himself. It is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. I might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when I have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. It is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly un-requited affection, but so long as I live my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly." -Leller of Lady Byron to Lady Anne Lindsay, extracted from Lord Lindsay's letter to the Times, September 3, 1869.)

According to Mrs Leigh, Murray paid Lady Byron "the compliment" of showing her the transcription of the Third Canto, by Jane Claire Clairmont, a day or two after it came into his possession. Most probably she did not know or recognise the handwriting, but she could not fail to remember that but one short year ago she had herself been engaged in transcribing The Siege of Corinth and Parisina for the press. Between the making of those two "fair copies," a tragedy had intervened.]

[The Countess Guiccioli is responsible for the statement that Byron looked forward to a time when his daughter "would know her father by his works." Then," said he, "shall I

And Evan's Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears! Stanza xxvi, line 9.

Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant, Donald, the "gentle Lochiel" of the "forty-five."

[Sir Evan Cameron (1629-1719) fought against Cromwell, finally yielding on honourable terms to Monk, June 5, 1658, and, for James II., at

triumph, and the tears which my daughter will then shed, together with the knowledge that she will have the feelings with which the various allusions to herself and me have been written, will console me in my darkest hours. Ada's mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her youth and childhood, but the tears of her maturer age will be for me.' My Recollections of Lord Byron, by the Countess Guiccioli, 1869, p. 172.)

I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. Stanza xxx. line 9.

My guide from Mount St Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathBay's side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished, the guide said, "Here Major Howard lay: I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback wice over the field, comparing it with

R

As

my recollection of similar scenes. a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination: I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Charonea, and Marathon; and the field around Mount St Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned.

[For particulars of the death of Major Howard, see Personal Memoirs, etc., by Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 323-1

7.

Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. Stanza xxxiv. line 6.

The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltites were said to be fair without, and, within, ashes.

[They are a species of gall-nut, and are described by Curzon (Visits to Monasteries of the Levant, 1897, p. 141), who met with the tree that bears them, near the Dead Sea, and, mistaking the fruit for a ripe plum, proceeded to eat one, whereupon his mouth was filled "with a dry bitter dust." "The apple of Sodom is supposed by some to refer to the fruit of the Solanum Sodomeum (allied to tomato), by others to the Calotropis procera" (N. Eng. Dict.).]

8.

For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a den. Stanza xli. line 9.

The great error of Napoleon, "if we have writ our annals true,' was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny, Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the

Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is pleasanter than Moscow," would probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark.

9.

What want these outlaws conquerors should have? Stanza xlviii. line 6.

"What wants that knave that a king should have?" was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements. See the Ballad.

[Johnie Armstrong, the laird of Gilnockie, on the occasion of an enforced surrender to James V. (1532), came before the king somewhat too richly accoutred, and was hanged for his effrontery.

"There hang nine targats at Johnie's hat, And ilk ane worth three hundred pound 'What wants that knave a King suld have, But the sword of honour and the crown'?" Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1821, i. 127.]

10.

The castled Crag of Drachenfels.

Song, stanza 1, line 1.

The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of "the Seven Mountains," over the Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions. It is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river: on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross, commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The

number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful.

[The castle of Drachenfels (Dragon's Rock) stands on the summit of one, but not the highest, of the Siebengebirge, an isolated group of volcanic hills on the right bank of the Rhine between Remagen and Bonn. The legend runs that in one of the caverns of the rock dwelt the dragon which was slain by

Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied. Hence the vin du pays is called Drachenblut.]

II.

The whiteness of his soul and thus men o'er him wept. Stanza lvii. line 9.

The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day of the fourth year of the French Republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough; France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle he had not the good fortune to die there: his death was attended by sus picions of poison.

A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, op posite to which one of his most memor able exploits was performed, in throw ing a bridge to an island on the Rhin [April 18, 1797]. The shape and styl are different from that of Marceau's and the inscription more simple an pleasing.

"The Army of the Sambre and Meuse
to its Commander-in-Chief
Hoche.'

This is all, and as it should be Hoche was esteemed among the first c France's earlier generals, before Bu naparte monopolised his triumph He was the destined commander of th invading army of Ireland.

[The tomb of François Sévérin De gravins Marceau (1769-1795, gener of the French Republic) bears the fo lowing epitaph and inscription:

'Hic cineres, ubique nomen.'

"Ici repose Marceau, né à Chartres, EureLoir, soldat à seize ans, général à vingtdeux ar Il mourut en combatant pour sa patrie, le derni jour de l'an iv. de la République françai Qui que tu sois, ami ou ennemi de ce jeu héros, respecte ces cendres."

A bronze statue at Versailles, raised to the memory of General Hoche (1768 -1797) bears a very similar record

"A Lazare Hoche, né à Versailles le 24 juin, 1768, sergent à seize ans, général en chef à vingtinq, mort à vingt-neuf, pacificateur de la Vendée."]

12.

Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall. Stanza Iviii. line 1.

Ehrenbreitstein, i.e. "the broad stone of honour," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison; but the situation General is commanding. Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it.

[Ehrenbreitstein, which had resisted the French under Marshal Boufflers in 1680, and held out against Marceau (1795-96), finally capitulated to the French after a prolonged siege in 1799. The fortifications were dismantled when the French evacuated the fortress after the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. The Treaty of Leoben was signed April 18, 1797-]

13.

Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. Stanza Ixiii. line 9.

The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian Legion in the service of France; who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country), and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, who carried them off to sell for

knife-handles; a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preservation which I intend for them.

[Charles the Bold was defeated by the Swiss at the Battle of Morat, June 22, 1476. It has been computed that more than twenty thousand Burgundians fell in the battle.

Mr Murray still has in his possession the parcel of bones- the "quarter of a hero". which Byron sent home from the field of Morat.]

Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago; it is thus: -“Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris, infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos XXIII." I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of

a

confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication.