Which emanated then, and dazzles now, In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow (1) No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire!

XXXIX.

Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss.
Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song!
Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
The tide of generations shall roll on,

And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine? though all in one [sun. Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a XL.

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
The Tuscan father's comedy divine;

Then, not unequal to the Florentine,

Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress; XLIII.

Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired,
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored
For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd
Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po
Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. (7)
XLIV.

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, (8)
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
Ægina lay, Piræus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
Along the prow, and saw all these unite

A new creation with his magic line,
And, like the Ariosto of the North, (3)

Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.

XLI.

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust (4)
The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,

For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, (5)
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
-Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below (6)
Whate'er it strikes;-yon head is doubly sacred now.

XLII.

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast

The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim

(1) See Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. X.-L. E. (2)Scott," says Lord Byron, in his MS. Diary, for 1821, "is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any-if not better (only on an erroneous system),and only ceased to be so popular, because the vulgar were tired of hearing Aristides called the Just,' and Scott the Best, and ostracised him. I know no reading to which I fall with such alacrity as a work of his. I love him, too, for bis manliness of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, personally. May he prosper! for he deserves it." In a letter, written to Sir Walter, from Pisa, in 1822, he says-"I owe to you far more than the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and common friendship; for you went out of your way, in 1817, to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness, but courage, to do so; to have been recorded by you in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, when All the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my selfesteem. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations."-L. E.

XLV.

For time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site, Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light, And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, These sepulchres of cities, which excite Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.

XLVI.

That page is now before me, and on mine
His country's ruin added to the mass
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline,
And I in desolation: all that was

Of then destruction is; and now, alas!
Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
The skeleton of her Titanic form, (9)

Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are

warm.

(3) I do not know whether Scott will like it, but I have called him the 'Ariosto of the North' in my text. If he should not, say so in time." Lord B. to Mr. Murray, La Mira, near Venice, August, 1817.-P. E.

(4, 5, 6) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. XI. XII. XIII.-L. E.

(7) The two stanzas xlii. and xliii. are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja':——“ Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte!"

(8) The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages:-"On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from gina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: Egina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view.”—See Middleton's Cicero, vol. ii. p. 371.

(9) It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, “Ut

XLVII.

Yet, Italy! through every other land

Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side;
Mother of arts! as once of arms; thy hand
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide;
Parent of our religion! whom the wide
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!
Europe, repentant of her parricide,

Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. XLVIII.

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn.

XLIX.

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills (1)
The air around with beauty; we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil

Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold

What mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
And to the fond idolaters of old

Reels with its fulness; there--for ever there-
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art,
We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away!-there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,

Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes: Blood-pulse-and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

LI.

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise? Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or, In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War? And gazing in thy face as toward a star, Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek! (3) while thy lips are With lava kisses melting while they burn, Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!(4)

LII.

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,
Their full divinity inadequate

That feeling to express, or to improve,

The gods become as mortals, and man's fate
Has moments like their brightest; but the weight

Of earth recoils upon us;-let it go!

We can recall such visions, and create,

From what has been, or might be, things which grow

L.

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart (2)

nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi."*

(1) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XIV.-L. E.

(2) In 1817, the poet visited Florence, on his way to Rome. "I remained," he says, "but a day: however, I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The Venus is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which, for the first time, at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant about those two most artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the mistress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici Gallery; the Venus; Canova's Venus, also, in the other gallery: Titian's mistress is also in the other gallery (that is, in the Pitti Palace gallery); the Parca of Michael Angelo, a picture; and the Antinous, the Alexander, and one or two not very decent groups in marble; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, etc. etc. I also went to the Medici chapel. Fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten carcasses. It is unfinished, and will remain so." We find the following note of a second visit to the galleries in 1821, accompanied by the author of The Pleasures of Memory: "My former impressions were confirmed; but there were too many visitors to allow me to feel any thing properly. When we were (about thirty or forty) all stuffed into the cabinet of gems and knick-knackeries, in a corner of one of the galleries, I told Rogers that it felt like being in the watch-house.' I heard one bold Briton declare to the woman on his arm, looking at the Venus of Titian, Well, now, that is really very fine indeed!'-an observation which, like that of the landlord in Joseph Andrews, on the certainty of death,' was (as the landlord's wife observed) 'extremely true. In the Pitti Palace, I did not omit Goldsmith's prescription for a connoisseur, viz. that the pictures would

