[496] {484}[See "The Vision, etc., made English by Sir R. Lestrange, and burlesqued by a Person of Quality:" Visions, being a Satire on the corruptions and vices of all degrees of Mankind. Translated from the original Spanish by Mr. Nunez, London, 1745, etc.

The Sueños or Visions of Francisco Gomez de Quevedo of Villegas are six in number. They were published separately in 1635. For an account of the "Visita de los Chistes," "A Visit in Jest to the Empire of Death," and for a translation of part of the "Dream of Skulls," or "Dream of the Judgment," see History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, 1888, ii. 339-344.]

[497]

["Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,

Now Serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,

In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join,

And God the Father turns a School-divine."

Pope's Imitations of Horace, Book ii. Ep. i. lines 99-102.]

To turn him here and there for some resource

{And found no better counsel from his peers,

And claimed the help of his celestial peers.—[MS. erased.]

[gf] {489} 'Tis that he has that Conqueror in reversion.—[MS. erased.]

[501] [Napoleon died May 5, 1821, two days before Byron began his Vision of Judgment, but, of course, the news did not reach Europe till long afterwards.]

[gg] They will be crushed yet——.—[MS. erased.]

[gh] Not so gigantic in the head as horn.—[MS. erased.]

[502] [George III. died the 29th of January, 1820. "The year 1820 was an era signalized ... by the many efforts of the revolutionary spirit which at that time broke forth, like ill-suppressed fire, throughout the greater part of the South of Europe. In Italy Naples had already raised the constitutional standard.... Throughout Romagna, secret societies, under the name of Carbonari, had been organized."—Life. p. 467.]

[gi] Who fought for tyranny until withdrawn.—[MS. erased.]

[503]

["Thus as I stood, the bell, which awhile from its warning had rested,

Sent forth its note again, Toll! Toll! through the silence of evening....

Thou art released! I cried: thy soul is delivered from bondage!

Thou who hast lain so long in mental and visual darkness,

Thou art in yonder Heaven! thy place is in light and glory."

A Vision of Judgement, by R. Southey, i.]

[gj] A better country squire——.—[MS. erased.]

[gk] {490}

He died and left his kingdom still behind

Not much less mad—and certainly as blind.—[MS. erased.]

[504] [At the time of the king's death Byron expressed himself somewhat differently. "I see," he says (Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820), "the good old King is gone to his place; one can't help being sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity are supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity."]

[505] ["The display was most magnificent; the powerful light which threw all below into strong relief, reached but high enough to touch the pendent helmets and banners into faint colouring, and the roof was a vision of tarnished gleams and tissues among the Gothic tracery. The vault was still open, and the Royal coffin lay below, with the crowns of England and Hanover on cushions of purple and the broken wand crossing it. At the altar four Royal banners covered with golden emblems were strewed upon the ground, as if their office was completed; the altar was piled with consecrated gold plate, and the whole aspect of the Chapel was the deepest and most magnificent display of melancholy grandeur."-From a description of the funeral of George the Third (signed J. T.), in the European Magazine, February, 1820, vol. 77, p. 123.]

[506]

["So by the unseen comforted, raised I my head in obedience,

And in a vault I found myself placed, arched over on all sides

Narrow and low was that house of the dead. Around it were coffins,

Each in its niche, and pails, and urns, and funeral hatchments,

Velvets of Tyrian dye, retaining their hues unfaded;

Blazonry vivid still, as if fresh from the touch of the limner;

Nor was the golden fringe, nor the golden broidery, tarnished."

A Vision, etc., ii.

"On Thursday night, the 3rd inst. [February, 1820], the body being wrapped in an exterior fold of white satin, was placed in the inside coffin, which was composed of mahogany, pillowed and ornamented in the customary manner with white satin.... This was enclosed in a leaden coffin, again enclosed in another mahogany coffin, and the whole finally placed in the state coffin of Spanish mahogany, covered with the richest Genoa velvet of royal purple, a few shades deeper in tint than Garter blue. The lid was divided into three compartments by double rows of silver-gilt nails, and in the compartment at the head, over a rich star of the Order of the Garter was placed the Royal Arms of England, beautifully executed in dead Gold.... In the lower compartment at the feet was the British Lion Rampant, regardant, supporting a shield with the letters G. R. surrounded with the garter and motto of the same order in dead gold.... The handles were of silver, richly gilt of a massive modern pattern, and the most exquisite workmanship."—Ibid., p. 126.]

[507] {491}["The body of his Majesty was not embalmed in the usual manner, but has been wrapped in cere-clothes, to preserve it as long as possible.... The corpse, indeed, exhibited a painful spectacle of the rapid decay which had recently taken place in his Majesty's constitution, ... and hence, possibly, the surgeons deemed it impossible to perform the process of embalming in the usual way."—Ibid., p. 126.]

[508] [The fact that George II. pocketed, and never afterwards produced or attempted to carry out his father's will, may have suggested to the scandalous the possibility of a similar act on the part of his great-grandson.]

[gl] {492}

In whom his { vices virtues } all are reigning still.—[MS. erased.]

[509] [Lady Byron's account of her husband's theological opinions is at variance with this statement. (See Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, iii. 436.)]

[gm] {493}

But he with first a start and then a nod.—[MS.]

Snored, "There is some new star gone out by G—d!"--[MS. erased.]

[510] [Louis the Sixteenth was guillotined January 21, 1793.]

[gn] {494} That fellow Paul the damndest Saint.—[MS. erased.]

[511] ["The blessed apostle Bartholomew preached first in Lycaonia, and, at the last, in Athens ... and there he was first flayed, and afterwards his head was smitten off."—Golden Legend, edited by F. S. Ellis, 1900, v. 41.]

[512] {495}

"Then I beheld the King. From a cloud which covered the pavement

His reverend form uprose: heavenward his face was directed.

Heavenward his eyes were raised, and heavenward his arms were directed."

The Vision, etc., iii.

[513] [The reading of the MS. and of the Liberal is "pottered." The editions of 1831, 1832, 1837, etc., read "pattered."]

[go]——his whole celestial skin.—[MS. erased.]

[gp] Or some such other superhuman ichor.—[MS. erased.]

[gq] {496} By Captain Parry's crews——.—[The Liberal, 1822, i. 12.]

[514] ["The luminous arch had broken into irregular masses, streaming with much rapidity in different directions, varying continually, in shape and interest, and extending themselves from north, by the east, to north. The usual pale light of the aurora strongly resembled that produced by the combustion of phosphorus; a very slight tinge of red was noticed when the aurora was most vivid, but no other colours were visible."—Sir E. Parry's Voyage in 1819-20, p. 135.]

[515] [Compare "Methought I saw a fair youth borne with prodigious speed through the heavens, who gave a blast to his trumpet so violent, that the radiant beauty of his countenance was in part disfigured by it."—Translation of Quevedo's "Dream of Skulls," by G. Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 1888, ii. 340.]

[516] {497} [Joanna Southcott, born 1750, published her Book of Wonders, 1813-14, died December 27, 1814.]

[517]

["Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City;

Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas rising

High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace,

Where on their breadth the splendour lay intense and quiescent.

Part with a fierier glow, and a short thick tremulous motion

Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled,

Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant."

The Vision, etc., iv.]

[518] {498} [See The Book of Job literally translated from the original Hebrew, by John Mason Good, F.R.S. (1764-1827), London, 1812. In the "Introductory Dissertation," the author upholds the biographical and historical character of the Book of Job against the contentions of Professor Michaelis (Johann David, 1717-1791). The notes abound in citations from the Hebrew and from the Arabic version.]

[519] {499}["The gates or gateways of Eastern cities" were used as "places for public deliberation, administration of justice, or audience for kings and nations, or ambassadors." See Deut. xvi. 18. "Judges and officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates ... and they shall judge the people with just judgment." Hence came the use of the word "Porte" in speaking of the Government of Constantinople.—Smith's Diet, of the Bible, art. "Gate."]

[gr] Crossing his radiant arms——.—[MS. erased.]

[gs] But kindly; Sathan met——.—[MS. erased.]

