Don Juan

Canto the Tenth

{400}[jt] _In a most natural whirling of rotation_.--[MS. erased.]

[ju] _Since Adam--gloriously against an apple_.--[MS. erased.]

[525] ["Neither Pemberton nor Whiston, who received from Newton himself

the history of his first Ideas of Gravity, records the story of the

falling apple. It was mentioned, however, to Voltaire by Catherine

Barton (afterwards Mrs. Conduit), Newton's niece. We saw the apple tree

in 1814.... The tree was so much decayed that it was taken down in 1820"

(_Memoirs, etc., of Sir Isaac Newton_, by Sir David Brewster, 1855, i.

27, note 1). Voltaire tells the story thus (_lments de la Philosophie

de Newton_, Partie III. chap, iii.): "Un jour, en l'anne 1666 [1665],

Newton, retir la campagne, et voyant tomber des fruits d'un arbre,

ce que m'a cont sa nice (Madame Conduit), se laissa aller une

mditation profonde sur la cause qui entrane ainsi tous les corps dans

une ligne qui, si elle tait prolonge, passerait peu prs par le

centre de la terre."--_Oeuvres Compltes_, 1837, v. 727.]

[jv] _To the then unploughed stars_----.--[MS. erased.]

{401}[526] [Compare _Churchill's Grave,_ line 23, _Poetical Works,_

1901, iv. 47, note 1.]

[527] [Shelley entitles him "The Pilgrim of Eternity," in his _Adonais_

(stanza xxx. line 3), which was written and published at Pisa in 1821.]

{402}[528] [Byron left Pisa (Palazzo Lanfranchi on the Arno) for the

Villa Saluzzo at Genoa, in the autumn of 1822.]

[jw]: 403_Malicious people_--.--[MS. erased.]

[529] ["We think the abuse of Mr. Southey ... by far too savage and

intemperate. It is of ill example, we think, in the literary world, and

does no honour either to the _taste_ or the _temper_ of the noble

author." --_Edinburgh Review_, February, 1822, vol. xxxvi. p. 445.

"I have read the recent article of Jeffrey ... I suppose the long and

the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't,

for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I

presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was

irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature

is."--Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 80.]

[jx]--_that essence of all Lie_.--[MS. erased.]

{404}[530] "Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron Bradwardine in

_Waverley_ is authority for the word. [The word is certainly in Butler's

_Hudibras_, Part II. Canto 2--

"Although your Church be opposite

To mine as Black Fryars are to White,

In _Rule_ and _Order_, yet I grant

You are a _Reformado Saint_."]

[531] [Stanza XV. is not in the MS. The "legal broom," _sc._ Brougham,

was an afterthought.]

[532] Query, _suit_?--Printer's Devil.

[533] [It has been argued that when "great Csar fell" he wore his

"robe" to muffle up his face, and that, in like manner, Jeffrey sank the

critic in the lawyer. A "deal likelier" interpretation is that Jeffrey

wore "his gown" right royally, as Csar wore his "triumphal robe." (See

Plutarch's _Julius Csar_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 515.)]

{405}[534] ["I don't like to bore you about the Scotch novels (as they

call them, though two of them are English, and the rest half so); but

nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes

in your company, that you are _not_ the man. To me these novels have so

much of 'Auld Lang Syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old),

that I never move without them."--Letter to Sir W. Scott, January 12,

1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 4, 5.]

[535] [Compare _The Island_, Canto II. lines 280-297.]

[536] The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one

arch, and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as

yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful

proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a

childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The

saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it

since I was nine years of age:--

"Brig of Balgounie, _black_'s your _wa'_,

Wi' a wife's _ae son_, and a mear's _ae foal_,

Doun ye shall fa'!"

[See for illustration of the Brig o' Balgownie, with its single Gothic

arch, _Letters_, 1901 [L.P.], v. 406. ]

{406}[537]

["Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,

Land of the mountain and the flood," etc.

_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto VI. stanza ii.]

{407}[jy]

_Some thirty years before at fair eighteen_.--[MS.]

or, _Seven and twenty_--which, _it does not matter_,--

_Wrinkles, those damnedst democrats, won't flatter_.--[MS. erased.]

[538] Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the people, demanded in their

name the execution of the Agrarian law; by which all persons possessing

above a certain number of acres were to be deprived of the surplus for

the benefit of the poor citizens.

{408}[539]

"Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura."

_Inferno_, Canto I. line 2.

[jz] _Hut where we travellers bait with dim reflection_.--[MS. erased.]

{409}[ka] _Is when he learns to limit his expenses_.--[MS. erased.]

[kb]

---- _till the ice_

_Cracked, she would ne'er believe in thaws for vice_.--[MS. erased.]

{410}[540] A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse power" of a

steam-engine. That mad wag, the Reverend Sydney Smith, sitting by a

brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that his dull neighbour

had a _"twelve-parson power"_ of conversation.

