No More Learning

]

[297] [Simon Bolivar (_El Libertador_), 1783-1830, was at the height of
his power and fame at the beginning of 1823. In 1821 he had united New
Grenada to Venezuela under the name of the Republic of Columbia, and on
the 1st of September he made a solemn entry into Lima. He was greeted
with acclaim, but in accepting the honours which his fellow-citizens
showered upon him, he warned them against the dangers of tyranny.
"Beware," he said, "of a Napoleon or an Iturbide. " Byron, at one time,
had a mind to settle in "Bolivar's country" (letter to Ellice, June 12,
1821, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 89); and he christened his yacht _The
Bolivar_. ]

[298] [A proclamation of Bolivar's, dated June 8, 1822, runs thus:
"Columbians, now all your delightful country is free. . . . From the banks
of the Orinoco to the Andes of Peru, the . . . army marching in triumph
has covered with its protecting arms the entire extent of
Columbia. "--"Jamaica Papers," _Morning Chronicle_, September 28, 1822. ]

[299] {556}[The capitulation of Athens was signed June 21, 1822. "Three
days after the Greeks had sworn to observe the capitulation, they
commenced murdering their helpless prisoners. . . . The streets of Athens
were stained with the blood of four hundred men, women, and
children. "--_History of Greece_, by George Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The
sword was hid in the myrtle bough. Hence the allusion. (Compare _Childe
Harold_, Canto III. stanza xx. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 228,
and 291, note 2. )]

[300] [The independence of Chili dated from April 5, 1818, when General
Jose de San Martin routed the Spanish army on the plains of Maypo. On
the 28th of July, 1821, the Independence of Peru was proclaimed. General
San Martin assumed the title of Protector, and, August 3, 4, 1821,
issued proclamations, in which he announced the independence of Peru,
and bade the Spaniards tremble if they "abused his indulgence. "
_Extracts from a Journal written on the Coast of Chili, etc. _, by
Captain Basil Hall, 1824, i. 266-272. ]

[301] [On the 8th of August, 1822, Niketas and Hypsilantes defeated the
Turks under Dramali, near Lerna. The Moreotes attributed their good
fortune to the generalship of Kolokotrones, a Messenian. Compare with
the whole of section vi. the following quotations from an article on the
"Numbers of the Greeks," which appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_,
September 13, 1822--

"'Trust not for freedom to the Franks,
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells. '

Byron.

"As Russia has now removed her warlike projects, and the Greeks are
engaged single-handed with the whole force of the Ottoman Empire,
etc. . . . Byron's Grecian bard can no longer exclaim--

'My country! on thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now--
The heroic bosom beats no more. '

"Greece is no longer a 'nation's sepulchre,' the foul abode of slaves,
but the living theatre of the patriot's toils and the hero's
achievements. Her banners once more float on the mountains, and the
battles she has already won show that in every glen and valley, as well
as on

'Suli's rock and Parga's shore
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore. '"]

[302] {557}[An account of these Russian intrigues in Greece is contained
in Thomas Gordon's _History of the Greek Revolution_, 1832, i. 194-204. ]

[eb] {558} _Of Incas known but as a cloud_. --[MS. erased. ]

[ec] _Not now the Roman or the Punic horde_. --[MS. ]

[ed] ----_abhorrent of them both_. --[MS. ]

[303] [Pelayo, said to be the son of Favila, Duke of Cantabria, was
elected king by the Christians of the Asturias in 718, and defeated the
Arab generals Suleyman and Manurza. He died A. D. 737. ]

[304] [For the "fabulous sketches" of the Zegri and Abencerrages, rival
Moorish tribes, whose quarrels, at the close of the fifteenth century,
deluged Granada with blood, see the _Civil Wars of Granada_, a prose
fiction, interspersed with ballads, by Gines Perez de Hita, published in
1595. An opera, _Les Abencerages_, by Cherubini, was performed in Paris
in 1813. Chateaubriand's _Les Aventures du dernier Abencerrage_ was not
published till 1826. ]

[ee] _And yet have left worse enemies than they_. --[MS. erased. ]

