Don Juan

Canto the Sixteenth

{572}[768] March 29, 1823.

[769] [Herodotus, _Hist._, i. 136.]

[770] [_Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2, line 103.]

{573}[771] [The story is told of St. Thomas Aquinas, that he wrote a

work _De Omnibus Rebus_, which was followed by a second treatise, _De

Quibusdam Aliis._]

[772] [Not St. Augustine, but Tertullian. See his treatise, _De Carne

Christi_, cap. V. c. (_Opera_, 1744, p. 310): "Crucifixus est Dei

filius: non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei filius: prorsus

credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit: certum est quia

impossibile est."]

{574}[773] ["That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not

undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of

all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or unlearned,

among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This

opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused,

could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one

another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can

make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little

weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their tongues,

confess it with their fears."--_Rasselas_, chap. xxx., _Works_, ed.

1806, iii. 372, 373.]

{575}[774] The composition of the old Tyrian purple, whether from a

shell-fish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an article of

dispute; and even its colour--some say purple, others scarlet: I say

nothing.

[Kermes is cochineal, the Greek [Greek: kokkinon.] The

shell-fish (_murex_) is the _Purpura patula_. Both substances were used

as dyes.]

[775] [See Ovid, _Heroid_, Epist. ix. line 161.]

[776] [Titus used to promise to "bear in mind," "to keep on his list,"

the petitions of all his supplicants, and once, at dinner-time, his

conscience smote him, that he had let a day go by without a single

grant, or pardon, or promotion. Hence his confession. "Amici, diem

perdidi!" _Vide_ Suetonius, _De XII. C**_, "Titus," lib. viii. cap. 8.]

[777] [_Tuism_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_. Coleridge has a note

dated 1800 (_Literary Remains_, i. 292), on "egotizing in _tuism_" but

it was not included in Southey's _Omniana_ of 1812, and must have been

unknown to Byron.]

{576}[778] [Sc. _toilette_, a Gallicism.]

[779] [Byron loved to make fact and fancy walk together, but, here, his

memory played him false, or his art kept him true. The Black Friar

walked and walks in the Guests' Refectory (or Banqueting Hall, or

"Gallery" of this stanza), which adjoins the Prior's Parlour, but the

room where Byron slept (in a four-post bed-a coronet, at each corner,

atop) is on the floor above the Prior's Parlour, and can only be

approached by a spiral staircase. Both rooms look west, and command a

view of the "lake's billow" and the "cascade." Moreover, the Guests'

Refectory was never hung with "old pictures." It would seem that Don

Juan (perhaps Byron on an emergency) slept in the Prior's Parlour, and

that in the visionary Newstead the pictures forsook the Grand

Drawing-Room for the Hall. Hence the scene! _El Libertado_ steps out of

the Gothic Chamber "forth" into the "gallery," and lo! "a monk in cowl

and beads." But, _Quien sabe?_ The Psalmist's caution with regard to

princes is not inapplicable to poets.]

{577}[780] [Compare Mariner's description of the cave in Hoonga Island

(_Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 629, note 1).]

{578}[781] ["The place," wrote Byron to Moore, August 13, 1814, "is

worth seeing as a ruin, and I can assure you there _was_ some fun there,

even in my time; but that is past. The ghosts, however, and the Gothics,

and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively still." "It

was," comments Moore (_Life_, p. 262, note 1), "if I mistake not, during

his recent visit to Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw

the ghost of the Black Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the

Abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and which he

thus describes from the recollection, perhaps, of his own fantasy, in

_Don Juan_.... It is said that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to

Lord Byron's cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of

him from memory." The legend of the Black Friar may, it is believed at

Newstead (_et vide post_, "Song," stanza ii. line 5, p. 583), be traced

to the alarm and suspicion of the country-folk, who, on visiting the

Abbey, would now and then catch sight of an aged lay-brother, or monkish

domestic, who had been retained in the service of the Byrons long after

the Canons had been "turned adrift." He would naturally keep out of

sight of a generation who knew not monks, and, when surprised in the

cloisters or ruins of the church, would glide back to his own quarters

in the dormitories.]

[782]

["Shew his eyes, and grieve his heart;

Come like shadows, so depart."

_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. 1, lines 110, 111.]

{582}[nz]

_With that she rose as graceful as a Roe_

_Slips from the mountain in the month of June,_

_And opening her Piano 'gan to play_

_Forthwith--"It was a Friar of Orders Gray."_--[MS. erased.]

{584}[oa] _By their bed of death he receives their_ [_breath_].--[MS.

erased.]

{585}[783] I think that it was a carpet on which Diogenes trod,

with--"Thus I trample on the pride of Plato!"--"With greater pride," as

the other replied. But as carpets are meant to be trodden upon, my

memory probably misgives me, and it might be a robe, or tapestry, or a

table-cloth, or some other expensive and uncynical piece of furniture.

