Don Juan

Canto the Thirteenth

[653] Fy. 12^th^ 1823.

{482}[654] [The allusion is to the refrain of Canning's verses on Pitt,

"The Pilot that weathered the storm." Compare, too, "The daring pilot in

extremity" (i.e. the Earl of Shaftesbury), who "sought the storms"

(Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, lines 159-161).]

[655] [Johnson loved "dear, dear Bathurst," because he was "a very good

hater."--See Boswell's _Johnson_, 1876, p. 78 (Croker's _footnote_).]

{483}[656] [So, too, Charles Kingsley, in _Westward Ho!_ ii. 299, 300,

calls _Don Quixote_ "the saddest of books in spite of all its

wit."--_Notes and Queries_, Second Series, iii. 124.]

[lx] _By that great Epic_----.--[MS.]

{484}[657] ["Your husband is in his old lunes again." _Merry Wives of

Windsor_, act iv. sc. 2, lines 16, 17.]

[658] ["Davus sum, non Oedipus." Terence, _Andria,_ act i. sc. 2, line

23.]

{485}[659]

["'T is not in mortals to command success,

But we'll do more, Sempronius--we'll deserve it."

Addison's _Cato_, act i. sc. 2, ed. 1777, ii. 77.]

{487}[660] [Compare--"The colt that's backed and burthened being young."

_Venus and Adonis_, lxx. line 5.]

[661] [To "break square," or "squares," is to interrupt the regular

order, as in the proverbial phrase, "It breaks no squares," i.e. does no

harm--does not matter. Compare Sterne, _Tristram Shandy_ (1802), ii. v.

152, "This fault in Trim _broke no squares_ with them" (_N. Engl.

Dict._, art. "Break," No. 46). The origin of the phrase is uncertain,

but it may, perhaps, refer to military tactics. Shakespeare (_Henry V._,

act iv. sc. 2, line 28) speaks of "squares of battle."]

[662]

"With every thing that pretty _bin_,

My lady sweet, arise."

_Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 3, lines, 25, 26.

[So Warburton and Hanmer. The folio reads "that pretty is." See Knight's

_Shakespeare_, Pictorial Edition, _Tragedies_, i. 203.]

{488}[663] [The house which Byron occupied, 1815-1816, No. 13,

Piccadilly Terrace, was the property of Elizabeth, Duchess of

Devonshire.]

{489}[ly]

_The slightest obstacle which may encumber

The path downhill is something grand_.--[MS. erased.]

[lz] _Not even in fools who howsoever blind_.--[MS. erased.]

{490}[ma]

_That anything is new to a Chinese;

And such is Europe's fashionable ease_.--[MS. erased.]

{491}[mb] _A hidden wine beneath an icy presence_.--[MS. erased.]

[mc] _Though this we hope has been reserved for this age_.--[MS.

erased.]

[664] ["For the creed of Zoroaster," see Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on

Demonology and Witchcraft_, 1830, pp. 87, 88. (See, too, _Cain_, act ii.

sc. 2, line 404, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 254, note 2.)]

{492}[665] "Arcades ambo." [Virgil, _Bucol._, Ecl. vii. 4.]

{493}[666] [So travel the rich.]

{494}[md] _--the noble host intends_.--[MS. erased.]

[667] ["Judicious drank, and greatly-daring dined." Pope, _Dunciad_, iv.

318.]

{495}[668] [Byron's description of the place of his inheritance, which

was to know him no more, is sketched from memory, but it unites the

charm of a picture with the accuracy of a ground-plan. Eight years had

gone by since he had looked his last on "venerable arch" and "lucid

lake" (see "Epistle to Augusta," stanza viii. lines 7, 8), but he had

not forgotten, he could not forget, that enchanted and enchanting scene.

