Albion was happy while Athenæ mourned? Though in thy name the slave her bosom wrung, Albion! I would not see thee thus adorned With gains thy generous spirit should have scorned, From Man distinguished by some monstrous sign, Like Attila the Hun was surely horned,A Who wrought the ravage amid works divine: Oh that Minerva's voice lent its keen aid to mine.—[MS. D. erased.]
What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Albion was happy in Athenæ's tears? Though in thy name the slave her bosom wrung, Let it not vibrate in pale Europe's ears,B The Saviour Queen, the free Britannia, wears The last poor blunder of a bleeding land: That she, whose generous aid her name endears, Tore down those remnants with a Harpy's hand, Which Envious Eld forbore and Tyrants left to stand.—[MS. D.]C
A Attila was horned, if we may trust contemporary legends, and the etchings of his visage in Lavater.—[M.S.]
B Lines 5-9 in the Dallas transcript are in Byron's handwriting.
C Which centuries forgot——.—[D. erased.]
ea After stanza xiii. the MS. inserts the two following stanzas:—
Come then, ye classic Thieves of each degree, Dark HamiltonA and sullen Aberdeen, Come pilfer all the Pilgrim loves to see, All that yet consecrates the fading scene: Ah! better were it ye had never been, Nor ye, nor Elgin, nor that lesser wight. The victim sad of vase-collecting spleen. House-furnisher withal, one ThomasB hight, Than ye should bear one stone from wronged Athenæ's site.
Or will the gentle Dilettanti crew Now delegate the task to digging Gell,C That mighty limner of a bird's eye view, How like to Nature let his volumes tell: Who can with him the folio's limit swell With all the Author saw, or said he saw? Who can topographize or delve so well? No boaster he, nor impudent and raw, His pencil, pen, and spade, alike without a flaw.—[D. erased.]
A [William Richard Hamilton (1777-1859) was the son of Anthony Hamilton, Archdeacon of Colchester, etc., and grandson of Richard Terrick, Bishop of London. In 1799, when Lord Elgin was appointed Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Hamilton accompanied him as private secretary. After the battle of Ramassieh (Alexandria, March 20, 1801), and the subsequent evacuation of Egypt by the French (August 30, 1801), Hamilton, who had been sent on a diplomatic mission, was successful in recapturing the Rosetta Stone, which, in violation of a specified agreement, had been placed on board a French man-of-war. He was afterwards employed by Elgin as agent plenipotentiary in the purchase, removal, and deportation of marbles. He held office (1809-22) as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and as Minister at the Court of Naples (1822-25). From 1838 to 1858 he was a Trustee of the British Museum. He published, in 1809, Ægyptiaca, or Some Account of the Ancient and Modern State of Egypt; and, in 1811, his Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece. (For Hamilton, see English Bards, etc., line 509; Poetical Works, 1898, i. 336, note 2.)]
B Thomas Hope, Esqr., if I mistake not, the man who publishes quartos on furniture and costume.
Thomas Hope (1770-1831) (see Hints from Horace, line 7: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 390, note 1) published, in 1805, a folio volume entitled, Household Furniture and Internal Decoration. It was severely handled in the Edinburgh Review (No. xx.) for July, 1807.]
C It is rumoured Gell is coming out to dig in Olympia. I wish him more success than he had at Athens. According to Lusieri's account, he began digging most furiously without a firmann, but before the resurrection of a single sauce-pan, the Painter countermined and the Way-wode countermanded and sent him back to bookmaking.—[MS. D.]
See English Bards, etc., lines 1033, 1034: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 379, note 1.]
eb Where was thine Ægis, Goddess——.—[MS. D. erased]
ec ——which it had well behoved.—[MS. D.]
123 [The Athenians believed, or feigned to believe, that the marbles themselves shrieked out in shame and agony at their removal from their ancient shrines.]
124 [Byron is speaking of his departure from Spain, but he is thinking of his departure from Malta, and his half-hearted amour with Mrs. Spencer Smith.]
ed ——that rosy urchin guides.—[MS.]
ee Save on that part——.—[MS. erased.]
ef From Discipline's stern law——.—[MS.] ——keen law——.—[MS. D.]
125 An additional "misery to human life!"—lying to at sunset for a large convoy, till the sternmost pass ahead. Mem.: fine frigate, fair wind likely to change before morning, but enough at present for ten knots!—[MS. D.]
eg ——their melting girls believe.—[MS.]
eh Meantime some rude musician's restless hand Ply's the brisk instrument that sailors love.—[MS. D. erased.]
ei Through well-known straits behold the steepy shore.—[MS. erased.]
126 [Compare Coleridge's reflections, in his diary for April 19, 1804, on entering the Straits of Gibraltar: "When I first sat down, with Europe on my left and Africa on my right, both distinctly visible, I felt a quickening of the movements in the blood, but still felt it as a pleasure of amusement rather than of thought and elevation; and at the same time, and gradually winning on the other, the nameless silent forms of nature were working in me, like a tender thought in a man who is hailed merrily by some acquaintance in his work, and answers it in the same tone" (Anima Poetæ, 1895, pp. 70, 71).]
127 ["The moon is in the southern sky as the vessel passes through the Straits; consequently, the coast of Spain is in light, that of Africa in shadow" (Childe Harold, edited by H. F. Tozer, 1885, p. 232).]
128 [Campbell, in Gertrude of Wyoming, Canto I. stanza ii. line 6, speaks of "forests brown;" but, as Mr. Tozer points out, "'brown' is Byron's usual epithet for landscape seen in moonlight." (Compare Canto II. stanza lxx. line 3; Parisina, i. 10; and Siege of Corinth, ii. 1.)]