[305] [Ferdinand VII. returned to Madrid in March, 1814. "No sooner was
he established on his throne . . . than he set himself to restore the old
absolutism with its worst abuses. The nobles recovered their privileges
. . . the Inquisition resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to
Spain. . . . A _camarilla_ of worthless courtiers and priests conducted the
government, and urged the king to fresh acts of revolutionary violence.
For six years Spain groaned under a royalist 'reign of
terror. '"--_Encycl. Brit. _, art. "Spain," vol. 22, p. 345. ]

[ef] _As rose on his remorseless ear the cry_. --[MS. erased. ]

[eg] {559} _The re-awakened virtue_----. --[MS. erased. ]

[eh] ----_is on the shore_. --[MS. erased. ]

[306] "'St. Jago and close Spain! ' the old Spanish war-cry. " ["Santiago
y serra Espana. "]

[ei] _The wild Guerilla on Morena_----. --[MS. erased]

[ej] _Of eagle-eyed_----. --[MS. erased. ]

[307] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanzas liv. -lvi. , _Poetical
Works_, i. 57, 58, 91, 92 (note II). The "man" was Tio Jorge (Jorge
Ibort), _vide ibid. _, p. 94. ]

[308] {560} The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this
weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French wars.

[309] [_Vide ante_, the Introduction to the _Age of Bronze_, pp,
537-540. ]

[310] [Patrick Henry, born May 29, 1736, died June 6, 1799, was one of
the leading spirits of the American Revolution. His father, John Henry,
a Scotchman, a cousin of the historian, William Robertson, had acquired
a small property in Virginia. Patrick was not exactly "forest born,"
but, as a child, loved to play truant "in the forest with his gun or
over his angle-rod. " He first came into notice as an orator in the
"Parson's Cause," a suit brought by a minister of the Established Church
to recover his salary, which had been fixed at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco.
In his speech he is said to have struck the key-note of the Revolution
by arguing that "a king, by disallowing acts of a salutary nature, from
being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits
all right to his subjects' obedience. " His famous speech against the
"Stamps Act" was delivered in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, May
29, 1765. One passage, with which, no doubt, Byron was familiar, has
passed into history. "Caesar had his Brutus--Charles the First had his
Cromwell--and George the Third--" Henry was interrupted with a shout of
"Treason! treason! ! " but finished the sentence with, and "George the
Third _may profit by their example_. If _this_ be treason, make the most
of it. "

Henry was delegate to the first Continental Congress, five times
Governor of Virginia, and was appointed U. S. Senator in 1794.

His contemporaries said that he was "the greatest orator that ever
lived. " He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his
hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed
them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and
almost prophetic sublimity. "--See _Life of Patrick Henry_, by William
Wirt, 1845, _passim. _]

[ek] {561} ----_to one Napoleon_. --[MS. erased. ]

[el] ----_thy poor old wall forgets_. --[MS. erased. ]

[311] ["I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful--beats
even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story they seem tenacious to a
degree, insisting on the fact, giving a date (1303), and showing a tomb.
It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered
leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery,
now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very
appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love. . . . The Gothic
monuments of the Scaliger princes pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am
I. '"--Letter to Moore, November 7, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 386, 387.
The tombs of the Scaligers are close to the Church of Santa Maria
l'Antica. Juliet's tomb, "of red Verona marble," is in the garden of the
_Orfanotrofio_, between the Via Cappucini and the Adige. It is not "that
ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capulets lie," which has long
since been destroyed. Since 1814 Verona had been under Austria's sway,
and had "treacherously" forgotten her republican traditions. ]

[312] {562}[Francesco Can Grande della Scala died in 1329. It was under
his roof that Dante learned

". . . how salt his food who fares
Upon another's bread--how steep his path
Who treadeth up and down another's stairs. "

For anecdotes of Can Grande, see _Commedia, etc. _, by E. H. Plumptre,
D. D. , 1886, I. cxx. , cxxi. ; and compare _Dante at Verona_, by D. G.
Rossetti, _Works_, 1886, i. 1-17. ]

[313] [Ippolito Pindemonte, the modern Tibullus (1753-1828). (See
_Letters_, 1900, iv. 127, note 4. )]

[314] [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, "_qui suburbium numquam
egressus est_. "

"Indocilis rerum, vicinae nescius urbis,
Adspectu fruitur liberiore poli. "