Newstead Abbey or Priory was founded by Henry II., by way of deodand or

expiation for the murder of Thomas Becket. Lands which bordered the

valley of the Leen, and which had formed part of Sherwood Forest, were

assigned for the use and endowment of a chapter of "black canons regular

of the order of St. Augustine," and on a site, by the river-side to the

south of the forest uplands (stanza lv. lines 5-8) the new stede, or

place, or station, arose. It was a "Norman Abbey" (stanza lv. line 1)

which the Black Canons dedicated to Our Lady, and, here and there, in

the cloisters, traces of Norman architecture remain, but the enlargement

and completion of the monastery was carried out in successive stages and

"transition periods," in a style or styles which, perhaps, more by hap

than by cunning, Byron rightly named "mixed Gothic" (stanza lv. line 4).

To work their mills, and perhaps to drain the marshy valley, the monks

dammed the Leen and excavated a chain of lakes--the largest to the

north-west, Byron's "lucid lake;" a second to the south of the Abbey;

and a third, now surrounded with woods, and overlooked by the "wicked

lord's" "ragged rock" below the Abbey, half a mile to the south-east.

The "cascade," which flows over and through a stone-work sluice, and

forms a rocky water-fall, issues from the upper lake, and is in full

view of the west front of the Abbey. Almost at right angles to these

lakes are three ponds: the Forest Pond to the north of the stone wall,

which divides the garden from the forest; the square "Eagle" Pond in the

Monks' Garden; and the narrow stew-pond, bordered on either side with

overhanging yews, which drains into the second or Garden Lake. Byron

does not enlarge on this double chain of lakes and ponds, and, perhaps

for the sake of pictorial unity, converts the second (if a second then

existed) and third lakes into a river.

The Abbey, which, at the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, was handed

over by Henry VIII. to Sir John Byron, "steward and warden of the forest

of Shirewood," was converted, here and there, more or less, into a

baronial "mansion" (stanza lxvi.). It is, roughly speaking, a square

block of buildings, flanking the sides of a grassy quadrangle.

Surrounding the quadrangle are two-storied cloisters, and in the centre

a "Gothic fountain" (stanza lxv. line 1) of composite workmanship. The

upper portion of the stonework is hexagonal, and is ornamented with a

double row of gargoyles (all "monsters" and no "saints," recalling,

perhaps identical with, the "seven deadly sins" gargoyles, still _in

situ_ in the quadrangle of Magdalen College, Oxford); the lower half,

which belongs to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, is hollowed into

niches of a Roman or classical design. (In Byron's time the fountain

stood in a courtyard in front of the Abbey, but before he composed this

canto it had been restored by Colonel Wildman to its original place

within the quadrangle. Byron was acquainted with the change, and writes

accordingly.) When the Byrons took possession of the Abbey the upper

stories of the cloisters were converted, on three sides of the

quadrangle, into galleries, and on the fourth, the north side, into a

library. Abutting on the cloisters are the monastic buildings proper, in

part transformed, but with "much of the monastic" preserved. On the

west, the front of the Abbey, the ground floor consists of the entrance

hall and Monks' Parlour, and, above, the Guests' Refectory or

Banqueting-hall, and the Prior's Parlour. On the south, the Xenodochium

or Guesten Hall, and, above, the Monks' Refectory, or Grand

Drawing-room; on the south and east, on the ground floor, the Prior's

Lodgings, the Chapter House ("the exquisite small chapel," stanza lxvi.

line 5), the "slype" or passage between church and Chapter House; and in

the upper story, the state bedrooms, named after the kings, Edward III.,

Henry VII., etc., who, by the terms of the grant of land to the Prior

and Canons, were entitled to free quarters in the Abbey. During Byron's

brief tenure of Newstead, and for long years before, these "huge halls,

long galleries, and spacious chambers" (stanza lxxvii. line 1) were half

dismantled, and in a more or less ruinous condition. A few pictures

remained on the walls of the Great Drawing-room, of the Prior's Parlour,

and in the apartments of the south-east wing or annexe, which dates from

the seventeenth century (see the account of a visit to Newstead in 1812,

in _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. 401-405). There are and

were portraits, by Lely (stanza lxviii. line 7), of a Lady Byron, of

Fanny Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel, "loveliness personified," of Mrs.

Hughes, and of Nell Gwynne; by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of William and Mary;

by unnamed artists, of George I. and George II.; and by Ramsay, of

George III. There are portraits of a fat Prior, William Sandall, with a

jewelled reliquary; of "Sir John the Little with the Great Beard," who

ruled in the Prior's stead; and there is the portrait, a votive tablet

of penitence and remorse, "of that Lord Arundel Who struck in heat the

child he loved so well" (see "A Picture at Newstead," by Matthew Arnold,

_Poetical Works_, 1890, p. 177); but of portraits of judges or bishops,

or of pictures by old masters, there is neither trace nor record.

But the characteristic feature of Newstead Abbey, so familiar that

description seems unnecessary, and, yet, never quite accurately

described, is the west front of the Priory Church, which is in line with

the west front of the Abbey. "Half apart," the southern portion of this

front, which abuts on the windows of the Prior's Parlour, and the room

above, where Byron slept, flanks and conceals the west end of the north

cloisters and library; but, with this exception, it is a screen, and

nothing more. In the centre is the "mighty window" (stanza lxii. line

1), shorn of glass and tracery; above are six lancet windows (which

Byron seems to have regarded as niches), and, above again, in a "higher

niche" (stanza lxi. line 1), is the crowned Virgin with the Babe in her

arms, which escaped, as by a miracle, the "fiery darts"--the shot and

cannon-balls of the Cromwellian troopers. On either side of the central

window are "two blank windows containing tracery ['geometrical

decorated'] ... carved [in relief] on the solid ashlar;" on either side

of the window, and at the northern and southern extremities of the

front, are buttresses with canopied niches, in each of which a saint or

apostle must once have stood. Over the west door there is the mutilated

figure of (?) the Saviour, but of twelve saints or twelve niches there

is no trace. The "grand arch" is an ivy-clad screen, and nothing more.

Behind and beyond, in place of vanished nave, of aisle and transept, is

the smooth green turf; and at the east end, on the site of the high

altar, stands the urn-crowned masonry of Boatswain's tomb.

Newstead Abbey was sold by Lord Byron to his old schoolfellow, Colonel

Thomas Wildman, in November, 1817. The house and property were resold in

1861, by his widow, to William Frederick Webb, Esq., a traveller in many

lands, the friend and host of David Livingstone. At his death the estate

was inherited by his daughter, Miss Geraldine Webb, who was married to

General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside, G.C.M.G., etc., Governor of

Queensland, in 1899.

For Newstead Abbey, see _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. Part

I. 401-405 (often reprinted without acknowledgment); _Abbotsford and

Newstead Abbey_, by Washington Irving, 1835; _Journal of the

Archaeological Association_ (papers by T.J. Pettigrew, F.R.S., and

Arthur Ashpitel, F.S.A.), 1854, vol. ix. pp. 14-39; and _A Souvenir of

Newstead Abbey_ (illustrated by a series of admirable photographs), by

Richard Allen, Nottingham, 1874, etc., etc.]

{497}[669] [The woodlands were sacrificed to the needs or fancies of

Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked Lord." One splendid oak, known as the

"Pilgrim's Oak," which stood and stands near the north lodge of the

park, near the "Hut," was bought in by the neighbouring gentry, and made

over to the estate. Perhaps by the Druid oak Byron meant to celebrate

this "last of the clan," which, in his day, before the woods were

replanted, must have stood out in solitary grandeur.]

{498}[670] [Compare "Epistle to Augusta," stanza x. line 1, _Poetical

Works_, 1901, iv. 68.]

[671] [The little wood which Byron planted at the south-east corner of

the upper or "Stable" Lake, known as "Poet's Corner," still slopes to

the water's brink. Nor have the wild-fowl diminished. The lower of the

three lakes is specially reserved as a breeding-place.]

[me] _Its shriller echo_----.--[MS.]

[mf]

_Which sympathized with Time's and Tempest's march,

In gazing on that high and haughty Arch_.--[MS.]

{499}[672] [See lines "On Leaving Newstead Abbey," stanza 5, _Poetical

Works_, 1898, i. 3, note 1.]

[mg] _But in the stillness of the moon_----.--[MS.]

{500}[673] [Vide ante, _The Deformed Transformed_, Part I. line 532,

_Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 497.]

[674] This is not a frolic invention: it is useless to specify the spot,

or in what county, but I have heard it both alone and in company with

those who will never hear it more. It can, of course, be accounted for

by some natural or accidental cause, but it was a strange sound, and

unlike any other I have ever heard (and I have heard many above and

below the surface of the earth produced in ruins, etc., etc., or

caverns).--[MS.]

["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at rare intervals, but it is

difficult to believe that the "huge arch" can act as an ***** harp.

Perhaps the smaller lancet windows may vocalize the wind.]

{501}[mh] _Prouder of such a toy than of their breed_.--[MS. erased.]

{502}[675] Salvator Rosa. The wicked necessity of rhyming obliges me to

adapt the name to the verse.--[MS.]

[Compare--

"Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue,

Or _savage_ Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."

Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, Canto I. stanza xxxviii. lines 8, 9.]

[676] If I err not, "your Dane" is one of Iago's catalogue of nations

"exquisite in their drinking."

["Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander--drink hoa!

are nothing to your English." "Is your Englishman so exquisite in his

drinking?" (So Collier and Knight. The Quarto reads

"expert").--_Othello_, act ii. sc. 3, lines 71-74.]

[mi]

_His bell-mouthed goblet--and his laughing group

Provoke my thirst--what ho! a flask of Rhenish_.--[MS. erased.]

{503}[mj] _Hath yet at night the very best of wines._--[MS.]

[677] ["Sea-coal" (i.e. Newcastle coal), as distinguished from

"charcoal" and "earth-coal." But the qualification must have been

unusual and old-fashioned in 1822. "Earth-coal" is found in large

quantities on the Newstead estate, and the Abbey, far below its

foundations, is tunnelled by a coal-drift.]

[678] [See Gray's _omitted_ stanza--

"'Here scatter'd oft, _the earliest_ of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;

The red-breast loves to build and warble here,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'

As fine ... as any in his Elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart

to omit it."--"Extracts from a Diary," February 27, 1821, _Letters_,

1901, v. 210. The stanza originally preceded the Epitaph.]

{504}[679] In Assyria. [See _Daniel_ iii. 1.]

[mk]

---- _she hath the tame

Preserved within doors--why not make them Game?_--[MS.]

[680] [It is difficult, if not impossible, to furnish a clue to the

names of all the guests at Norman Abbey. Some who are included in this

ghostly "house-party" seem to be, and, perhaps, were meant to be,

_nomina umbrarum_; and others are, undoubtedly, contemporary

celebrities, under a more or less transparent disguise. A few of these

shadows have been substantiated (vide infra, et post), but the greater

part decline to be materialized or verified.]

[ml]---- _the Countess Squabby._--[MS.]

[681] [Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of Cork and Orrery:

"Dowager Cork," "Old Corky," of Joseph Jekyll's _Correspondence_, 1894,

pp. 83, 275.]

[682] [Mrs. Rabbi may be Mrs. Coutts, the Mrs. Million of _Vivian Grey_

(1826, i. 183), who arrived at "Ch**** Desir in a crimson silk pelisse,

hat and feathers, with diamond ear-rings, and a rope of gold round her

neck."]

{505}[683] [Lie, lye, or ley, is a solution of potassium salts obtained

by bleaching wood-ashes. Byron seems to have confused "lie" with "lee,"

i.e. dregs, sediment.]