[It was Plato's couch or lounge which Diogenes stamped upon. "So much

for Plato's pride!" "And how much for yours, Diogenes?" "Calco Platonis

fastum!" "Ast fastu alio?" (_Vide_ Diogenis Laertii _De Vita et

Sententiis_, lib. vi. ed. 1595, p. 321.)

For "Attic Bee," _vide_ Cic. I. _De Div._, xxxvi. 78, "At Platoni cum

in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum est,

singulari illum suavitate orationis fore."]

{586}[784] [For two translations of this Portuguese song, see _Poetical

Works_, 1900, iii. 71.]

[785] I remember that the mayoress of a provincial town, somewhat

surfeited with a similar display from foreign parts, did rather

indecorously break through the applauses of an intelligent

audience--intelligent, I mean, as to music--for the words, besides being

in recondite languages (it was some years before the peace, ere all the

world had travelled, and while I was a collegian), were sorely disguised

by the performers:--this mayoress, I say, broke out with, "Rot your

Italianos! for my part, I loves a simple ballat!" Rossini will go a good

way to bring most people to the same opinion some day. Who would imagine

that he was to be the successor of Mozart? However, I state this with

diffidence, as a liege and loyal admirer of Italian music in general,

and of much of Rossini's; but we may say, as the connoisseur did of

painting in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, that "the picture would be better

painted if the painter had taken more pains."

[A little while, and Rossini is being lauded at the expense of a

degenerate modern rival. Compare Browning's _Bishop Blougram's Apology_.

"Where sits Rossini patient in his stall."--_Poetical Works_, ed. 1868,

v. 276.]

[786] [Compare _The Two Foscari_, act iii. sc. 1, line 172, _Poetical

Works_, 1901, v. 159, note 1.]

{587}[787] [Of Lady Beaumont, who was "weak enough" to admire

Wordsworth, see _The Blues_, Ecl. II. line 47, _sq._, _Poetical Works_,

1901, iv. 582.]

[788] [Christopher Anstey (1724-1802) published his _New Bath Guide_ in

1766.]

[789] [Compare _English Bards, etc._, lines 309-318, _Poetical Works_,

1898, i. 321, note 1.]

{588}[790] [For "Gynocracy," _vide ante_, p. 473, note 1.]

{589}[ob] _Thrower down of buildings_----.--[MS. erased.]

[791] [Byron had, no doubt, inspected the plan of Colonel Wildman's

elaborate restoration of the Abbey, which was carried out at a cost of

one hundred thousand pounds (see stanza lix. lines 1, 2). The kitchen

and domestic offices, which extended at right angles to the west front

of the Abbey (see "Newstead from a Picture by Peter Tilleman, _circ._

1720" _Letters_, 1898, i. (to face p.) 216), were pulled down and

rebuilt, the massive Sussex Tower (so named in honour of H.R.H. the Duke

of Sussex) was erected at the south-west corner of the Abbey, and the

south front was, in part, rebuilt and redecorated. Byron had been ready

to "leave everything" with regard to his beloved Newstead to Wildman's

"own feelings, present or future" (see his letter, November 18, 1818,

_Letters_, 1900, iv. 270); but when the time came, the necessary and, on

the whole, judicious alterations of his successor, must have cost the

"banished Lord" many a pang.]

{590}[792] "Ausu Romano, sere Veneto" is the inscription (and well

inscribed in this instance) on the sea walls between the Adriatic and

Venice. The walls were a republican work of the Venetians; the

inscription, I believe, Imperial; and inscribed by Napoleon the _First_.

It is time to continue to him that title--there will be a second by and

by, "Spes altera mundi," _if he live_; let him not defeat it like his

father. But in any case, he will be preferable to "_Imb*****_." There

is a glorious field for him, if he know how to cultivate it.

[Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon, Duke of Reichstadt, died at Vienna,

July 22, 1832. But, none the less, Byron's prophecy was fulfilled.]

[793] [Burgage, or tenure in burgage, is where the king or some other

person is lord of an ancient borough, in which the tenements are held by

a yearly rent certain.]

[794]

["I conjure you, by that which you profess,

(Howe'er you come to know it) answer me:

Though you _untie_ the winds, and let them fight

Against the _churches_."

_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. 1, lines 50-53.]

{591}[795] [See the lines "To my Son," _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 260,

note 1.]

{592}[796] [See Spenser's _Fa** Queen_, Book I. Canto IX. stanza 6,

line 1.]

[oc]

_To name what passes for a puzzle rather,_

_Although there must be such a thing--a father_.--[MS. erased.]