C. Claudiani _Opera_, lii. , _Epigrammata_, ii. lines 9, 10 (ed. 1821,
iii. 427). ]

[315] ["In the amphitheatre . . . crowds collected after the sittings of
the Congress, to witness dramatic representations. . . . But for the
costumes, a spectator might have imagined he was witnessing a
resurrection of the ancient Romans. "--_Congress, etc. _, by M. de
Chateaubriand, 1838, i. 76. This was on the 24th of November. Catalani
sang. Rossini's cantata was performed with tremendous applause. On the
next day the august visitors witnessed an illumination of the city.
"Leur attention s'est principalement arrete sur le superbe portail de
l'eglise Sainte-Agnes, qui brillait de mille feux, au milieu desquels se
lisait l'inscription suivante en lettres de grandeur colossale:

'_A Cesare Augusta Verona esultante_. '"

--_Le Moniteur_, December 14, 1822. ]

[316] {563}[Alexander I. (Paulowitsch), 1777-1825, succeeded his father
in 1801. He began his reign well. Taxation was diminished, judicial
penalties were remitted, universities were founded and reorganized,
personal servitude was abolished or restricted throughout the empire. At
the height of his power and influence, when he was regarded as the
Liberator of Europe, he granted a Constitution to Poland, based on
liberal if not democratic principles (June 21, 1815). But after a time
he reverted to absolutism. Autocracy at home, a mystical and sentimental
alliance with autocrats abroad, were incompatible with the indulgence of
liberal proclivities. "After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and
Troppau," writes M. Rambaud (_History of Russia_, 1888, ii. 384), "he
was no longer the same man. . . . From that time he considered himself the
dupe of his generous ideas . . . at Carlsbad, at Laybach, and at Verona,
Alexander was already the leader of the European reaction. " But even to
the last he believed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the
hounds. "They may say of me," he exclaimed, "what they will; but I have
lived and shall die republican" (ibid. , p. 398).

Alexander was a man of ideas, a sentimentalist, and a _poseur_, but he
had an eye to the main chance. Whatever cause or dynasty suffered, the
Emperor Alexander was still triumphant. Byron's special grudge against
him at this time was due to his vacillation with regard to the cause of
Greek Independence. But he is too contemptuous. There were points in
common between the "Coxcomb Czar" and his satirist; and it is far from
certain that if the twain had changed places Byron might not have proved
just "such an Alexander. " In one respect their destiny was alike. The
greatest sorrow of their lives was the death of a natural daughter. ]

[317] [For Alexander's waltzing, see _Personal Reminiscences_, by
Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes, 1875, p. 286. See, too, Moore's
_Fables for the Holy Alliance_, Fable I. , "A Dream. "]

[em] _Now half inclining_----. --[MS. ]

[318] {564} ["Pulk" is Polish for "regiment. " The allusion must be to
the military colonies planted by "the corporal of Gatchina," Araktcheef,
in the governments of Novgorod, Kharkof, and elsewhere. ]

[319] [Frederic Cesar La Harpe (1754-1838) was appointed by Catherine
II. Governor to the Grand-Dukes Alexander and Constantine. It was from
La Harpe's teaching that Alexander imbibed his liberal ideas. In 1816,
when Byron passed the summer in Switzerland, La Harpe was domiciled at
Lausanne, and it is possible that a meeting took place. ]

[320] [Alexander's platonic attachment to the Baronne de Krudener (Barbe
Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, _illuminee_, was the source of
amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year,
was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the
"Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It
was only a passing whim. Alexander's mysticism was for ornament, not for
use, and, before very long, Egeria and her Muscovite Numa parted
company. ]

[321] The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the Great by
courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on the banks of the river
Pruth. [Catherine, who had long been Peter's mistress, had at length
been acknowledged as his wife. Her "dexterity" took the form of a bribe
of money and jewels, conveyed to the Turkish grand-vizier
Baltazhi-Mahomet, who was induced to accede to the Treaty of Pruth, July
20, 1711. ]

[322] {565}

["Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd
Beneath Count Julian's banner. . . . To revenge
His quarrel, twice that number left their bones,
Slain in unnatural battle, on the field
Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths
By righteous Heaven was reft. "

Southey's _Roderick_, Canto XXV. lines 1, 2, 7-11. ]