[684] [_"Aroint thee, witch!_ the rump-fed ronyon cries." _Macbeth_, act

ii. sc. 3, line 6.]

[mm] _Or (to come to the point, like my friend Pulci)_.--[MS. erased.]

[685] [Hor., _Epist. Ad Pisones_, line 343.]

[mn]---- _by fear or flattery_.--[MS. erased.]

[686] Siria, i.e. b***h-star.

[mo] _I have seen--no matter what--we now shall see_.--[MS. erased.]

{506}[687] [Parolles [see _All's Well that Ends Well_, passim] is

Brougham (vide ante, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I. pp. 67-69). It is

possible that this stanza was written after the Canto as a whole was

finished. But, if not, an incident which took place in the House of

Commons, April 17, 1823, during a debate on Catholic Emancipation, may

be quoted in corroboration of Brougham's unreadiness with regard to the

point of honour. In the course of his speech he accused Canning of

"monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office," and Canning,

without waiting for Brougham to finish, gave him the lie: "I rise to say

that that is false" (_Parl. Deb._, N.S. vol. 8, p. 1091).

There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and

quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were

given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware

that the "old order" had passed or was passing. Compare Hazlitt, in _The

Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous,

but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to

the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of

harm's way and escape from the danger;" and Mr. Parthenopex Puff (W.

Stewart Rose), in _Vivian Grey_ (1826, i. 186, 187), "Oh! he's a

prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? he says, that Foaming

Fudge [Brougham] can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had

one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the

House, and fight a duel--and that he found time for everything but the

_last_."]

[mp] _There was, too, Henry B_----.--[MS. erased.]

[688] [In his Journal for December 5, 1813, Byron writes: "The Duke

of ---- called.... His Grace is a good, noble, ducal person" (_Letters_,

1898, ii. 361). Possibly the earlier "Duke of Dash" was William Spencer,

sixth Duke of Devonshire, an old schoolfellow of Byron's, who was eager

to renew the acquaintance (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 98, note 2); and, if

so, he may be reckoned as one of the guests of "Norman Abbey."]

{507}[689] [Gronow (_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 234-240) identifies the

_Chevalier de la Ruse_ with Casimir Comte de Montrond (1768-1843),

back-stairs diplomatist, wit, gambler, and man of fashion. He was the

lifelong companion, if not friend, of Talleyrand, who pleaded for him:

"Qui est-ce qui ne l'aimerait pas, il est si vicieux!" At one time in

the pay of Napoleon, he fell under his displeasure, and, to avoid

arrest, spent two years of exile (1812-14) in England. "He was not,"

says Gronow, "a great talker, nor did he swagger ... or laugh at his own

_bons-mots_. He was demure, sleek, sly, and dangerous.... In the London

clubs he went by the name of Old French." He was a constant guest of the

Duke of York's at Oatlands, "and won much at his whist-table" (_English

Whist_, by W.P. Courtney, 1894, p. 181). For his second residence in

England, and for a sketch by D'Orsay, see _A Portion of the Journal,

etc._, by Thomas Raikes, 1857, frontispiece to vol. iv., _et_ vols.

i.-iv. _passim_. See, for biographical notice, _L'Ami de M. de

Talleyrand_, par Henri Welschinger, _La Revue de Paris_, 1895, Fev.,

tom. i. pp. 640-654.]

[690] [Perhaps Sir James Mackintosh--a frequent guest at Holland House.]

{508}[691] [Possibly Colonel (afterwards Sir James) Macdonell [d. 1857],

"a man of colossal stature," who occupied and defended the Ch**** of

Hougoumont on the night before the battle of Waterloo. (See Gronow,

_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 76, 77.)]