[520] ["No saint in the course of his religious warfare was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves than Dr. Johnson; he said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, 'Sir, hell is paved with good intentions.'" Compare "Hell is full of good meanings and wishes." Jacula Prudentum, by George Herbert, ed. 1651, p. 11; Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1876, p. 450, note 5.]

[521] {501} [Compare—

"Not once or twice in our rough Island's story

The path of duty has become the path of glory."

Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.]

[522] [John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713-1792), was Secretary of State March 25, 1761, and Prime Minister May 29, 1762-April, 1763. For the general estimate of the influence which Bute exercised on the young king, see a caricature entitled "The Royal Dupe" (Wright, p. 285), Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. "George III."]

[gt] {502} With blood and debt——.—[MS.]

[gu] A part of that which they held all of old.—[MS. erased]

[523] {503}[George III. resisted Catholic Emancipation in 1795. "The more I reflect on the subject, the more I feel the danger of the proposal."—Letter to Pitt, February 6, 1795. Again, February 1, 1801, "This principle of duty must therefore prevent me from discussing any proposition [to admit 'Catholics and Dissenters to offices, and Catholics to Parliament'] tending to destroy the groundwork [that all who held employments in the State must be members of the Church of England] of our happy constitution." Finally, in 1807, he demanded of ministers "a positive assurance that they would never again propose to him any concession to the Catholics."—See Life of Pitt, by Earl Stanhope, 1879, ii. 434, 461; Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. "George III."]

[gv] Than see this blind old——.—[MS. erased.]

[gw] {504} And interruption of your speech.—[MS. erased.]

[524]

["Which into hollow engines long and round,

Thick-rammed at th' other bore with touch of fire

Dilated and infuriate," etc.

Paradise Lost, vi. 484, sq.]

[525] [A gold key is part of the insignia of office of the Lord Chamberlain and other court officials. In Plate 17 of Francis Sandford's History of the Coronation of James the Second, 1687, Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborow, who carries the sceptre of King Edward, is represented with a key hanging from his belt. He was First Groom of the Stole and Gentleman of Bedchamber. The Queen's Vice-chamberlain, who appears in another part of the procession, also carries a key.]

[gx] Stuck in their buttocks——.—[MS. erased.]

[gy] {505} For theirs are honours nobler far than these.—[MS. erased.]

[526] [It is possible that Byron was thinking of Horace Walpole's famous quip, "The summer has set in with its usual severity." But, of course, the meaning is that, owing to excessive and abnormal fogs, the summer gilding might have to be pretermitted.]

[gz] Before they make their journey, ere begin it.—[MS. erased.]

[527] [For the invention of the electric telegraph before the date of this poem, see Sir Francis Ronalds, F. R. S., and his Works in connection with Electric Telegraphy in 1816, by J. Sime, 1893. But the "Telegraph" to which Byron refers was, probably, the semaphore (from London to Portsmouth), which, according to [Sir] John Barrow, the Secretary of the Admiralty, rendered "telegraphs of any kind now wholly unnecessary" (vide ibid., p. 10).]

[528] {506}[Compare, for similarity of sound—

"It plunged and tacked and veered."

Ancient Mariner, pt. iii. line 156.]

[ha]

——No land was ever overflowed

By locusts as the Heaven appeared by these.—[MS. erased.]

[hb] And many-languaged cries were like wild geese.—[Erased.]

[529] [Compare—

"Wherefore with thee

Came not all Hell broke loose?"

Paradise Lost, iv. 917, 918.]

[hc] Though the first Hackney will——.—[MS.]

[hd] {507} Ready to swear the cause of all their pain.—[Erased.]

[530] [In the game of ombre the ace of spades, spadille, ranks as the best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's Rape of the Lock, in. 47-64.)]

[531] {508}["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb?' cried the multifaced Demon in anger."

Vision of Judgement, v.]

[532]

["Beholding the foremost,

Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand

Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,

Lord of Misrule in his day."

Ibid., v.

In Hogarth's caricature (the original pen-and-ink sketch is in the "Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to Catalogue, 1886) Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint." The costume—long coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings—is not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a leer and a sneer. Walpole (Letters, 1858, vii. 274) describes another portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton."]

