His bell-mouthed goblet—and his laughing group
—[MS. erased]
Provoke my thirst—what ho! a flask of Rhenish.
Hath yet at night the very best of wines.
—[MS.]
“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. —Editor ↩
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. —Editor ↩
In Assyria. [See Daniel 3:1.] ↩
—she hath the tame
—[MS.]
Preserved within doors—why not make them Game?
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. —Editor ↩
—the Countess Squabby.
—[MS.]
Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of Cork and Orrery: “Dowager Cork,” “Old Corky,” of Joseph Jekyll’s Correspondence, 1894, pp. 83, 275. —Editor ↩
Mrs. Rabbi may be Mrs. Coutts, the Mrs. Million of Vivian Grey (1826, I 183), who arrived at “Château Desir in a crimson silk pelisse, hat and feathers, with diamond earrings, and a rope of gold round her neck.” —Editor ↩
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. —Editor ↩
“Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries.”
Macbeth, act II sc. 3, line 6
—Editor ↩
Or (to come to the point, like my friend Pulci).
—[MS. erased]
Hor., Epist. Ad Pisones, line 343. —Editor ↩
—by fear or flattery.
—[MS. erased]
Siria, i.e. bitch-star. ↩
I have seen—no matter what—we now shall see.
—[MS. erased]
Parolles [see All’s Well That Ends Well, passim] is Brougham (vide ante, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I note 128). 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.”
—Editor ↩
There was, too, Henry B⸺.
—[MS. erased]
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.” —Editor ↩
Gronow (Reminiscences, 1889, I 234–240) identifies the Chevalier de la Ruse with Casimir Comte de Montrond (1768–1843), backstairs 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,