[541] [In a letter to his sister, October 25, 1804 (_Letters_, 1898, i.

40), Byron mentions an aunt--"the amiable antiquated Sophia," and asks,

"Is she yet in the land of the living, or does she sing psalms with the

Blessed in the other world?" This was his father's sister, Sophia Maria,

daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron. But his "good old aunt" is,

more probably, the Hon. Mrs. Frances Byron, widow of George (born April

22, 1730) son of the fourth, and brother of the "Wicked" lord. She was

the daughter and co-heiress of Ellis Levett, Esq., and lived "at

Nottingham in her own house." She died, aged 86, June 13, 1822, not long

before this Canto was written. She is described in the obituary notice

of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, June, 1822, vol. 92, p. 573, as "Daughter

of Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Byron (who sailed round the world with

Lord Anson), grandfather of the present Lord Byron." But that is,

chronologically, impossible. Byron must have retained a pleasing

recollection of the ear-trumpet and the spectacles, and it gratified his

kindlier humour to embalm their owner in his verse.]

[542] [See Collins's _Peerage_, 1779, vii. 120. It is probable that

Byron was lineally descended from Ralph de Burun, of Horestan, who is

mentioned in Doomsday Book (sect. xi.) as holding eight lordships in

Notts and five in Derbyshire, but with regard to Ernysius or Erneis the

pedigree is silent. (See _Pedigree of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron_,

by Edward Bernard, 1870.)]

{411}[543] "Hyde."--I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate word,

and, as such, subject to the tax of a quibble.

[kc]

_And humbly hope that the same God which hath given_

_Us land on earth, will do no less in Heaven_.--[MS. erased.]

[kd] _Perhaps--but d--n perhaps_----.--[MS.]

{412}[544] [For the illness ("a scarlet fever, complicated by angina,

both aggravated by premature exhaustion") and death of Lansko, see _The

Story of a Throne_, by K. Waliszewsky, 1895, ii. 131, 133. For the

rumour that he was poisoned by Potemkin, see _Mmoires Secrets, etc._

[by C.F.P. Masson], 1800, i. 170.]

[545] [Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), the nephew of William Hunter, the

brother of Agnes and Joanna Baillie, was a celebrated anatomist. He

attended Byron (1799-1802), when an endeavour was made to effect a cure

of the muscular contraction of his right leg and foot. He was consulted

by Lady Byron, in 1816, with regard to her husband's supposed

derangement, but was not admitted when he called at the house in

Piccadilly. He is said to have "avoided technical and learned phrases;

to have affected no sentimental tenderness, but expressed what he had to

say in the simplest and plainest terms" (_Annual Biography_, 1824, p.

319). Jekyll (_Letters_, 1894, p. 110) repeats or invents an anecdote

that "the old king, in his mad fits, used to say he could bring any dead

people to converse with him, except those who had died under Baillie's

care, for that the doctor always dissected them into so many morsels,

that they had not a leg to walk to Windsor with." It is hardly necessary

to say that John Abernethy (1764-1831) "expressed what _he_ had to say"

in the bluntest and rudest terms at his disposal.]

[546] The empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the Emperor Joseph,

in the year--I forget which.

[The Prince de Ligne, who accompanied Catherine in her progress through

her southern provinces, in 1787, gives the following particulars: "We

have crossed during many days vast, solitary regions, from which her

Majesty has driven Zaporogua, Budjak, and Nogais Tartars, who, ten years

ago, threatened to ravage her empire. All these places were furnished

with magnificent tents for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, suppers, and

sleeping-rooms ... deserted regions were at once transformed into

fields, groves, villages: ... The Empress has left in each chief town

gifts to the value of a hundred thousand roubles. Every day that we

remained stationary was marked with diamonds, balls, fireworks, and

illuminations throughout a circuit of ten leagues." --_The Prince de

Ligne, His Memoirs, etc._, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley,

1899, ii. 31.]

{415}[ke] _Man, midst thy mouldy mammoths, Cuvier._--[MS.]

{416}[kf]

_Who like sour fruit to sharpen up the tides_

_Of their salt veins, and stir their stagnancy._--[MS. erased.]

{417}[547] In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her favourite, assumed the

name and arms of the "Birons" of France; which families are yet extant

with that of England. There are still the daughters of Courland of that

name; one of them I remember seeing in England in the blessed year of

the Allies (1814)--the Duchess of S.--to whom the English Duchess of

Somerset presented me as a namesake.