[533] {509}[For the "Coan" skirts of the First Empire, see the fashion plates and Gillray's and Rowlandson's caricatures passim.]

[he] It shall be me they'll find the trustiest patriot.—[MS. erased.]

[hf] Said Wilkes I've done as much before.—[MS. erased.]

[534] {510}[On his third return to Parliament for Middlesex, October 8, 1774, Wilkes took his seat (December 2) without opposition. In the following February, and on subsequent occasions, he endeavoured to induce the House to rescind the resolutions passed January 19, 1764, under which he had been expelled from Parliament, and named as blasphemous, obscene, etc. Finally, May, 1782, he obtained a substantial majority on a division, and the obnoxious resolutions were ordered to be expunged from the journals of the House.]

[535] [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton, a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;" but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become surety for bail. He feared that such a step might "come under the denomination of an insult on the Crown." A writ of Habeas Corpus (see line 8) was applied for by Lord Temple and others, and, May 6, Wilkes was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, on the ground of privilege. Three years later (November 1, 1766), on his return from Italy, Wilkes sought to obtain Grafton's protection and interest; but the duke, though he consulted Chatham, and laid Wilkes's letter before the King, decided to "take no notice" of this second appeal. In his Autobiography Grafton is careful to define "the extent of his knowledge" of Mr. Wilkes, and to explain that he was not "one of his intimates"—a caveat which warrants the statement of Junius that "as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former friendship with him. Your gracious Master understands your character; and makes you a persecutor because you have been a friend" ("Letter (xii.) to the Duke of Grafton," May 30, 1769).—Memoirs of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, by Sir W. Anson, Bart., D.C.L., 1898, pp. 190-197.]

[536] {511}[In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, and in the following spring it fell to his lot to present to the King a remonstrance from the Livery against the continuance of the war with America. Walpole (April 17, 1775, Letters, 1803, vi. 257) says that "he used his triumph with moderation—in modern language with good breeding." The King is said to have been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In his old age (1790) he voted against the Whigs. A pasquinade, written by Sheridan, Tickell, and Lord John Townshend, anticipated the devil's insinuations—

"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,

Thou greatest of bilks,

How changed are the notes you now sing!

Your famed 'Forty-five'

Is prerogative,

And your blasphemy 'God save the King'!

Johnny Wilkes,

And your blasphemy, 'God save the King '!"

Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, by W. F. Rae, 1874, pp. 132, 133.]

[hg] Where Beelzebub upon duty——.—[MS. erased.]

[537] ["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack upon the King, two Acts were introduced [the "Treason" and "Sedition Bills," November 6, November 10, 1795], called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, for better securing the King's person "(Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, i. 32). "'The first of these bills [The Plot Discovered, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, November 28, 1795, Essays on his own Times, 1850, i. 56] is an attempt to assassinate the liberty of the press; the second to smother the liberty of speech." The "Devil" feared that Wilkes had been "gagged" for good and all.

[538] {512}

["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,

Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?

Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;

Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him

Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,

Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.

Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,

Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.

Speechless the slanderer stood, and turned his face from the Monarch,

Iron-bound as it was ... so insupportably dreadful

Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured."

Vision of Judgement, v. i]

[hh] Or in the human cholic——.—[MS. erased.]

[hi] Which looked as 'twere a phantom even on earth.—[MS. erased.]

[hj] Now it seemed little, now a little bigger.—[MS. erased.]

[539] {513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius, Byron wrote, in his Journal of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be yet dead?.... the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure" (Letters, 1893, ii. 334); but an article (by Brougham) in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 94, on The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character established (see Letters, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost persuaded him that "Francis is Junius." (For a résumé of the arguments in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography, art. "Francis." See, too, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against this theory, see Athenæum, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is still being debated. See The Francis Letters, with a note on the Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901.)]

[hk] A doctor, a man-midwife——.—[MS. erased.]

[hl] {514} Till curiosity became a task.—[MS. erased.]

[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Maréchal Catinat, May 2, 1679, and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September 18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice in the Quart. Rev., June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir, in the Revue Historique, by M. Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom. 56, pp. 253-303.)]

