NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO L Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine. Stanza i. line 6. THE little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock. "One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cow-house. The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The su organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. 6. Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. Stanza xxxiii. lines 8 and 9. As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least in cou rage, is evident. 7. When Cava's traitor-sire first call'd the band On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monasThat dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore. Stanza xxxv. lines 3 and 4. tery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and appa-gius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelarently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the some centuries, completed their struggle by the conDews of Castalie." quest of Grenada. 2. Aud rest ye at our "Lady's house of wo." Stanza xx. line 4. 8. No! as he speeds, he chants, " Viva el Rey!" Stanza xlviii. line 5. The Convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa "Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand! Senora de Pena*, on the summit of the rock. Below, is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs: at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. they are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard the hills, the sea adds to the beauty of the view. 3. Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop and in a carriage with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal: in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished! Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misapprehension the term Nossa Senora de Pena It was owing to the want o .c tile, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word!: with it, Pen signifies a rock; without it, Penn has the nense i adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as though the common acceptation affixed to it is " Our Lauly of the Rock," Tinay will assume the other sene from the severities practised there many of them; some of the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards univer sally impute the ruin of their country. 9. Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, 10. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile througn which I passed in my way to Seville. 11. Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall. Stanza Ivi, line last. Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by com mand of the Junta. 12. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd 13. Oh, thou Parnassus ! Stanza Ix. line 1. These stanzas were written in Castri, Delphos,) at the foot of Parnassus, now called Atakupa-Liakura 14. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast 15. what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now 18. 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 This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the Dest situation for asking and answering such a question; plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the Boeotia, where the first riddle was propounded and bravest; but how are the mighty fallen, when solved. Ask ye, Baotian shades! the reason why? 16. Stanza lxx. line 5. Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings, 17. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. Luc. Stanza lxxxv, line 7. 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 re mained 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 mosque. In each point of view it is an object of Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the regard: it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrilege. But Governor of Cadiz. 18. "War even to the knife!" Stanza Ixxxvi, line last. "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza. 19. And thou, my friend! &c. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honourable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn." Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne. Stanza x. line S. I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing columns, entirely of marble, yet survive: originally College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all there were 150. These columns, however, are by praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the many supposed to belong to the Pantheon. And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared. At this moment, (January 3, 1809,) besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyrus 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 PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explo. French Consul Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the resion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. 2. But worse than steel and flame, and ages slow, Stanza i. line 6. mains for his own government, there is now a violent Lord 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 Now Cape Colonna. In all Attica, if we exeept Athens itself and too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his coun-of Flato's conversations will not be unwelcome: and the traveller wilite try, appear more conspicuous than in the record of deep but for an Engisnan, Coleen has vet an additional interest, struck with the beauty of the prospect over “ Isles that crown the Ægean CANTO II. The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar. 8. Where was thine Egis, Pallas! that appall'd till he accompanied us in our second excursion. How-Parthenon, and, in moving of it, great part of the superever, his works, as far as they go, are most beautiful; structure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by but they are almost all unfinished. While he and his the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, patrons confine themselves to tasting medals, apprecia- who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his ting cameos, sketching columns, and cheapening gems, pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplica their little absurdities are as harmless as insect or fox-ting tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Téλos!-I was prehunting, maiden speechifying, barouch-driving, or any sent." 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 Stanza xiv. Dnes 1 and 2. dastardly devastation. It was not the least of the crimes ened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles fright laid to the charge of Verres, that he had plundered Si- the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scot cily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. most unblushing impudence could hardly go farther than Thetish peer.-See CHANDLER. 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 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, all. 9. the netted canopy. Stanza xviii. line 2. The netting to prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action. 10. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles. Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes mining and countermining, they have done nothing at Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, ChaoWe had such ink-shed, and wine-shed, which al-nia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexthan Wylde for the definition of "priggism"-quarrelled der) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the -see Jona- ander; and the celebrated Scanderberg (Lord Alexan"prig"with another, Gropius* by name, (a very good name thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am cortoo for his business,) and muttered something about sarect in making Scanderberg the countryman of Alexan. tisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prus-der, who was born at Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibsian: this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, speaking of his exploits. but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to remember their squabble, for they wanted to make me their arbitrator. 7 Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, bon terms him sight of Italy is less known than the interior of Ameri Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country "within ca. Circumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and with the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no com- at that time (October, 1809) carrying on war against ment with the public, but whose sanction will add ten- Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was fold weight to my testimony, to insert the following ex-fortress which he was then besieging: on our arrival at tract 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 as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are for- "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, Joannina we were invited to Tepoleni, his highness's After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every accommodaThis temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In tion, and escorted by one of the Vizier's secretaries, we two Journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view were nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishfrom either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the ing a journey which, on our return, barely occupied four. isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Minotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaonts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates: there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque. (See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, &c.) But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances. Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in size; On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper. On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by cede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably preI would to anticipate him. But some few observations are necessary to the text. This Sir 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 their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treadThe Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by ng at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Luisieri. A shipful of his tro- dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very moun phies was I believe confiscated, I am most happy to be now enabled to cated, at Constantinople, in 1810. tains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder climate. The tron disavows all connexion with him, except as an artist. If the error Celtic in its sound, and their hardy habits, all carried od that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble pakilt, though white; the spare, active form; their dialect, ment's pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr. Gropius has assumed for years me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and Je name of his agent: and though I cannot much condemn myself for dreaded by their neighbours as the Albanese; the sharing in the mistake of so ma y, I am happy in being one of the first to he undeccived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as felt regret in stating "* Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a mo sometimes neither. Their habits are predatory-all are to be expected: when master and inan have been scram armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montene-bling over the mountains of a dozen provinces together, grins, Chimariots, and Gegdes, are treacherous; the they are unwilling to separate; but his present feelings, others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in cha- contrasted with his native ferocity, improved my opinion racter. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak of the human heart. I believe this almost feudal fide. favourably. I was attended by two, an Infidel and a lity is frequent among them. One day, on our journey Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of over Parnassus, an Englishman in my service gave him Turkey which came within my observation; and more a push in some dispute about the baggage, which h faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service are rarely unluckily mistook for a blow; he spoke not, but sat to be found. The Infidel was named Basilius, the Mos- down leaning his head upon his hands. Foreseeing the lem, Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, consequences, we endeavoured to explain away the af and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly front, which produced the following answer-I have charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Der- been a robber; I am a soldier; no captain ever struck vish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the me; you are my master, I have eaten your bread, but forests of Arcanania to the banks of Achelous, and on- by that bread! (an usual oath) had it been otherwise, ward to Messalonghi in Ætolia. There I took him into I would have stabbed the dog your servant, and gone to my own service, and never had occasion to repent it the mountains." So the affair ended, but from that till the moment of my departure. day forward he never thoroughly forgave the thoughtless fellow who insulted him. When in 1810, after the departure of my friend Mr. H. for England, I was seized with a severe fever in Dervish excelled in the dance of his country, conjec the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening tured to be a remnant of the ancient Pyrrhic: be that away my physician, whose throat they threatened to as it may, it is manly, and requires wonderful agility. cut if I was not cured within a given time. To this It is very distinct from the stupid Romaika, the dull consolatory assurance of posthumous retribution, and round-about of the Greeks, of which our Athenian a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's prescriptions, I party had so many specimens. 66 12. -and pass'd the barien spot, Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave. Stanza xxxix, lines 1 and 2. Ithaca. 13. attributed my recovery. I had left my last remaining The Albanians in general (I do not mean the culti English servant at Athens; my dragoman was as ill vators of the earth in the provinces, who have also that as myself, and my poor Arnaouts nursed me with an appellation, but the mountaineers) have a fine cast of attention which would have done honour to civilization. countenance; and the most beautiful women I ever beThey had a variety of adventures; for the Moslem, held, in stature and in features, we saw levelling the Dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always road broken down by the torrents between Delvinachi squabbling with the husbands of Athens; insomuch that and Libochabo. Their manner of walking is truly the four of the principal Turks paid me a visit of remon-atrical; but this strut is probably the effect of the ca atrance at the Convent, on the subject of his having pote, or cloak, depending from one shoulder. Their taken a woman from the bath-whom he had lawfully long hair reminds you of the Spartans, and their courage bought however-a thing quite contrary to etiquette. in desultory warfare is unquestionable. Though they Basil also was extremely gallant among his own have some cavalry amongst the Gegdes, I never saw a persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the good Arnaout horseman; my own preferred the Engchurch, mixed with the highest contempt of churchmen, lise saddles, which, however, they could never keep. whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most heterodox But on foot they are not to be subdued by fatigue. manner. Yet he never passed a church without crossing himself; and I remember the risk he ran in entering St. Sophia, in Stambol, because it had once been a place of his worship. On remonstrating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, our church is holy, our priests are thieves" and then he crossed himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas" who refused to assist in any required opeActium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar. ration, as was always found to be necessary where a Stanza xl, line 5. priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi of his Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention. The village. Indeed a more abandoned race of miscreants battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considerable, but cannot exist than the lower orders of the Greek clergy. less known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras. Here When preparations were made for my return, my the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand. Albanians were summoned to receive their pay. Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my tended departure and marched away to his quarters with his bag of piastres. I sent for Dervish. but for some time he was not to be found; at last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci-devant Anglo-tory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown consul of Athens, and some other of my Greek acquaintances, paid me a visit. Dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it to the ground; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room, weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, tium, Anthony had thirteen kings at his levee. and all our efforts to console him only produced this answer, Μα φείνει, "He leaves me.' Signor Logotheti, who never wept before for any thing less than the loss of a para, melted; the padre of the convent, my attendants, my visitors-and I verily believe that even Sterne's foolish fat scullion" would have left her "fishkettle," to sympathize with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. in For my own part, when I remembered that, a short time before my departure from England, a noble and 14. And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love. herself. 15. Stanza xli, line 3. -many a Roman chief and Asian king. Stanza xlv. line 4. It is said, that on the day previous to the battle of Ac 16. Look where the second Cæsar's trophies 10se! Stanza xlv. line 6. Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. 17. -Acherusia's lake. Stanza xlvii. line 1. According to Pouqueville the lake of Yanina; but most intimate associate had excused himself from tak-Pouqueville is always out. That Dervish would leave me with some regret was • Para, about the fourth of a farthing. 18. |