"Atque oculos pascat uterque suos."- Ovid. Amor. lib. ii. (4) "The delight with which the pilgrim contemplates the ancient Greek statues at Florence, and afterwards at Rome, is such as might have been expected from any great poet, whose youthful mind bad, like his, been imbued with those classical ideas and associations which afford so many sources of pleasure, through every period of life. He has gazed upon these masterpieces of art with a more susceptible, and, in spite of his disavowal, with a more learned eye, than can be traced in the effusions of any poet who had previously expressed, in any formal manner, his admiration of their beauty. It may appear fanciful to say so; but we think the genius of Byron is, more than that of any other modern poet, akin to that peculiar genius which seems to have been diffused among all the poets and artists of ancient Greece; and in whose spirit, above all its other wonders, the great specimens of sculpture seem to have been conceived and executed. His creations, whether of beauty or of strength, are all single creations. He requires no grouping to give effect to his favourites, or to tell his story. His heroines are solitary symbols of loveliness, which require no foil; his heroes stand alone as upon marble pedestals, displaying the naked power of passion, or the wrapped up and reposing energy of grief. The artist who would illustrate, as it is called, the works of any of our other poets, must borrow the mimic splendours of the pencil. He who would transfer into another vehicle the spirit of Byron, must pour the liquid metal, or hew the stubborn rock. What he loses in ease he will gain in power. He ! might draw from Medora, Gulnare, Lara, or Mantred, subjects for relievos, worthy of enthusiasm almost as great as Harold has himself displayed on the contemplation of the loveliest and the sternest relics of the inimitable genius of the Greeks."-Wilson.-L. E.

(5) Only a week before the poet visited the Florence gal

Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and

How well his connoisseurship understands
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
Let these describe the undescribable:

I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
Wherein that image shall for ever dwell;
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

LIV.

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie (1)
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
Even in itself an immortality,

Though there were nothing save the past, and this,
The particle of those sublimities

Which have relapsed to chaos:-here repose
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, (2)

The starry Galileo, with his woes;

Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. (3)

LV.

These are four minds which, like the elements,
Might furnish forth creation;-Italy!

Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand

rents

Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, And hath denied, to every other sky, Spirits which soar from ruin:-thy decay Is still impregnate with divinity, Which gilds it with revivifying ray; Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day.

LVI.

But where repose the all-Etruscan three-
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he

Of the Hundred Tales of love-where did they lay
Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay
In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
And have their country's marbles nought to say?
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust?
LVII.

Ungrateful Florence! Daute sleeps afar, (4) Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore; (5) Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore Their children's children would in vain adore With the remorse of ages; and the crown (6) Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled-not thine

own.

LVIII.

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd (7)
His dust, and lies it not her great among,
With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue?

unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it." B. Letters.-L. E.

(1, 2, 3) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. XV. XVI. XVII.—"The church of Santa Croce contains much illustrious nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy. I did not admire any of these tombs-beyond their

That music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of speech? No;-even his tomb Uptoru, must bear the hyæna bigot's wrong, No more amidst the meaner dead find room, Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom! LIX.

And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust; Yet for this want more noted, as of yore The Cæsar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, Did but of Rome's best son remind her more: Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore, Fortress of falling empire! honour'd sleeps The immortal exile;-Arqua, too, her store Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and weeps.

LX.

What is her pyramid of precious stones? (8) Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, Are gently press'd with far more reverent tread Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.

LXI.

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies; There be more marvels yet-but not for mine; For I have been accustom'd to entwine My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, Than Art in galleries: though a work divine Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields

LXII.

Is of another temper, and I roam By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles Come back before me, as his skill beguiles The host between the mountains and the shore, Where Courage falls in her despairing files, And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore, Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er,

LXIII.

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds; And such the storm of battle on this day, And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,

contents. That of Alfieri is heavy; and all of them seem to me overloaded. What is necessary but a bust and name? and perhaps a date? the last for the unchronological, of whom I am one. But all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies, in the statuary of the reigns of Charles the Second, William, and Anne." B. Letters, 1817.-L. E. (4, 5, 6, 7) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. XVIII. XIX. XX. and XXI.-L. E.

(8) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXII.-L. E.

An earthquake reel'd unheededly away!(1) None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, And yawning forth a grave for those who lay Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet; [meet! Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations

LXIV.

The earth to them was as a rolling bark Which bore them to Eternity; they saw The ocean round, but had no time to mark The motions of their vessel; Nature's law, In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe [birds Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words.

LXV.

