AND now a parting word is due from him Who, in the classic fields of ITALY, (If haply thou hast borne with him so long,) Through many a grove, by many a fount, has led thee, By many a temple half as old as Time; Where all was still awakening them that slept, And conjuring up where all was desolate, Where kings were mouldering in their funeral urns, And oft and long the vulture flapped his wing Triumphs and masques. Nature denied him much, But gave him at his birth what most he values; For all things here, or grand or beautiful, The light of an ingenuous countenance, Nature denied him much, but gave him more; Though from his cheek, ere yet the down was there, Full oft to wander where the Muses haunt, Smit with the love of song. "Tis now long since; And now, while yet 'tis day, would he withdraw, Who, when in youth he strung his lyre, addresse A former generation. Many an eye, Bright as the brightest now, is closed in night, And many a voice, how eloquent, is mute, That, when he came, disdained not to receive His lays with favour. ADDITIONAL NOTES. Page 232, line 11.-'Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it." Lines of eleven syllables occur almost in every page of Milton; but though they are not unpleasing, they ought not to be admitted into heroic poetry; since the narrow limits of our language allow us no other distinction of epic and tragic measures." -JOHNSON. It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In the "Paradise Regained" they occur oftener than in the "Paradise Lost" in the proportion of ten to one; and let it be remembered that they supply us with another close, another cadence; that they add, as it were, a string to the instrument; and, by enabling the poet to relax at pleasure, to rise and fall with his subject, contribute what is most wanted, compass, variety. Shakespeare seems to have delighted in them, and in some of his soliloquies has used them four and five times in succession; an example I have not followed in mine. As in the following instance, where the subject is solemn beyond all others: "To be, or not to be," &c. They come nearest to the flow of an unstudied eloquence, and should therefore be used in the drama; but why exclusively? Horace, as we learn from himself, admitted the Musa Pedestris in his happiest hours, in those when he was most at his ease; and we cannot regret her visits. To her we are indebted for more than half he has left us; nor was she ever at his elbow in greater dishabille, than when he wrote the celebrated "Journey to Brundusium." P. 233, 1. 21.-That winds beside the mirror of all beauty.-The following lines were written on the spot, and may serve perhaps to recall to some of my readers what they have seen in this enchanting country. I love to watch in silence till the Sun Sets; and MONT BLANC, arrayed in crimson and gold, Flings his gigantic shadow o'er the Lake; But, while we gaze, 'tis gone! And now he shines Such moments are most precious. Yet there are When, like a ghost, shadowless, colourless, As though they were not and had never been! P. 234, 1. 5.-Never to be named.-See the Odyssey, lib. xix. v. 597, and lib. xxiii. v. 19. P. 243, l. 11.-ST. BRUNO'S once.—' -The Grande Chartreuse. It was indebted for its foundation to a miracle; as every guest may learn there from a little book that lies on the table in his cell, the cell alloted to him by the fathers. "In this year the Canon died, and, as all believed, in the odour of sanctity: for who in his life had been so holy, in his death so happy? But how false are the judgments of men! For when the hour of his funeral had arrived, when the mourners had entered the church, the bearers set down the bier, and every voice was lifted up in the Miserere, suddenly, and as none knew how, the lights were extinguished, the anthem stopt! A darkness succeeded, a silence as of the grave; and these words came in sorrowful accents from the lips of the dead: 'I am summoned before a Just God! ... A Just God judgeth me!... I am condemned by a Just God !"" "In the church," says the legend, "there stood a young man with his hands clasped in prayer, who from that time resolved to withdraw into the desert. It was he whom we now invoke as St. Bruno." P. 243, l. 18.-Glided along those aisles interminable.—" Ils ont la même longueur que l'église de Saint-Pierre de Rome, et ils renferment quatre cents cellules." P. 245, 1. 2.-He was nor dull nor contradictory.-Not that I felt the confidence of Erasmus, when, on his way from Paris to Turin, he encountered the dangers of Mont Cenis in 1507; when, regardless of torrent and precipice, he versified as he went; composing a poem on horseback,1 and writing it down at intervals as he sat in his saddle2-an example, I imagine, followed by few. Much indeed of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," as the author assured me, was conceived and executed in like manner on his journey through Greece; but the work was performed in less unfavourable circumstances; for, if his fits of inspiration were stronger, he travelled on surer ground. P. 248, 1. 14. And gathered from above, below, around.-The author of "Lalla Rookh," a poet of such singular felicity as to give a lustre to all he touches, has written a song on this subject, called “The Crystal-hunters." 1 "Carmen equestre, vel potius Alpestre."-ERASMUS. 2 "Notans in chartâ super sellam."--Idem. P. 255, 1. 18.— Every look Went to the heart, for from the heart it came. When may not our minds be said to stream into each other, for how much by the light of the countenance comes from the child to the mother before he has the gift of speech; and how much afterwards in like manner comes to console us and to cheer us in our journey through life, for when even to the last cannot we give, cannot we receive, what no words can convey? And is not this the universal language, the language of all nations from the beginning of Time; which comes with the breath of life, nor goes till life itself is departing? P. 259, l. 17.—I love to sail along the LARIAN Lake. —Originally thus: I love to sail along the LARIAN Lake Under the shore-though not, where'er he dwelt, To visit PLINY-not, where'er he dwelt, From glade to glade, adorning as he went, He moved at pleasure, many a marble porch, P. 367, 1. 8.-My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine. —Originally thus : My omelet, and a trout, that, as the sun Shot his last ray through Zanga's leafy grove, Leaped at a golden fly, had happily Fled from all eyes; Zanga is the name of a beautiful villa near Bergamo, in which Tasso finished his tragedy of "Torrismondo." It still belongs to his family. P. 267, l. 13.—Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise.-After line 13, in the MS.: That evening, tended on with verse and song, I closed my eyes in heaven, but not to sleep; Chapelle and Bachaumont fared no better at Salon, "à cause d'une comédienne, qui s'avisa d'accoucher de deux petits comédiens." P. 267, l. 16.—And shall I sup where JULIET at the Masque.—Originally thus: And shall I sup where JULIET at the Masque First saw and loved, and now, by him who came That night a stranger, sleeps from age to age? An old Palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the Market-place; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference? When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say with Dante, "Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti." |