[323] [The Bashkirs are a Turco-Mongolian tribe inhabiting the slopes of
the Ural Mountains. They supply a body of irregular cavalry to the
Russian army. ]

[324] [The Austrian and Russian armies stood between the Greeks and
other peoples, and their independence, as Alexander the Great stood
between Diogenes and the sunshine. ]

[en]

_Still will I roll my tub at Sinope_
_Be slaves who may_----. --[MS. ]

[325] [Lines 482, 483, are not in the MS. ]

[326] {566} [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 1767-1830) was the
"stormy petrel" of debate in the French Chamber. For instance, in a
discussion on secret service money for the police (July 27, 1822), he
exclaimed, "Vous les representez-vous payant d'une main le salaire du
vol, et tenant peut-etre un crucifix de l'autre? " No wonder that there
were "violens murmures, cris d'indignation a droite. " The duel, however,
did not arise out of a speech in the Chamber, but from a letter of June
5, 1822, in _La Quotidienne_, in which the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts
replied to some letters of Constant, which had appeared in the
_Courrier_ and _Constitutionnel_. Constant was lame, and accordingly
both combatants "out ete places a dix petits pas sur des chaises. " Both
fired twice, but neither "was a penny the worse. " (See _La Grande
Encyclopedie_, art. "Constant;" and, for details, _La Quotidienne_, June
8, 1822. See, too, for "session de 1822," _Opinions el Discours_ de M.
Casimir Perrier, 1838, ii. 5-47. )]

[327] [Louis XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier, 1755-1824) passed several
years of exile in England, at Goswell, Wanstead, and latterly at
Hartwell, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire. When he entered Paris as
king, in May, 1814, he was in his fifty-ninth year, inordinately bulky
and unwieldy--a king _pour rire_. "C'est ce gros goutteux," explained an
_ouvrier_ to a bystander, who had asked, "Which is the king? " Fifteen
mutton cutlets, "sautees au jus," for breakfast; fifteen mutton cutlets
served with a "sauce a la champagne," for dinner; to say nothing of
strawberries, and sweet apple-puffs between meals, made digestion and
locomotion difficult. It was no wonder that he was a martyr to the gout.
But he cared for nature and for books as well as for eating. His
_Lettres d'Artwell_ (Paris, 1830), which profess to be selections from
his correspondence with a friend, give a pleasant picture of the _roi en
exil_. His wife, Louise de Savoie, died November, 1810, and in the
following April he writes (_Lettres_, pp. 70, 71), "Mars a maintenu le
bien d'un hiver fort doux; point encore de goutte; _a brebis tondue,
Dieu measure le vent_. Helas! je l'eprouve bien qu'elle est tondue cette
pauvre brebis! . . . je me promene dans le jardin, je vois mes rosiers qui
poussent bien; a qui offrirai-je les roses? . . . Eh bien! je ne voudrais
pas que cette goutte d'absinthe cessat, car pour cela il faudrait
l'oublier. L'oublier! Ah Dieu! Je suis comme les enfans d'Israel qui
disaient: _Super flumina Babylonis . . . Sion. _ Mais ajoutons tout de
suite: _Si oblitus fuero hit, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea_. "
In another letter, June 8, 1811, he criticizes some translations of
Horace, and laments that the good Pere Sanadon has confined himself to
the _Opera Expurgata_. Not, he adds, that he would not have excluded one
or two odes, "mais on a impitoyablement sabre des choses delicieuses"
(_Lettres_, p. 98).

To his wit, Chateaubriand testifies (_The Congress, etc. _, 1838, i.
262). At the council, when affairs of state were being discussed, the
king "would say in his clear shrill voice, 'I am going to make you
laugh, M. de Chateaubriand. ' The other ministers fumed with impatience,
but Chateaubriand laughed, not as a courtier, but as a human being. "]

[328] {567}[Louvel, who assassinated the Due de Berri, and who was
executed June 7, 1820, was supposed to have been an agent of the
_carbonari_. La Fayette, Constant, Lafitte, and others were also
suspected of being connected with secret societies. --_The Court of the
Tuileries, 1815-1848_, by Lady Jackson, 1883, ii. 19. ]

[eo] {568}

_Immortal Wellington with beak so curled_.
_That foremost Corporal of all the World--_
_Immortal Wellington--and flags unfurled_. --[MS. erased. ]

[329] "Naso suspendis adunco. "--HORACE [_Sat. _ i. 6, 5]. The Roman
applies it to one who merely was imperious to his acquaintance.