[541] [See The Rivals, act iv. sc. II]

[hm] It is that he——.—[MS. erased.]

[542] {515}[The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial morass, covered with dense forests of mangrove. "Along the whole coast ... there opens into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have scarcely been able to number."]

[543] [The title-page runs thus: "Letters of Junius, Stat Nominis Umbra." That, and nothing more! On the title-page of his copy, across the motto, S. T. Coleridge wrote this sentence, "As he never dropped the mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of the assassin."—Miscellanies, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, ed. T. Asle, 1885, p. 341.]

[hn]

My charge is upon record and will last

Longer than will his lamentation.—[MS. erased.]

[544] {516}[John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), as an opponent of the American War, and as a promoter of the Corresponding Society, etc.; and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), as the champion of American Independence, would have been cited as witnesses against George III.]

[545] [In the Diable Boiteux (1707) of Le Sage, Don Cleofas, clinging to the cloak of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the summit of San Salvador. Compare—

"Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift

Be realiz'd at my desire,

This night my trembling form he'd lift,

To place it on St. Mary's spire."

Granta, a Medley, stanza 1.,

Poetical Works, 1898, i. 56, note 2.]

[546] ["But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust, was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado."—Speech of William Smith, M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817. (See, too, for the use of the word "renegado," Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 488, note i.)]

[547] [For the "weight" of Southey's quartos, compare Byron's note (1) to Hints from Horace, line 657, and a variant of lines 753-756. "Thus let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (Poetical Works, 1898, i. 435, 443).]

[ho] {517} And drawing nigh I caught him at a libel.—[MS. erased.]

[548] [Compare—

"But for the children of the 'Mighty Mother's,'

The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,

I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'

Smug coterie, and literary lady."

Beppo, stanza lxxvi. lines 5-8, vide ante, p. 183.]

[hp] {518}

And scrawls as though he were head clerk to the "Fates,"

And this I think is quite enough for one.—[Erased.]

[549][Compare—

"One leaf from Southey's laurels may explode

All his combustibles,

'An ass, by God!'"

A Satire on Satirists, etc., by W. S. Landor, 1836, p. 22.]

[550] ["There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers."—Hazlitt's My First Acquaintance with Poets; The Liberal, 1823, ii. 23, 46.]

[551] [Compare the attitude of Minos to the "poet" in Fielding's Journey from This World to the Next: "The poet answered, he believed if Minos had read his works he would set a higher value on them. [The poet had begged for admittance to Elysium on the score of his 'dramatic works.' Minos dismissed the plea, but relented on being informed that he had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend.] He was then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed him forward, and turning his back to him, applied himself to the next passengers."—Novelist's Magazine, 1783, vol. xii. cap. vii. p. 17.]

[552]

[" ... Mediocribus esse poetis

Non homines, non dî, non concessere columnæ."

Horace, Ars Poetica, lines 372, 373.]

[553] {519}[For the King's habit of duplicating his phrases, compare—

"Whitbread, is't true? I hear, I hear

You're of an ancient family renowned.

What? what? I'm told that you're a limb

Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym:

What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?

Son of a Roundhead are you? hæ? hæ? hæ?

Thirtieth of January don't you feed?

Yes, yes, you eat Calf's head, you eat Calf's head."

Instructions to a Celebrated Laureat, Peter Pindar's Works, 1812, i. 493.]

[554] [For Henry James Pye (1745-1813), see English Bards, etc., line 102, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 305, note 1.]

[hq] {520}——an ill-looking knave.—[MS. erased.]

[555] ["Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey—the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and—there is his eulogy."—Letter to Moore, September 27, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 266.

"I have not seen the Liberal," wrote Southey to Wynn, October 26, 1822, "but a Leeds paper has been sent me ... including among its extracts the description and behaviour of a certain 'varlet.' He has not offended me in the way that the pious painter exasperated the Devil" (i.e. by painting him "more ugly than ever:" see Southey's Ballad of the Pious Painter, Works, 1838, vi. 64).]

[hr] {521} He therefore was content to cite a few.—[MS. erased.]