[Wordsworth obtained his appointment as Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland in March, 1813, through Lord Lonsdale’s “patronage” (see his letter, March 6, 1813). The Excursion was dedicated to Lord Lonsdale in a sonnet dated July 29, 1814—
“Oft through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer,
In youth I roamed …
Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, Lonsdale, and this Work present.”]
Paradise Lost, VII 25, 26. —Editor ↩
“Pale, but not cadaverous:”—Milton’s two elder daughters are said to have robbed him of his books, besides cheating and plaguing him in the economy of his house, etc., etc. His feelings on such an outrage, both as a parent and a scholar, must have been singularly painful. Hayley compares him to Lear. See part third, Life of Milton, by W. Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me).
[The Life of Milton, by William Hailey (sic), Esq., Basil, 1799, p. 186.] ↩
Or—
“Would he subside into a hackney Laureate—
A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorned Iscariot?”
I doubt if “Laureate” and “Iscariot” be good rhymes, but must say, as Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with—
“I, John Sylvester,
Lay with your sister.”
Jonson answered—“I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife.” Sylvester answered—“That is not rhyme.”—“No,” said Ben Jonson; “but it is true.”
[For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, see The Age of Bronze, line 538, Poetical Works, 1901, V 568, note 2; and Letters, 1900, IV 108, note 1.] ↩
For the character of Eutropius, the eunuch and minister at the court of Arcadius, see Gibbon, [Decline and Fall, 1825, II 307, 308]. ↩
“Mr. John Murray—As publisher to the Admiralty and of various Government works, if the five stanzas concerning Castlereagh should risk your ears or the Navy List, you may omit them in the publication—in that case the two last lines of stanza 10 [i.e. 11] must end with the couplet (lines 7, 8) inscribed in the margin. The stanzas on Castlerighi (as the Italians call him) are 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.”
—MS. M
—Editor ↩
Commenting on a “pathetic sentiment” of Leoni, the author of the Italian translation of Childe Harold (“Sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria!”), Byron affirms that the Italians execrated Castlereagh “as the cause, by the conduct of the English at Genoa.”
“Surely,” he exclaims, “that man will not die in his bed: there is no spot of the earth where his name is not a hissing and a curse. Imagine what must be the man’s talent for Odium, who has contrived to spread his infamy like a pestilence from Ireland to Italy, and to make his name an execration in all languages.”
—Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, V 22, note 1
—Editor ↩
Charles James Fox and the Whig Club of his time adopted a uniform of blue and buff. Hence the livery of the Edinburgh Review. —Editor ↩
I allude not to our friend Landor’s hero, the traitor Count Julian, but to Gibbon’s hero, vulgarly yclept “The Apostate.” ↩
Begun at Venice, September 6; finished November 1, 1818. —Editor ↩
The pantomime which Byron and his readers “all had seen,” was an abbreviated and bowdlerized version of Shadwell’s Libertine. “First produced by Mr. Garrick on the boards of Drury Lane Theatre,” it was recomposed by Charles Anthony Delpini, and performed at the Royalty Theatre, in Goodman’s Fields, in 1787. It was entitled Don Juan; or, the Libertine Destroyed: A Tragic Pantomimical Entertainment, in Two Acts. Music Composed by Mr. Gluck. “Scaramouch,” the “Sganarelle” of Molière’s Festin de Pierre, was a favourite character of Joseph Grimaldi. He was cast for the part, in 1801, at Sadler’s Wells, and, again, on a memorable occasion, November 28, 1809, at Covent Garden Theatre, when the O.P. riots were in full swing, and (see the Morning Chronicle, November 29, 1809) “there was considerable tumult in the pit.” According to “Boz” (Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, 1846, II 81, 106, 107), Byron patronized Grimaldi’s “benefits at Covent Garden,” was repeatedly in his company, and when he left England, in 1816, “presented him with a valuable silver snuffbox.” At the end of the pantomime “the Furies gather round him [Don Juan], and the Tyrant being bound in chains is hurried away and thrown into flames.” The Devil is conspicuous by his absence. —Editor ↩
Edward Vernon, Admiral (1684–1757), took Porto Bello in 1739.
William Augustus, second son of George II (1721–1765), fought at the battles of Dettingen, 1743; Fontenoy, 1745; and at Culloden, 1746. For the “severity of the Duke of Cumberland,” see Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, Prose Works, 1830, VII 852, sq.
James Wolfe, General, born January 2, 1726, was killed at the siege of Quebec, September 13, 1759.
Edward, Lord Hawke, Admiral (1715–1781), totally defeated the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759.
Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1721–1792), gained the victory at Minden, August 1, 1759.
John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721–1790), commanded the British forces in Germany (1766–1769).
John Burgoyne, General, defeated the Americans at Germantown, October 3, 1777, but surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, October 17, 1778. He died in 1792.
Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral (1725–1786), was tried by court-martial, January-February, 1779, for allowing the French fleet off Ushant to escape, July, 1778. He was honourably acquitted.
Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral (1725–1799), known by the sailors as “Black Dick,” defeated the French off Ushant, June 1, 1794. —Editor
