THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
Footnotes:
[1]Medwin, in his book ‘The Angler in Wales,’ vol. ii., p. 211, says: ‘Therightfoot, as everyone knows, being twisted inwards, so as to amount to what is generally known as a club-foot.’
[2]Letter to Mr. Gisborne, January 12, 1822. Professor Dowden’s ‘Life of Shelley,’ vol. ii., p. 447.
[3]‘Lord Byron.’
[4]‘Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,’ edited by Rowland Prothero, vol. vi., appendix iii.
[5]‘Life of Shelley,’ vol. ii., p. 494.
[6]Henry Dunn kept a British shop at Leghorn.
[7]For Byron’s opinion of Shelley’s poetry, see appendix to ‘The Two Foscari’: ‘I highly admire the poetry of “Queen Mab” and Shelley’s other publications.’
[8]‘The Angler in Wales,’ by Thomas Medwin, vol. ii., pp. 144-146.
[9]Lady Noel left by her will to the trustees a portrait of Byron, with directions that it was not to be shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but that if her mother were still living, it was not to be so delivered without Lady Byron’s consent.
[10]It was at this time that Byron endeavoured to suppress the fact that he had written ‘The Age of Bronze.’
[11]Dr. Bruno.
[12]Byron’s sobriquet for Walter Scott.
[13]‘Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,’ edited by Rowland Prothero, vol. vi., p. 259.
[14]‘Memoir of Rev. F. Hodgson,’ vol. ii., p. 150.
[15]‘Diary,’ vol. iii., pp. 435, 436.
[16]Parry, p. 170.
[17]Byron wrote a review of Wordsworth’s ‘Poems’ inMonthly Literary Recreationsfor July, 1807, and a review of Gell’s ‘Geography of Ithaca’ in theMonthly Reviewfor August, 1811.
[18]General Sir Robert Wilson (1777-1849), commonly known as ‘Jaffa Wilson,’ entered Parliament in 1818. Having held Napoleon up to horror and execration for his cruelty at Jaffa, Wilson subsequently became one of his strongest eulogists. Being by nature a demagogue, he posed as a champion in the cause of freedom and civil government; he accused England of injustice and tyranny towards other nations, and prophesied her speedy fall. He warmly espoused the cause of Queen Caroline, and was present at the riot in Hyde Park on the occasion of her funeral, when there was a collision between the Horse Guards and the mob. For his conduct on that occasion, despite a long record of gallant service in the field, Wilson was dismissed the Army in 1821, but was reinstated on the accession of William IV. He appears to have been both foolish and vain, and fond of creating effect. He was constantly brooding over services which he conceived to have been overlooked, and merits which he fancied were neglected. He attached himself to the ultra-radicals, and puffed himself into notoriety by swimming against the stream. A writer in theQuarterly Review(Vol. xix., July, 1818) says: ‘The obliquity of his (Wilson’s) perceptions make his talents worse than useless as a politician, and form, even in his own profession, a serious drawback to energy however great, and to bravery however distinguished.’
[19]High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.
[20]Acting as Secretary to High Commissioner.
[21]Vol. vi., p. 326.
[22]One of the turbulent capitani who was playing for his own hand. He was at one time a member of the Executive Body, and was afterwards proclaimed by the Legislative Assembly as an enemy of the State.
[23]A leader of Greek insurgents—Byron calls him Ulysses—who broke away from Government control to form an independent party in opposition to Mavrocordato, with whose views Byron sympathized. Trelawny and Colonel Stanhope believed in Odysseus, who after having acquired great influence in Eastern Greece was proclaimed by the Government, imprisoned, and murdered while in captivity.
[24]‘Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,’ edited by Mrs. Julian Marshall.
[25]For further evidence on this point, see ‘Letters of Lord Byron,’ edited by Rowland Prothero, vol. i., pp. 9-11.
[26]It is difficult to reconcile this with Millingen’s statement.
[27]Edinburgh Review, April, 1871, pp. 294-298.
[28]He succeeded Sir Thomas Maitland as High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.
[29]This must be takencum grano salis.
[30]They appear to have met accidentally in Trinity Walks a few days earlier. Edleston did not at first recognize Byron, who had grown so thin.
[31]Edleston, who some time previously had given Byron a ‘Cornelian’ as a parting gift on leaving Cambridge for the vacation.
[32]Edleston had died five months before Byron heard the sad news.
[33]‘I think it proper to state to you that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of anymalefriend.’—Lord Byron to Mr. Dallas.
[34]That this Thyrza was no passing fancy is proved by Lord Lovelace’s statement in ‘Astarte’ (p. 138): ‘He had occasionally spoken of Thyrza to Lady Byron, at Seaham and afterwards in London,always with strong but contained emotion. He once showed his wife a beautiful tress of Thyrza’s hair,but never mentioned her real name.’
