NOTES TO CANTO V. Note 1, page 242, stanza III. The ocean stream. This expression of Homer has been much criticised. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Ægean intersected with islands. Note 2, page 242, stanza v. Giant's Grave.» The Giant's Grave» is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties: like Harrow and Highgate Note 3, page 252, stanza XXXIII. And running out as fast I was able, etc. The assassination alluded to took place on the eighth of December, 1820, in the streets of R——, not a hundred paces from the residence of the writer. The circumstances were as described. Note 4, page 252, stanza xxxiv. Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun barrel. There was found close by him an old gun barrel, sawn half off: it had just been discharged, and was still warm. Note 5, page 258, stanza LIII. Prepared for supper with a glass of rum. In Turkey nothing is more common than for the Mussulmans to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of appetizer. I have seen them take as many as six of raki before dinner, and swear that they dined the better for it: I tried the experiment, but fared like the Scotchman, who having heard that the birds called kittiewiaks were admirable whets, ate six of them, and complained that « he was no hungrier than when he began,» Note 6, page 259, stanza LV. Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping, A common furniture.—I recollect being received by Ali Pacha in a room containing a marble basin and fountain, etc. etc. etc. Note 7, page 270, stanza LXXXVII. The gate so splendid was in all its features, etc. « the feature upon Features of a gate—a ministerial metaphor; which this question hinges. »—See the « Fudge Family," or hear Castlereagh. Note 8, page 276, stanza cvi. Though on more thorough-bred or fairer fingers, etc. There is perhaps nothing more distinctive of birth than the hand: it is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate. " Note 9, page 290, stanza CXLVII. Save Solyman, the glory of their line. It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, in his essay on Empire,» hints that Solyman was the last of his line; on what authority I know not. These are his words: « The destruction of Mustapha was so fatal to Solyman's line, as the succession of the Turks from Solyman, until this day, is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the Second was thought to be supposititious.” But Bacon, in his historical authorities, is often inaccurate. I could give half a dozen instances from his apophthegms only. Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect in his citations from history, I have thought it necessary in what regards so great a name, (however trifling) to support the assertion by such facts as more immediately occur to me. They are but trifles, and yet for such trifles a school-boy would be whipped (if still in the fourth form); and Voltaire for half a dozen similar errors has been treated as a superficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned Warton. Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension. >>-Dissertation 1st. Warton. For another distinguished testimony to Voltaire's merits in literary research, see also Lord Holland's excellent Account of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, vol. 1, page 215, edition of 1817. Voltaire has even been termed « a shallow fellow," by some of the same school who called Dryden's Ode « a drunken song;»—a school (as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete) the whole of whose filthy trash of Epics, Excursions, etc. etc. etc. is not worth the two words in Zaire « tu pleures,» or a single speech of Tancred; a school, the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their tea-drinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient treachery in politics-in the record of their accumulated pretences to virtue can produce no actions (were all their good deeds drawn up in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the family of Calas, by that great and unequalled genius-the universal Voltaire. I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuracies of the greatest genius that England or perhaps any other country ever produced,» (Pope in Spence's Anecdotes, page 158, Malone's Edition) merely to show our national injustice in condemning generally the greatest genius of France for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of England has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater intellect than Newton? Being in the humour of criticism, I shall proceed, after having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to touch upon one or two as trifling in the edition of the British Poets, by the justly celebrated Campbell. -But I do this in good-will, and trust it will be so taken.—If any thing could add to my opinion of the talents and true feeling of that gentleman, it would be his classical, honest, and triumphant defence of Pope, against the vulgar cant of the day, and its existing Grub street. |