The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 55

"Je ne trouve pas de plus digne hommage a la Divinite que cette admiration muette qu'excite la contemplation de ses oeuvres, et qui ne s'exprime point par des actes developpes. Je comprends comment les habitants des villes, qui ne voient que des murs, des rues et des crimes, ont peu de foi; mais je ne puis comprendre comment des campagnards, et surtout des solitaires, peuvent n'en point avoir.

Comment leur ame ne s'eleve-t-elle pas cent fois le jour avec extase a l'Auteur des merveilles qui les frappent? ... Dans ma chambre je prie plus rarement et plus sechement; mais a l'aspect d'un beau paysage je me sens emu sans pourvoir dire de quoi."

Compare, too, Coleridge's lines "To Nature"--

"So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields, Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only, G.o.d! and Thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice."

_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 190.]

20.

The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh Night!

Stanza xcii. line 1.

The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.

21.

And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought.

Stanza xcix. line 5.

Rousseau's _Helose_, Lettre 17, Part IV., note. "Ces montagnes sont si hautes, qu'une demi-heure apres le soleil couche, leurs sommets sont eclaires de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches _une belle couleur de rose_, qu'on apercoit de fort loin."[356] This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie.--"J'allai a Vevay loger a la Clef;[357] et pendant deux jours que j'y restai sans voir personne, je pris pour cette ville un amour qui m'a suivi dans tous mes voyages, et qui m'y a fait etablir enfin les heros de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers a ceux qui ont du gout et qui sont sensibles: Allez a Vevay--visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire,[358] et pour un St. Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas."--_Les Confessions_, [P. I. liv. 4, _Oeuvres, etc._, 1837, i. 78].--In July [June 23-27], 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva;[359] and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his _Helose_, I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, Meillerie, Evian,[360] and the entrances of the Rhone) without being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not all; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual pa.s.sion; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own partic.i.p.ation of its good and of its glory: it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole.--If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same a.s.sociations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by their adoption; he has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection; but they have done that for him which no human being could do for them.--I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from Meillerie[361] (where we landed for some time) to St. Gingo during a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around, although occasionally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and overloaded. It was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has driven the boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. On gaining the sh.o.r.e at St. Gingo, I found that the wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old chestnut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the opposite height of Clarens is a chateau[362] [Chateau des Cretes]. The hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods; one of these was named the "Bosquet de Julie;" and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St. Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable superst.i.tion, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the "local habitations" he has given to "airy nothings." The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent one; but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that "La route vaut mieux que les souvenirs."

22.

Of Names which unto you bequeathed a name.

Stanza cv. line 2.

Voltaire and Gibbon.

[Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) lived on his estate at Fernex, five miles north of Geneva, from 1759 to 1777. "In the garden at Fernex is a long _berceau_ walk, closely arched over with clipped horn-beam--a verdant cloister, with gaps cut here and there, admitting a glimpse of the prospect. Here Voltaire used to walk up and down, and dictate to his secretary."--_Handbook for Switzerland_, p. 174.

Previous to this he had lived for some time at Lausanne, at "Monrepos, a country house at the end of a suburb," at Monrion, "a square building of two storeys, and a high garret, with wings, each fas.h.i.+oned like the letter L," and afterwards, in the spring of 1757, at No. 6, Rue du Grand Chene.--_Historic Studies_, ii. 210, 218, 219.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) finished (1788) _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ at "La Grotte, an ancient and s.p.a.cious mansion behind the church of St. Francis, at Lausanne," which was demolished by the Swiss authorities in 1879. Not only has the mansion ceased to exist, but the garden has been almost entirely changed. The wall of the Hotel Gibbon occupies the site of the famous wooden pavilion, or summer-house, and of the "berceau of plum trees, which formed a verdant gallery completely arched overhead," and which "were called after Gibbon, La Gibboniere."--_Historic Studies_, i. I; ii. 493.

In 1816 the pavilion was "utterly decayed," and the garden neglected, but Byron gathered "a sprig of _Gibbon's acacia_," and some rose leaves from his garden and enclosed them in a letter to Murray (June 27, 1816).

Sh.e.l.ley, on the contrary, "refrained from doing so, fearing to outrage the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau; the contemplation of whose imperishable creations had left no vacancy in my heart for mortal things. Gibbon had a cold and unimpa.s.sioned spirit."--_Essays, etc._, 1840, ii. 76.]

23.

Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

Stanza cxiii. line 9.

"----If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I _filed_ my mind."

_Macbeth_, [act iii. sc. 1, line 64].

24.

O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve.

Stanza cxiv. line 7.

It is said by Rochefoucault, that "there is _always_ something in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them."

["Dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplait pas."--_Appendice aux Maximes de La Rochefoucauld, Pantheon Litteraire_, Paris, 1836, p. 460.]

FOOTNOTES:

[356] {303} [_Julie, ou La Nouvelle Helose_: _Oeuvres Completes de J.

