NOTES TO CANTO THE SECOND.

1.-Stanza i., line 4.

And is, despite of war and wasting fire,

Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege.-[On the highest part of Lycabettus, as Chandler was informed by an eye-witness, the Venetians, in 1687, placed four mortars and six pieces of cannon, when they battered the Acropolis. One of the bombs was fatal to some of the sculpture on the west front of the Parthenon.]

2. Stanza i., line 9.

That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow.

We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld: the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of generals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry. "The wild foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Babylon," were surely less degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained for the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction, in part, by fire during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a

H

mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard: it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrifice. But

"Man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep."

3. Stanza iii., line 9.

Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds. [In the original MS. is a note to this and the five succeeding stanzas, which had been prepared for publication, but was afterwards withdrawn, "from a fear," says the poet, "that it might be considered rather as an attack, than a defence of religion; "-"In this age of bigotry, when the puritan and priest have changed places, and the wretched Catholic is visited with the sins of his fathers,' even unto generations far beyond the pale of the commandment, the cast of opinion in these stanzas will, doubtless, meet with many a contemptuous anathema. But let it be remembered, that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not sneering, scepticism; that he who has seen the Greek and Moslem superstitions contending for mastery over the former shrines of Polytheism-who has left in his own' Pharisees, thanking God that they are not like publicans and sinners,' and Spaniards in theirs, abhorring the heretics, who have holpen them in their need,-will be not a little bewildered, and begin to think, that as only one of them can be right, they may, most of them, be wrong. With regard to morals, and the effect of religion on mankind, it appears, from all historical testimony, to have had less effect in making them love their neighbours, than inducing that cordial Christian abhorrence between sectaries and schismatics. The Turks and Quakers are the most tolerant: if an Infidel pays his heratch to the former, he may pray, how, when, and where he pleases; and the mild tenets and devout demeanour of the latter, make their lives the truest commentary on the Sermon on the Mount."]

4.-Stanza iv., line 7.

Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe?

["Still wilt thou harp."-MS.]

5.-Stanza V., line 2.

Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:

It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous.

6.-Stanza viii.

[For the magnificent eighth stanza the MS. has the following:

"Frown not upon me, churlish Priest! that I

Look not for life, where life may never be;

I am no sneerer at thy phantasy:

Thou pitiest me,-alas! I envy thee,

Thou bold discoverer, in an unknown sea,

Of happy isles and happier tenants there';

I ask thee not to prove a Sadducee;

Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where,

But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share."

Two more stanzas are in the MS. after the thirteenth stanza

"Come then, ye classic Thanes of each degree,
Dark Hamilton and sullen Aberdeen,
Come pilfer all the Pilgrim loves to see,
All that yet consecrates the fading scene:
Oh! better were it ye had never been,
Nor ye, nor Elgin, nor that lesser wight,
The victim sad of vase-collecting spleen,
House-furnisher withal, one Thomas hight,

Thay ye should bear one stone from wrong'd Athena's site.

Or will the gentle Dilettanti crew
Now delegate the task to digging Gell,
That mighty limner of a bird's-eye view,
How like to Nature let his volumes tell;
Who can with him the folio's limits swell
With all the Author saw, or said he saw?
Who can topographize or delve so well?
No boaster he, nor impudent and raw,

His pencil, pen, and shade, alike without a flaw."

The review which Lord Byron wrote of Gell's works in 1811, is more complimentary than these ironical lines, but he still reiterates that his engravings are inaccurate, and his books too big.]

7.-Stanza ix., line 9.

For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!

[Lord Byron wrote this stanza at Newstead, in October, 1811, on hearing of the death of his Cambridge friend, young Eddlestone; "making,' he says, the sixth within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August."]

8. Stanza x., line 3.

Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne:

The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive; originally there were one hundred and fifty.

These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon.

9.-Stanza xi,, line 9.

And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine

The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago.

10.-Stanza xii., line 2.

To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:

At this moment (January 3, 1810), besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyræus to receive every portable relic. Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in common with many of his countrymen-for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion-thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the agent of devastation; and like the Greek finder of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of plunder. Between this artist and the French Consul Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains for his own government, there is now a violent dispute concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the wheel of which-I wish they were both broken upon it!-has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri has laid his complaint before the Waywode. Lord Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of Signor Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far as Sunium (now Cape Colonna), till he accompanied us in our second excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, are most beautiful: but they are almost all unfinished. While he and his patrons confine themselves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their little absurdities are as harmless as insect or fox-hunting, maiden speechifying, barouchedriving, or any such pastime; but when they carry away three or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy relics that time and barbarism have left to the most injured and most celebrated of cities: when they destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works which have been the admiration of ages, I know no motive which can excuse, no name which can designate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge of Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. The most unblushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; while the wanton and useless defacement of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration.

On this occasion I speak impartially: I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival; but I have some early prepossession in favour of Greece, and do not think the honour of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica.

Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less: but some others, more or less noble, yet "all honourable men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have done nothing at

all. We had such ink-shed, and wine-shed, which almost ended in bloodshed! Lord E.'s "prig"-see Jonathan Wild for the definition of "priggism"-quarrelled with another, Gropius* by name (a very good name too for his business), and muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to remember their squabble, for they wanted to make me their arbitrator.

11. Stanza xii., line 3.

Cold as the crays upon his native coast,

["Cold and accursed as his native coast."-MS.]

12.-Stanza xii., line 8.

Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,

I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines:-"When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of it, great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Téos !-I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar.

13. Stanza xiv., line 2.

Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way?

According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer.-See Chandler.

14. Stanza xviii., line 2.

The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy,

To prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action.

This Sr. Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri.-A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople, in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble lord a