“Petits puits d’amour garnis de confitures,”—a classical and well-known dish for part of the flank of a second course [vide ante, stanza LXIII]. ↩
“Today in a palace, tomorrow in a cow-house—this day with a Pacha, the next with a shepherd.”—Letter to his mother, July 30, 1810, Letters, 1898, I 295. —Editor ↩
No lady but a dish—.
—[MS.]
“This construction (‘commence’ with the infinitive) has been objected to by stylists,” says the New English Dictionary (see art. “Commence”). Its use is sanctioned by the authority of Pope, Landor, Helps, and Lytton; but even so, it is questionable, if not objectionable. —Editor ↩
Sweet Lord! she was so sagely innocent.
—[MS.]
Subauditur “non;” omitted for the sake of euphony. ↩
John Scott, Earl of Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 1801 to 1827, sat as judge (November 7, 1822) to hear the petition of Henry Wallop Fellowes, that a commission of inquiry should be issued to ascertain whether his uncle, Lord Portsmouth (who married Mary Anne Hanson, the daughter of Byron’s solicitor), was of sound mind, “and capable of managing his own person and property.” The Chancellor gave judgment that a commission be issued, and the jury, February, 1823, returned a verdict that Lord Portsmouth had been a lunatic since 1809. (See Letters, 1898, II 393, note 3, et Letters, 1901, VI 170, note I.) —Editor ↩
Hecla is a famous hot-spring in Iceland. [Byron seems to mistake the volcano for the Geysers.] ↩
Hamlet, act III sc. 2, line 367. —Editor ↩
“By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Richard III, act V sc. 3, lines 216–218
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers,” etc.
—Editor ↩
Hobbes: who, doubting of his own soul, paid that compliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of which he had some apprehension.
[Bayle (see art. “Hobbes” [Dict. Crit. and Hist., 1736, III 471, note N.]) quotes from Vita Hobb., p. 106: “He was as falsely accused by some of being unwilling to be alone, because he was afraid of spectres and apparitions, vain bugbears of fools, which he had chased away by the light of his Philosophy,” and proceeds to argue that, perhaps, after all, Hobbes was afraid of the dark. “He was timorous to the last degree, and consequently he had reason to distrust his imagination when he was alone in a chamber in the night; for in spite of him the memory of what he had read and heard concerning apparitions would revive, though he was not persuaded of the reality of these things.” See, however, for his own testimony that he was “not afrayd of sprights,” Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons, by John Aubrey, 1813, vol. II pt. II p. 624.] ↩
Hamlet, act IV sc. 5, lines 41, 42. —Editor ↩
End of Canto 15th. Mch. 25, 1823. B. —[MS.] ↩
March 29, 1823. ↩
Herodotus, Hist., I 136. —Editor ↩
Hamlet, act II sc. 2, line 103. —Editor ↩
The story is told of St. Thomas Aquinas, that he wrote a work De Omnibus Rebus, which was followed by a second treatise, De Quibusdam Aliis. —Editor ↩
Not St. Augustine, but Tertullian. See his treatise, De Carne Christi, cap. V c. (Opera, 1744, p. 310): “Crucifixus est Dei filius: non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei filius: prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit: certum est quia impossibile est.” —Editor ↩
“That the dead are seen no more,” said Imlac, “I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears.”
—Rasselas, chap. XXX, Works, ed. 1806, III 372, 373
—Editor ↩
The composition of the old Tyrian purple, whether from a shellfish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an article of dispute; and even its colour—some say purple, others scarlet: I say nothing.
[Kermes is cochineal, the Greek κόκκινον. The shellfish (murex) is the Purpura patula. Both substances were used as dyes.] ↩
See Ovid, Heroid, Epist. IX line 161. —Editor ↩
Titus used to promise to “bear in mind,” “to keep on his list,” the petitions of all his supplicants, and once, at dinnertime, his conscience smote him, that he had let a day go by without a single grant, or pardon, or promotion. Hence his confession. “Amici, diem perdidi!” Vide Suetonius, De XII Caes., “Titus,” lib. VIII cap. 8. —Editor ↩
Tuism is not in Johnson’s Dictionary. Coleridge has a note dated 1800 (Literary Remains,