[35]Captain (afterwards Commodore) Walter Bathurst was mortally wounded at the Battle of Navarino, on October 20, 1827.—‘Battles of the British Navy,’ Joseph Allen, vol. ii., p. 518.
[36]The last line was in the first draft.
[37]Medwin (edition of 1824), p. 63.
[38]‘A power of fascination rarely, if ever, possessed by any man of his age’ (‘Recollections of a Long Life,’ by Lord Broughton, vol. ii., p. 196).
[39]‘Letters and Journals of Byron,’ vol. iii., p. 406, edited by Rowland E. Prothero.
[40]Moore had rented a cottage in Nottinghamshire, not very remote from Newstead Abbey.
[41]See ‘Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,’ edited by Rowland Prothero, vol. ii., pp. 267, 269, 278, 292.
[42]‘Had I not written “The Bride” (in four nights), I must have gone mad by eating my own heart—bitter diet.’—‘Journals and Letters,’ vol. ii., p. 321.
[43]
‘Hail be you, Mary, mother and May,Mild, and meek, and merciable!’An Ancient Hymn to the Virgin.
[44]Mary was ‘the last of a time-honoured race.’ The line of the Chaworths ended with her.
[45]It will be remembered that Byron had announced ‘The Corsair’ as ‘the last production with which he should trespass on public patience for some years.’ With the loss of Mary’s love his inspiration was gone.
[46]
‘With hackbut bent, my secret stand,Dark as the purposed deed, I chose,And mark’d where, mingling in his band,Trooped Scottish pikes and English bows.’Sir Walter Scott:Cadyow Castle.
[47]Mary’s allusion to the seal is explained by an entry in Byron’s journal, November 14, 1813. The seal is treasured as a memento of Byron by the Musters family.
[48]No one, we presume, will question the identity of the person mentioned in ‘The Dream’:
‘Upon a tone,A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,And his cheek change tempestuously—his heartUnknowing of its cause of agony.’
[49]‘Astarte,’ p. 134.
[50]Lady Caroline Lamb also asserted that Byron showed her some letters which contained some such expression as this: “Oh! B——, if we loved one another as we did in childhood—thenit was innocent.” The reader may judge whether such a remark would be more natural from Augusta, or from Mary Chaworth.
[51]October 14, 1814.
[52]See the poem ‘Remember Him’: ‘Thy soul from long seclusion pure.’
[53]
‘Ophelia.O heavenly powers, restore him!’Hamlet, Act III., Scene i.
[54]
‘The song, celestial from thy voice,But sweet to me from none but thine.’Poetry of Byron, vol. iv.: ‘To Thyrza.’
[55]
‘Siede la terra, dove nata fui,Su la marina dove il Po discende.’Inferno, Canto V., 97, 98.
[56]Although not near the source of the Po itself, Byron, at Ferrara, was not very far from the point where the Po di Primaro breaks away from the Po, and, becoming an independent river, flows into the dark blue Adriatic, about midway between Comachio and Ravenna.
[57]Shortly afterwards he translated ‘The Episode of Francesca,’ line for line, into English verse.
[58]‘Beppo,’ stanza 83.
[59]‘Astarte,’ p. 166.
[60]Lady Byron and Rev. F. Robertson drew up a memorandum of this conversation, April 8, 1851.
[61]‘Astarte,’ p. 137.
[62]‘Recollections of a Long Life,’ by Lord Broughton, vol. ii., p. 297.
[63]Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 219, 239.
[64]‘Lady Byron said that she founded her determination [to part from her husband] on some communication from London.’—‘Recollections of a Long Life,’ vol. ii., p. 255.
[65]‘There is reason to believe that Lord Chief Justice Cockburn privately saw letters [in 1869] of 1813 and 1814 which proved the fact of incest, and the overwhelming effect of the evidence therein contained.’—‘Astarte,’ p. 54.
[66]‘Astarte,’ p. 77.
[67]Hanson.
[68]Leigh.
[69]‘Recollections of a Long Life,’ vol. ii., p. 303.
[70]A fortnight before writing ‘Stanzas to the Po.’
[71]‘Short name of three or four letters obliterated.’—‘Astarte,’ p. 180.
[72]Short name of three or four letters obliterated.
[73]Marianna (Anglice: Mary Anne).
[74]Lady Byron (see ‘Astarte,’ p. 166).
[75]His sister’s society.
[76]In case Byron altered his will.
[77]Vol. v., p. 1.
[78]Tinct. chinæ corticis; tinct. cinchonæ.