["Ernest John Biren was born in Courland [in 1690]. His grandfather had

been head groom to James, the third Duke of Courland, and obtained from

his master the present of a small estate in land.... In 1714 he made his

appearance at St. Petersburg, and solicited the place of page to the

Princess Charlotte, wife of the Tzarovitch Alexey; but being

contemptuously rejected as a person of mean extraction, retired to

Mittau, where he chanced to ingratiate himself with Count Bestuchef,

Master of the Household to Anne, widow of Frederic William, Duke of

Courland, who resided at Mittau. Being of a handsome figure and polite

address, he soon gained the good will of the duchess, and became her

secretary and chief favourite. On her being declared sovereign of

Russia, Anne called Biren to Petersburg, and the secretary soon became

Duke of Courland, and first minister or rather despot of Russia. On the

death of Anne, which happened in 1740, Biren, being declared regent,

continued daily increasing his vexations and cruelties, till he was

arrested, on the 18th of December, only twenty days after he had been

appointed to the regency; and at the revolution that ensued he was

exiled to the frozen shores of the Oby." _Catherine II._, by W. Tooke,

1800, i. 160, _footnote_. He was recalled in 1763, and died in 1772.

In a letter to his sister, dated June 18, 1814, Byron gives a slightly

different version of the incident, recorded in his note (_vide supra_):

"The Duchess of Somerset also, to mend matters, insisted on presenting

me to a Princess _Biron_, Duchess of Hohen-God-knows-what, and another

person to her two sisters, Birons too. But I flew off, and _would_ not,

saying I had had enough of introductions for that night at

least."--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 98. The "daughters of Courland" must have

been descendants of "Pierre, dernier Duc de Courlande, De la Maison de

Biron," viz. Jeanne Cathrine, born June 24, 1783, who married, in 1801,

Franois Pignatelli de Belmonte, Duc d'Acerenza, and Dorothe, born

August 21, 1793, who married, in 1809, Edmond de Talleyrand Prigord,

Duc de Talleyrand, nephew to the Bishop of Autun. (See _Almanach de

Gotha_, 1848, pp. 109, 110.)]

{418}[548] [Napoleon's exclamation at the Elyse Bourbon, June 23, 1815.

"When his civil counsellors talked of defence, the word wrung from him

the bitter ejaculation, 'Ah! my old guard! could they but defend

themselves like you!'"--_Life of Napoleon Buonaparte_, by Sir Walter

Scott, _Prose Works_, 1846, ii. 760.]

[kg]

_Who now that he is dead has not a foe_;

_The last expired in cut-throat Castlereagh_.--[MS. erased.]

[549] [Immanuel Kant, born at Knigsberg, in 1729, became Professor and

Rector of the University, and died at Knigsberg in 1804.]

{419}[550]

["The castled crag of Drachenfels

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine," etc.

_Childe Harold_, Canto III.]

[551] St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still extant in

1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever.

{421}[552] ["We left Ratzeburg at 7 o'clock Wednesday evening, and

arrived at Lneburg--_i.e._ 35 English miles--at 3 o'clock on Thursday

afternoon. This is a fair specimen! In England I used to laugh at the

'flying waggons;' but compared with a German Post-Coach, the metaphor is

perfectly justifiable, and for the future I shall never meet a flying

waggon without thinking respectfully of its speed."--S.T. Coleridge,

March 12, 1799, _Letters of S.T.C._, 1895, i. 278.]

[553] [See for German oaths, "Extracts from a Diary," January 12, 1821,

_Letters_, 1901, v. 172.]

[kh]

_With "Schnapps"--Democritus would cease to smile,_

_By German, post-boys driven a mile_.--[MS.]

_With "Schnapps"--and spite of "Dam'em," "dog" and "log"_

_Launched at their heads jog-jog-jog-jog-jog-jog_.--[MS. erased.]

{422}[554] [The French Inscription (see _Memorial Inscriptions_, etc.,

by Joseph Meadows Cowper, 1897, p. 134) on the Black Prince's monument

is thus translated in the _History of Kent_ (John Weevers' _Funerall

Monuments_, 1636, pp. 205, 206)--

{424}[555] [See _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza xxxii. line 2,

_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 93, note 16.]

[556] [See _The Prince_ (_Il Principe_), chap. xvii., by Niccol

Machiavelli, translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, 1897, p. 121: "But above

all [a Prince] must abstain from the property of others. For men will

sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their

patrimony."]

[557] [India; America.]

{425}[558] [Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) began her visits to Newgate in

1813. In 1820 she corresponded with the Princess Sophie of Russia, and

at a later period she was entertained by Louis Philippe, and by the King

of Prussia at Kaiserwerth. She might have, she may have, admonished

George IV. "with regard to all good things."]

{426}[559] [See _The Age of Bronze_, line 768, _Poetical Works_, 1901,

v. 578, note 1.]

[560]

["O for a blast of that dread horn,

On Fontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come,

When Rowland brave, and Olivier,

And every paladin and peer,

On Roncesvalles died."

_Marmion_, Canto VI. stanza xxxiii. lines 7-12.]

[kj] _Like an old Roman trumpet ere a battle_.--[MS. erased.]

[561] B. Genoa, Oct. 6^th^, 1822. End of Canto 10^th^.