J. Rousseau_, Paris, 1837, ii. 262.]

[357] [The Clef, is now a cafe on the Grande Place, and still distinguished by the sign of the Key. But Vevey had other a.s.sociations for Rousseau, more powerful and more persuasive than a solitary visit to an inn. "Madame Warens," says General Read, "possessed a charming country resort midway between Vevey and Chillon, just above the beautiful village of Clarens. It was situated at the Ba.s.sets, amid scenery whose exquisite features inspired some of the fine imagery of Rousseau. It is now called the Ba.s.sets de Pury. ... The exterior of the older parts has not been changed. ... The stairway leads to a large _salon_, whose windows command a view of Meillerie, St. Gingolph, and Bouveret, beyond the lake. Communicating with this _salon_ is a large dining-room.

"These two rooms open to the east, upon a broad terrace. At a corner of the terrace is a large summer-house, and through the chestnut trees one sees as far as Les Cretes, the hillocks and bosquets described by Rousseau. Near by is a dove-cote filled with cooing doves.... In the last century this site (Les Cretes) was covered with pleasure-gardens, and some parts are even pointed out as a.s.sociated with Rousseau and Madame de Warens."--_Historic Sketches of Vaud, etc._, by General Meredith Read, 1897, i. 433-437. There was, therefore, some excuse for the guide (see Byron's _Diary_, September 18, 1816) "confounding Rousseau with St. Preux, and mixing the man with the book."]

[358] {304} [Claire, afterwards Madame Orbe, is Julie's cousin and confidante. She is represented as whimsical and humorous. It is not impossible that "Claire," in _La Nouvelle Helose_, "bequeathed her name" to Claire, otherwise Jane Clairmont.]

[359] [Byron and Sh.e.l.ley sailed round the Lake of Geneva towards the end of June, 1816. Writing to Murray, June 27, he says, "I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the _Helose_ before me;" and in the same letter announces the completion of a third canto of _Childe Harold_. He revisited Clarens and Chillon in company with Hobhouse in the following September (see extracts from a Journal, September 18, 1816, _Life_, pp.

311, 312).]

[360] [Bouveret, St. Gingolph, Evian.]

[361] {305} [Byron mentions the "squall off Meillerie" in a letter to Murray, dated Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27, 1816. Compare, too, Sh.e.l.ley's version of the incident: "The wind gradually increased in violence until it blew tremendously; and as it came from the remotest extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam.... I felt in this near prospect of death a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though but subordinately. My feelings would have been less painful had I been alone; but I know that my companion would have attempted to save me, and I was overcome with humiliation, when I thought that his life might have been risked to preserve mine."--_Letters from Abroad_, etc.; _Essays_, by Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley, edited by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, 1840, ii. 68, 69.]

[362] [Byron and Sh.e.l.ley slept at Clarens, June 26, 1816. The windows of their inn commanded a view of the _Bosquet de Julie_. "In the evening we walked thither. It is, indeed, Julia's wood ... the trees themselves were aged but vigorous.... We went again (June 27) to the _Bosquet de Julie_, and found that the precise spot was now utterly obliterated, and a heap of stones marked the place where the little chapel had once stood. Whilst we were execrating the author of this brutal folly, our guide informed us that the land belonged to the Convent of St. Bernard, and that this outrage had been committed by their orders. I knew before that if avarice could harden the hearts of men, a system of prescriptive religion has an influence far more inimical to natural sensibility. I know that an isolated man is sometimes restrained by shame from outraging the venerable feelings arising out of the memory of genius, which once made nature even lovelier than itself; but a.s.sociated man holds it as the very sacrament of this union to forswear all delicacy, all benevolence, all remorse; all that is true, or tender, or sublime."--_Essays, etc._, 1840, ii. 75.]

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

"Visto ho Toscana Lombardia Romagna, Quel monte che divide, e quel che serra Italia, e un mare e l'altro che la bagna."

_Ariosto_, Satira iv. lines 58-60.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH CANTO.

The first draft of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, which embodies the original and normal conception of the poem, was the work of twenty-six days. On the 17th of June, 1817, Byron wrote to Murray: "You are out about the Third Canto: I have not done, nor designed, a line of continuation to that poem. I was too short a time at Rome for it, and have no thought of recommencing." But in spite of this a.s.sertion, "the numbers came," and on June 26 he made a beginning. Thirty stanzas "were roughened off" on the 1st of July, fifty-six were accomplished by the 9th, "ninety and eight" by the 13th, and on July 20 he announces "the completion of the fourth and ultimate canto of _Childe Harold_. It consists of 126 stanzas." One stanza (xl.) was appended to the fair copy. It suggested a parallel between Ariosto "the Southern Scott," and Scott "the Northern Ariosto," and excited some misgiving.

In commending his new poem to Murray (July 20, August 7), Byron notes three points in which it differed from its predecessors: it is "the longest of the four;" "it treats more of works of art than of nature;"

"there are no metaphysics in it--at least, I think not." In other words, "The Fourth Canto is not a continuation of the Third. I have parted company with Sh.e.l.ley and Wordsworth. Subject-matter and treatment are alike new."