[330] [Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of
Londonderry (1769-1822), who had been labouring under a "mental
delirium" (Letter of Duke of Wellington, August 9, 1822), committed
suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife (August 12, 1822). He was
the uncompromising and successful opponent of popular causes in Ireland,
Italy, and elsewhere, and, as such, Byron assailed him, alive and dead,
with the bitterest invective. (See, for instance, the "Dedication" to
_Don Juan_, stanzas xi. -xvi. , sundry epigrams, and an "Epitaph. ") In the
Preface to Cantos VI. , VII. , VIII. , of _Don Juan_, he justifies the
inclusion of a stanza or two on Castlereagh, which had been written
"before his decease," and, again, alludes to his suicide. (For an
estimate of his career and character, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 108, 109,
note 1; and for a full report of the inquest, _The Annual Biography_,
1823, pp. 56-62. )]

[ep]

_Whose penknife saved some nations t'other day_.
_Who shaved his throat by chance the other day_. --[MS. erased. ]

[331] ["The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was written by Canning, to
be recited at a dinner given on Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802. ]

[eq] {569} _With reason--whate'er it may with rhyme_. --[MS. erased. ]

[332] [George Canning (1770-1827) succeeded Lord Londonderry as Foreign
Secretary, September 8, 1822. He was not a _persona grata_ to George
IV. , who had been offended by Canning's neutral attitude, as a minister,
on the question of the Queen's message (June 7, 1820), and by his avowal
"of an unaltered regard and affection" for that "illustrious personage"
herself. There was, too, the prospect of Catholic Emancipation. In 1821
he had spoken in favour of Plunket's bills, and, the next year (April
30, 1822), he had brought in a bill to remove the disabilities of Roman
Catholic peers from sitting in the House of Lords. If Canning persisted
in his advocacy of Catholic claims, the king's conscience might turn
restive, and urge him to effectual resistance. Hence the warning in
lines 563-567. ]

[333] {570} [Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot drawn by serpents, and
bade him scatter wheat throughout the world. (See Ovid, _Met. _, lib. v.
lines 642-661. )]

[er] _The mighty monosyllable high_ Rent! --[MS. ]

[es] ----_upon the audit day_. --[MS. M. ]

[334] ["Lord Londonderry proposed (April 29, 1822) that whenever wheat
should be under 60 shillings a quarter, Government should be authorized
to issue ? 1,000,000 in Exchequer bills to landed proprietors on the
security of their crops; that importation of foreign corn should be
permitted whenever the price of wheat should be at or above 70 shillings
a quarter . . . that a sliding-scale should be fixed, that for wheat being
under 80s. a quarter at 12 shillings; above 80s. and below 85s. , at 5
shillings; and above 85s. , only one shilling. "--Allison's _History of
Europe_, 1815-1852, _and_ 1854, ii. 506. The first clause was thrown
out, but the rest of the bill passed May 13, 1822. ]

[et] {571} _For fear that riches_----. --[MS. M. ]

[eu] _Will sell the harvest at a market price_. --[MS. M. ]

[ev] _Are gone--their fields untilled_. --[MS. M. ]

[335] {572}[Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments (Act 59 Geo.
III. cap. 49) was passed June 14, 1819. The "landed interest" attributed
the fall of prices and the consequent fall of rent to this measure, and
hinted more or less plainly that the fund-holders should share the loss.
They had lent their money when the currency was inflated, and should not
now be paid off in gold.

"But _you_," exclaims Cobbett [Letter to Mr. Western (_Weekly Register_,
November 23, 1822)], "what can induce you to stickle for the Pitt system
[i. e. paper-money]? I will tell you what it is: you loved the _high
prices_, and the domination that they gave you. . . . Besides this, you
think that the _boroughs can be preserved_ by a return to paper-money,
and along with them the hare-and-pheasant law and justice. You loved the
glorious times of paper-money, and you want them back again. You think
that they could go on for ever. . . .