FOOTNOTES:
[703] Fry. 23, 1814 (sic).—[MS.]
[704] [Compare—
"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be."
Tennyson's In Memoriam.]
[705] {517}[With this open mind with regard to the future, compare Charles Kingsley's "reverent curiosity" (Letters and Memoirs, etc., 1883, p. 349).]
[706] {518}["We usually try which way the wind bloweth, by casting up grass or chaff, or such light things into the air."—Bacon's Natural History, No. 820, Works, 1740, iii. 168.]
[707] ["The World was all before them." Paradise Lost, bk. xii. line 646.]
[708] {519}
["But why then publish?—Granville, the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write."
Pope, Prologue to Satires, lines 135, 136.]
[709] {521}[Virg., Aen., ii. 91 "(Haud ignota);" et ibid., line 6.]
[710] [Hor., Od. iii. 2. 26.]
[MV] {522}
And though by no means overpowered with riches,
Would gladly place beneath it my last rag of breeches.—[MS. erased.]
[711] {524}Craning.—"To crane" is, or was, an expression used to denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, "to look before he leaped;"—a pause in his "vaulting ambition," which in the field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. "Sir, if you don't choose to take the leap, let me!"—was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant on again; and to good purpose: for though "the horse and rider" might fall, they made a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the field might follow.
[MW] {525}
The sulky Huntsman grimly said "The Frenchman
Was almost worthy to become his henchman."—[MS. erased.]
And what not—though he had ridden like a Centaur
When called next day declined the same adventure.—[MS.]
[712] [Mr. W. Ernst, in his Memoirs of the Life of Lord Chesterfield, 1893 (p. 425, note 2), quotes these lines in connection with a comparison between French and English sport, contained in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son, dated June 30, 1751: "The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and boobies." Elsewhere, however (The World, No. 92, October 3, 1754), commenting on a remark of Pascal's, he admits "that the jolly sportsman ... improves his health, at least, by his exercise."]
[713] {526}
[" ... as she skimm'd along,
Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung."
Dryden's Virgil (Aen., vii. 1101, 1102).]
[714] [See Poetical Works, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]
[715] [Guido's fresco of the Aurora, "scattering flowers before the chariot of the sun" is on a ceiling of the Casino in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, in Rome.]
[716] [Byron described Count Alfred D'Orsay as having "all the airs of a Cupidon déchaîné." See letters to Moore and the Earl of Blessington, April 2, 1823, Letters, 1901, vi. 180, 185.]
[717] {528}In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think it is mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered by an universal Pylades: "When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's Coffee-house, and take another." I recollect having heard an anecdote of the same kind.—Sir W.D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the Club of which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy.—"What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious memory.—"Ah!" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D."—"Lost! What at? Quinze or Hazard?" was the consolatory rejoinder of the querist.
[The dramatis personae are probably Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), author of the Academical Questions, etc., and Francis Hare, the wit, known as the "'Silent Hare,' from his extreme loquacity."—Gronow's Reminiscences, 1889, ii. 98-101.]
[MY] {529}They own that you are fairly dished at last.—[MS. erased.]
[718] {531}The famous Chancellor [Axel Oxenstiern (1583-1654)] said to his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics: "You see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are governed."
[The story is that his son John, who had been sent to represent him at the Congress of Westphalia, 1648, wrote home to complain that the task was beyond him, and that he could not cope with the difficulties which he was encountering, and that the Chancellor replied, "Nescis, mi fili, quantillâ prudentiâ homines regantur."—Biographie Universelle, art. "Oxenstierna."]
[MZ] {532} Who are our sureties that our moral pure is.—[MS. erased.]
[NA] {533}And not to encourage whispering in the house.—[MS. erased.]
[719] {535}[Once upon a time, Tiresias, who was shepherding on Mount Cyllene, wantonly stamped with his heel on a pair of snakes, and was straightway turned into a woman. Seven years later he was led to treat another pair of snakes in like fashion, and, happily or otherwise, was turned back into a man. Hence, when Jupiter and Juno fell to wrangling on the comparative enjoyments of men and women, the question was referred to Tiresias, as a person of unusual experience and authority. He gave it in favour of the woman, and Juno, who was displeased at his answer, struck him with blindness. But Jupiter, to make amends, gave him the "liberty of prophesying" for seven, some say nine, generations. (See Ovid, Metam., iii. 320; and Thomas Muncker's notes on the Fabulae of Hyginus, No. lxxv. ed. 1681, pp. 126-128.)]
[720] [Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. i, line 168.]
[721] {536}See La Nouvelle Héloïse.
[722] Hor., Epod., II. line 1.
[723] [The Latin proverb, Noscitur ex sociis, is not an Horatian maxim.]
[NB] {537}I, therefore, deal in generals—which is wise.—[MS. erased.]
[724] [See Sheridan's Critic ("Tilburina" loq.), act iii. s.f.]
[725] {538}[For "the coxcomb Czar ... the somewhat agéd youth," see The Age of Bronze, lines 434-483, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 563, note 1.]
[726] [Compare Sardanapalus, act i. sc. 2, line 1, ibid., p. 15, note 1.]
[727] {539}[Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza lxxi. line 3, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 261, 300, note 17.]
[NC] {540}
Or Germany—she knew nought of all this
Impracticable, novel-reading trance.—[MS. erased.]
Even there—as in relationship will hold,
And make the feeling of a finer mood.—[MS. erased.]
["These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die."
Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 6, lines 9, 10.]
[NE] {541}
Alas! I quote experience—seldom yet
I had a paramour—and I've had many—
Whom I had not some reason to regret—
For whom I did not make myself a Zany.—[MS.]
I also had a wife—not to forget
The marriage state—the best or worst of any,
Who was the very paragon of wives
Yet mad the misery of
{
many
both our
several
}
lives.—[MS. erased]
[729] [Lady Holland, Lady Jersey, Madame de Staël, and before and above all, his sister, Mrs. Leigh.]
I also had some female friends—by G—d!
Or if the oath seem strong—I swear by Jove!—[MS.]
[NH] Who stuck to me——.—[MS. erased.]
[730] {542}[Byron must have been among the first to naturalize the French milliard (a thousand millions), which was used by Voltaire.]
[731] {543}[Othello, act i. sc. 3, line 140.]
[732] B. March 4th 1823.—[MS.]