{594}[797]

["Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,

And champion me to the utterance."

_Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 70, 71.]

{595}[798] [For "Septemberers (_Septembriseurs_)," see Carlyle's _French

Revolution_, 1839, iii. 50.]

{596}[799] ["Query, _Sydney Smith_, author of Peter Plymley's

Letters?--Printer's Devil."--Ed. 1833. Byron must have met Sydney Smith

(1771-1845) at Holland House. The "fat fen vicarage" (_vide infra_,

stanza lxxxii. line 8) was Foston-le-Clay (Foston, All Saints), near

Barton Hill, Yorkshire, which Lord Chancellor Erskine presented to

Sydney Smith in 1806. The "living" consisted of "three hundred acres of

glebe-land of the stiffest clay," and there was no parsonage house.--See

_A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith_, by Lady Holland, 1855, i. 100-107.]

[800] ["Observe, also, three grotesque figures in the blank arches of

the gable which forms the eastern end of St. Hugh's Chapel," and of

these, "one is popularly said to represent the 'Devil looking over

Lincoln.'"--_Handbook to the Cathedrals of England_, by R.J. King,

_Eastern Division_, p. 394, note x.

The devil looked over Lincoln because the unexampled height of the

central tower of the cathedral excited his envy and alarm; or, as Fuller

(_Worthies: Lincolnshire_) has it, "overlooked this church, when first

finished, with a torve and tetrick countenance, as maligning men's

costly devotions." So, at least, the vanity of later ages interpreted

the saying; but a time was when the devil "looked over" Lincoln to some

purpose, for in A.D. 1185 an earthquake clave the Church of Remigius in

twain, and in 1235 a great part of the central tower, which had been

erected by Bishop Hugh de Wells, fell and injured the rest of the

building.]

{597}[od] _For laughter rarely shakes these aguish folks_.--[MS,

erased.]

[oe] _Took down the gay_ bon-mot----.--[MS. erased.]

[of] _To hammer half a laugh_----.--[MS. erased.]

[801]

["There's a difference to be seen between a beggar and a Queen;

And I 'll tell you the reason why;

A Queen does not swagger, nor get drunk like a beggar,

Nor be half so merry as I," etc.

"There's a difference to be seen,'twixt a Bishop and a Dean,

And I'll tell you the reason why;

A Dean can not dish up a dinner like a Bishop,

And that's the reason why!"]

{598}[802] ["Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus." Terentius, _Eun._, act

iv. sc. 5, line 6.]

{601}[803] In French "_mobilit**" I am not sure that mobility is

English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs to other

climates, though it is sometimes seen to a great extent in our own. It

may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate

impressions--at the same time without _losing_ the past: and is, though

sometimes apparently useful to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy

attribute.

["That he was fully aware not only of the abundance of this quality in

his own nature, but of the danger in which it placed consistency and

singleness of character, did not require the note on this passage to

assure us. The consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to

yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing

impulse, was not only for ever present in his mind, but ... had the

effect of keeping him in that general line of consistency, on certain

great subjects, which ... he continued to preserve throughout

life."--_Life_, p. 646. "Mobility" is not the tendency to yield to

_every_ impression, to change with _every_ impulse, but the capability

of being moved by many and various impressions, of responding to an

ever-renewed succession of impulses. Byron is defending the enthusiastic

temperament from the charge of inconstancy and insincerity.]

[804] [The first edition of Cocker's _Arithmetic_ was published in 1677.

There are many allusions to Cocker in Arthur Murphy's _Apprentice_

(1756), whence, perhaps, the saying, "according to Cocker."]

{602}[805] "[Et Horatii] Curiosa felicitas."--Petronius Arbiter,

_Salyric*_, cap. cxviii.

[806]

["Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."

Pope _on Addison, Prologue to the Satires_, lines 201, 202.]

{604}[807] [Bion, _Epitaphium Adonidis_, line 28.]

[808] [" ... genetrix hominum, div**** voluptas, Alma Venus!" Lucret.,

_De Rerum Nat_., lib. i. lines 1, 2.]

{605}[809] [_Job_ iv. 13.]

[810] See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince Charles of

Saxony, raised by Schroepfer--"Karl--Karl--was willst du mit mir?"

[For Johann Georg Schrepfer (1730(?)-1774), see J.S.B. Schlegel's

_Tagebuch, etc._, 1806, and _Schw**** und Schwindler_, von Dr. Eugen

Sierke, 1874, pp. 298-332.]

{606}[811] [_Inferno_, Canto III. line 9.]

[og] _When once discovered it don't like to come near it_.--[MS.]

{607}[oh] _A beardless chin_----.--[MS.]

[812] [End of Canto 16. B. My. 6, 1823.--MS.]