Far other scene is Thrasimene now;

Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain

Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en-
A little rill of scanty stream and bed-

A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain; And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead [red. (2) Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters

LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave (3) Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! And most serene of aspect, and most clear; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughtersA mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

LXVII.

And on thy happy shore a temple (4) still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, Upon a mild declivity of hill,

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps

(1) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXIÍI.-An earthquake, which shook all Italy, occurred during the battle, and was unfelt by any of the combatants. -L. E.

(2) "The lovely peaceful mirror reflected the mountains of Monte Pulciana, and the wild fowl skimming its ample surface touched the waters with their rapid wings, leaving circles and trains of light to glitter in grey repose. As we moved along, one set of interesting features yielded to another, and every change excited new delight. Yet, was it not among these tranquil scenes that Hannibal and Flaminius met? Was not the blush of blood upon the silver lake of Thrasimene ?" H. W. Williams.-L. E.

(3) No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, p. 35.

(4) "This pretty little gem stands on the acclivity of a bank overlooking its crystal waters, which have their source at the distance of some hundred yards towards Spoleto. The temple, fronting the river, is of an oblong form, in the Corinthian order. Four columns support the pediment, the shafts of which are covered in spiral lines, and in forms to represent the scales of fishes: the bases, too, are richly sculptured. Within the building is a chapel, the walls of

Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.

LXVIII.

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! If through the air a zephyr more serene Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace Along his margin a more eloquent green, If on the heart the freshness of the scene Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism,-'tis to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. (5)

LXIX.

The roar of waters!-from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams, shaking the abyss; The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:-how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful

vent

LXXI.

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be

which are covered with many hundred names; but we saw none which we could recognise as British. Can it be that this classical temple is seldom visited by our countrymen, though celebrated by Dryden and Addison? To future travellers from Britain it will surely be rendered interesting by the beautiful lines of Lord Byron, flowing as sweetly as the lovely stream which they describe." H. IV. Williams.L. E.

(5) "Perhaps there are no verses in our language of hap pier descriptive power than the two stanzas which characterise the Clitumnus. In general poets find it so difficult to leave an interesting subject, that they injure the distinctness of the description by loading it so as to embarrass, rather than excite, the fancy of the reader; or else, to avoid that fault, they confine themselves to cold and abstract generalities. Byron has, in these stanzas, admirably steered his course betwixt these extremes: while they present the outlines of a picture as pure and as brilliant as those of Claude Lorraine, the task of filling up the more minute particulars is judiciously left to the imagination of the reader; and it must be dull indeed if it does not supply what the poet has left unsaid, or but generally and briefly intimated. While the eye glances over the lines, we seem to feel the refreshing coolness of the scene-we hear the bubbling tale of the more rapid streams, and see the slender proportions of the rural temple reflected in the crystal depth of the calm pool." Bishop Heber.-L. E.

(I) I saw the "Cascata del Marmore" of Terni twice, at different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz. etc. are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it.

[The stunning sound, the mist, uncertainty, and tremendous depth, bewildered the senses for a time, and the eye had little rest from the impetuous and hurrying waters, to search into the mysterious and whitened gulf, which presented, through a cloud of spray, the apparitions, as it were, of rocks and overhanging wood. The wind, however, would sometimes remove for an instant this misty veil, and display such a scene of havoc as appalled the soul." H. W. Williams.-L. E.]

(2) Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the reader will see a short account, in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like "the hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to be the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial-this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake, called Pie' di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe, and the ancient naturalists, among other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus.† A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone.S

(3) In the greater part of Switzerland, the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine.

I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye; Athos, Olympus, Etna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity, All, save the lone Soracte's heights display'd Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

LXXV.

For our remembrance, and from out the plain Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain May he, who will, his recollections rake And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word (4) In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record

LXXVI.

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd
My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought,
If free to choose, I cannot now restore

Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor.

LXXVII.

Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not feel, thy lyric flow,
To comprehend but never love thy verse, (5)

(4) These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-n Homo," etc.; but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon. For the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Shakspeare ("To be, or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle, boy; and I believe no one could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason;-a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury, was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late when I have erred, -and whose counsels I have but followed when I bave done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely following his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor. [See p. 35. —L. E.]

(5) Byron's prepossession against Horace is not without a parallel. "It was not," says Moore, "till released from the duty of reading Virgil as a task, that Gray could feel himself capable of enjoying the beauties of that poet.”—P. E.