[692] [Sir George Prevost (1767-1816), the Governor-General of British

North America, and nominally Commander-in-chief of the Army in the

second American War, contributed, by his excess of caution, supineness,

and delay, to the humiliation of the British forces. The particular

allusion is to his alleged inaction at a critical moment in the

engagement of September 11, 1814, between Commodore Macdonough and

Captain Downie in Plattsburg Bay. "A letter was sent to Capt. Downie,

strongly urging him to come on, as the army had long been waiting for

his co-operation.... The brave Downie replied that he required no urging

to do his duty.... He was as good as his word. The guns were scaled when

he got under way, upon hearing which Sir George issued an _order_ for

the troops to _cook_, instead of _that of instant co-operation_."--To

Editor of the _Montreal Herald_, May 23, 1815, _Letters of Veritas_,

1815, pp. 116, 117. See, too, _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1822, vol.

xxvii. p. 446.]

[693] [George Hardinge (1744-1816), who was returned M.P. for Old Sarum

in 1784, was appointed, in 1787, Senior Justice of the Counties of

Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. According to the _Gentleman's Magazine_,

1816 (vol. lxxxvi. p. 563), "In conversation he had few equals.... He

delighted in pleasantries, and always afforded to his auditors abundance

of mirth and entertainment as well as information." Byron seems to have

supposed that these "pleasantries" found their way into his addresses to

condemned prisoners, but if the charges printed in his _Miscellaneous

Works_, edited by John Nichols in 1818, are reported in full, he was

entirely mistaken. They are tedious, but the "waggery" is conspicuous by

its absence.]

{509}[mq] _With all his laurels growing upon one tree_.--[MS. erased.]

[694] [John Philpot Curran (1750-1817). "Did you know Curran?" asked

Byron of Lady Blessington (_Conversations_, 1834, p. 176); "he was the

most wonderful person I ever saw. In him was combined an imagination the

most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would have

justified the observation applied to----that his heart was in his

head." (See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 24, _Letters_, 1901, v.

421.)]

[695] [For Thomas Lord Erskine (1750-1823), see _Letters_, 1898, ii.

390, note 5. See, too, _Detached Thoughts_, No. 93, _Letters_, 1901, v.

455, 456. In his _Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 297, 298, Hazlitt

contrasts "the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit of a Curran ...

the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy of a Burke," with the

"dashing and graceful manner" which concealed the poverty and "deadness"

of the matter of Erskine's speeches.]

{510}[mr]

---- _all classes mostly pull

At the same oar_----.--[MS. erased.]

{511}[696] ["Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was blasphemous to

talk of Scripture out of church." This dogma was broached to her

husband--the best Christian in any book.--See _The History of the

Adventures of Joseph Andrews_, Bk. IV. chap. xi. ed. 1876, p. 324.]

[ms] _---- in the ripe age._--[MS.]

[697] [Probably Richard Sharp (1759-1835), known as "Conversation

Sharp." Byron frequently met him in society in 1813-14, and in "Extracts

from a Diary," January 9, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 161, describes him

as "the Conversationist." He visited Byron at the Villa Diodati in the

autumn of 1816 (_Life_, p. 323).]

[698] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 5, line 22.]

[mt] _Nor bate (read bait)_----.--[MS.]

{512}[699] [See letters to the Earl of Blessington, April 5, 1823,

_Letters_, 1891, vi. 187.]

{513}[mu]

_But full of wisdom_----.--[MS.]

_A sort of rose entwining with a thistle_.--[MS. erased.]

[700] [_Iliad_, x. 341, sq.]

[701] It would have taught him humanity at least. This sentimental

savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their

sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs,

and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of

angling,--the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended

sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler

merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes

from off the streams, and a single _bite_ is worth to him more than all

the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The

whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and

perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and

useful. But angling!--no angler can be a good man.

"One of the best men I ever knew,--as humane, delicate-minded, generous,

and excellent a creature as any in the world,--was an angler: true, he

angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the

extravagancies of I. Walton."

The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.--"Audi

alteram partem."--I leave it to counter-balance my own observation.

{515}[702] B. Fy. 19^th^ 1823.--[MS.]