on "Apostasy and Renegadoism" (Letter to Murray, March 26, 1817, Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 306). Byron himself, in Don Juan ("Dedication," stanza i. line 5), hails Southey as "My Epic Renegade!" Compare, too, stanza xiv. of "Lines addressed to a Noble Lord (His Lordship will know why), By one of the small Fry of the Lakes" (i.e. Miss Barker, the "Bhow Begum" of Southey's Doctor)—

"And our Ponds shall better please thee,

Than those now dishonoured seas,

With their shores and Cyclades

Stocked with Pachas, Seraskiers,

Slaves and turbaned Buccaneers;

Sensual Mussulmans atrocious,

Renegadoes more ferocious," etc.]

[qk] {489} These in rage, in triumph those.—[MS. G. Copy erased.]

[ql] Then again in fury mixing.—[MS. G.]

[398] ["Dealing death with every blow."—Gifford.]

[399] {490} [Compare Don Juan, Canto XIII. stanza lxi. lines 1, seq.—

"But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned,

The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child,

With her Son in her blessed arms, looked round ...

But even the faintest relics of a shrine

Of any worship wake some thoughts divine."]

[qm]

——beneath the { chequered inlaid } stone.—[MS. G. erased.]

[qn] But now half-blotted——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[qo] But War must make the most of means.—[MS. G. erased.]

[400] {492} ["Oh, but it made a glorious show!!!" Gifford erases the line, and adds these marks of exclamation.]

[qp] ——the sacrament wine.—[MS. G. erased.]

[qq] Which the Christians partook at the break of the day.—[MS. G. Copy.]

[401] {493} [Compare Sardanapalus, act v. sc. 1 (s.f.)—

"Myr. Art thou ready?

Sard. As the torch in thy grasp.

(Myrrha fires the pile.)

Myr. 'Tis fired! I come."]

[402] [A critic in the Eclectic Review (vol. v. N.S., 1816, p. 273), commenting on the "obvious carelessness" of these lines, remarks, "We know not how 'all that of dead remained' could expire in that wild roar." To apply the word "expire" to inanimate objects is, no doubt, an archaism, but Byron might have quoted Dryden as an authority, "The ponderous ball expires."]

[qr] The hills as by an earthquake bent.—[MS. G. erased.]

[403] {494} [Strike out from "Up to the sky," etc., to "All blackened there and reeking lay." Despicable stuff.—Gifford.]

[qs] Who can see or who shall say?—[MS. G. erased.]

[404] [Lines 1043-1047 are not in the Copy or MS. G., but were included in the text of the First Edition.]

[405] [Compare Don Juan, Canto II. stanza cii. line 1, seq.—

"Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done

Their work on them by turns, and thinned them to

Such things a mother had not known her son

Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew."

Compare, too, The Island, Canto I. section ix. lines 13, 14.]

[qt] {495} And crashed each mass of stone.—[MS. G. erased.]

[qu]

And left their food the unburied dead.—[Copy.]

And left their food the untasted dead.—[MS. G.]

And howling left——.—[MS. G. erased.]

[406] [Omit the next six lines.—Gifford.]

[407] ["I have heard hyænas and jackalls in the ruins of Asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry Mussulmans."—Journal, November 23, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 340.]

[qv] Where Echo rolled in horror still.—[MS. G.]

[qw] The frightened jackal's shrill sharp cry.—[MS. G. erased.]

[408] I believe I have taken a poetical licence to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 6; and Don Juan, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 2.]

[qx] Mixed and mournful as the sound.—[MS. G.]

[409] [Leave out this couplet.—Gifford.]

[410] [With lines 1058-1079, compare Southey's Roderick (Canto XVIII., ed. 1838, ix. 169)—

"Far and wide the thundering shout,

Rolling among reduplicating rocks,

Pealed o'er the hills, and up the mountain vales.

The wild ass starting in the forest glade

Ran to the covert; the affrighted wolf

Skulked through the thicket to a closer brake;

The sluggish bear, awakened in his den,

Roused up and answered with a sullen growl,

Low-breathed and long; and at the uproar scared,

The brooding eagle from her nest took wing."

A sentence in a letter to Moore, dated January 10, 1815 (Letters, 1899, iii. 168), "I have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but S....y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding, and he has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing," implies that Byron had read and admired Southey's Roderick—an inference which is curiously confirmed by a memorandum in Murray's handwriting: "When Southey's poem, Don Roderick (sic), was published, Lord Byron sent in the middle of the night to ask John Murray if he had heard any opinion of it, for he thought it one of the finest poems he had ever read." The resemblance between the two passages, which is pointed out by Professor Kölbing, is too close to be wholly unconscious, but Byron's expansion of Southey's lines hardly amounts to a plagiarism.]