The Latin proverb, Noscitur ex sociis, is not an Horatian maxim. —Editor ↩
I, therefore, deal in generals—which is wise.
—[MS. erased]
See Sheridan’s Critic (“Tilburina” loq.), act III s.f. —Editor ↩
For “the coxcomb Czar … the somewhat agèd youth,” see The Age of Bronze, lines 434–483, Poetical Works, 1901, V 563, note 1. —Editor ↩
Compare Sardanapalus, act I sc. 2, line 1, ibid., p. 15, note 1. —Editor ↩
Compare Childe Harold, Canto III stanza LXXI line 3, Poetical Works, 1899, II 261, 300, note 17. —Editor ↩
Or Germany—she knew nought of all this
—[MS. erased]
Impracticable, novel-reading trance.
Even there—as in relationship will hold,
—[MS. erased]
And make the feeling of a finer mood.
“These violent delights have violent ends,
Romeo and Juliet, act II sc. 6, lines 9, 10
And in their triumph die.”
—Editor ↩
Alas! I quote experience—seldom yet
—[MS.]
I had a paramour—and I’ve had many—
Whom I had not some reason to regret—
For whom I did not make myself a Zany.
I also had a wife—not to forget
—[MS. erased]
The marriage state—the best or worst of any,
Who was the very paragon of wives
Yet mad the misery of many
both our
several lives.
Lady Holland, Lady Jersey, Madame de Staël, and before and above all, his sister, Mrs. Leigh. —Editor ↩
I also had some female friends—by G‑d!
—[MS.]
Or if the oath seem strong—I swear by Jove!
Who stuck to me—.
—[MS. erased]
Byron must have been among the first to naturalize the French milliard (a thousand millions), which was used by Voltaire. —Editor ↩
Othello, act I sc. 3, line 140. —Editor ↩
B. March 4th 1823. —[MS.] ↩
It is impossible to persuade the metaphor to march “on all-fours,” but, to drag it home, by a kind of “frog’s march,” the unfulfilled wants of the soul, the “lurking thoughts” are as it were bubbles, which we would fain “break on the invisible Ocean” of Passion or Emotion the begetter of bubbles—Passion which, like the visible Ocean, images Eternity and portrays, but not to the sensual eye, the beatific vision of the things which are not seen, and, even so, “ministers to the Soul’s delight”! But “who can tell”? —Editor ↩
While all without’s indicative of rest.
—[MS. erased]
A thing on which dull Time should never print age,
—[MS.]
For whom stern Nature should forego her debt.
Ransom and Morland were Byron’s bankers. Douglas Kinnaird was a partner in the firm. (See Letters, 1898, II 85, note 2.) —Editor ↩
Old Skeleton with ages for your booty.
—[MS. erased]
“He turned himself into all manner of forms with more ease than the chameleon changes his colour. … Thus at Sparta he was all for exercise, frugal in his diet, and severe in his manners. In Asia he was as much for mirth and pleasure, luxury and ease.”
—Plutarch, Alcibiades, Langhorne’s translation, 1838, p. 150
—Editor ↩
For the phrase “Cupidon Déchaîné,” applied to Count D’Orsay, vide ante, note 1078. —Editor ↩
Plautus, Truculentus, act II sc. 8, line 14. —Editor ↩
Raphael’s Transfiguration is in the Vatican. —Editor ↩
As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean, by “Diviner still,” Christ. If ever God was man—or man God—he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use—or abuse made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified, that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation.
[In a debate in the House of Commons, May 15, 1823 (Parl. Deb., N.S. vol. IX pp. 278, 279), Canning, replying to Fowell Buxton’s motion for the Abolition of Slavery, said,
“God forbid that I should contend that the Christian religion is favourable to slavery … but if it be meant that in the Christian religion there is a special denunciation against slavery, that slavery and Christianity cannot exist together—I think that the honourable gentleman himself must admit that the proposition is historically false.”]
—and One Name Greater still
—[MS. erased]
Whose lot it was to be the most mistaken.
To leave the world by bigot fashions shaken.
—[MS. erased]
Which never flatters either Whig or Tory.
—[MS. erased]
Martial, Epig., X 46. —Editor ↩
“Feeble” for “foible” is found in the writings of Mrs. Behn and Sir R. L’Estrange (N. Engl. Dict.). —Editor ↩
But now I can’t tell when it will be done.
—[MS. erased]
The N. Engl. Dict. quotes W. Hooper’s Rational Recreations (1794) as an earlier authority for the use of “concision” in the sense of conciseness. —Editor ↩
Who now are weltering—.
—[MS. erased]
“The cat will mew and dog will have his day.”
Hamlet, act V sc. 1, line 280
—Editor ↩
I should not be the foremost to deride
—[MS. erased]
Their fault—but quickly take a sword the other way,
And wax an Ultra-royalist, where Royalty
Had nothing left it but a desperate Loyalty.
“And hold no sin so deeply red
As
