1, 1 ‘Vilainton’ Byron probably recalled an epigram in which the French pronunciation of ‘Wellington’ makes a pun with ‘Vilainton’: ‘Faut qu’ lord Villain-ton ait tout pris; / N’y a plus d’argent dans c’ gueux de Paris’ (‘Lord Vilainton [nasty, wicked manners and taste] must have taken everything; there’s no more money in this beggar Paris’). Pierre Jean de Béranger, Complainte d’une de ces Demoiselles à l’Occasion des Affaires du Temps, Chansons (1821), II 17.
1, 8 thunder ‘Nay!’ ]
Nay ‘Query, Ney! – Printer’s Devil’ (Byron, 1823). Michel Ney (1769–1815), a marshal of France, won laurels in the campaigns in Germany and Switzerland in 1799. In 1812 he directed the retreat of the rear guard from Russia. After the abdication of Napoleon in 1814, Ney adhered to the Bourbons, but rejoined the Emperor on his return from Elba. He was tried for treason after the second restoration and was shot on 7 December 1815.
2, 1–2 I don’t think that you used Kinnaird quite well / In Marinet’s affair On 30 January 1818, Lord Charles Kinnaird (1780–1826), brother of Byron’s friend Douglas Kinnaird, notified the British Army Chief of Staff in Paris that someone had told him of a plot to assassinate Wellington. Though this warning was ignored, after someone did try to shoot the Duke on 11 February, he asked that Kinnaird be urged to reveal his informant Kinnaird misinterpreted a sentence that he thought guaranteed safe conduct for the informant an embezzler named Marinet. After he brought Marinet to Paris, the latter was arrested, and Kinnaird, feeling betrayed, wrote an angry pamphlet criticizing Wellington, who now denounced Kinnaird as a friend of the revolutionaries. Marinet and the alleged assassin Cantillon were later acquitted by a French court. Byron may either have read the pamphlet or heard about the quarrel from Douglas Kinnaird. Though Wellington’s biographers record the commotion over the attempted murder, they overlook the dispute with Lord Kinnaird.
2, 6 Such tales being for the tea hours of some tabby The tales for some tabby (an elderly maiden lady, fond of gossip) might concern what one of Wellington’s biographers called a ‘mild flirtation’ with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster in Paris. The relationship was well enough known to draw newspaper comment. Webster and Wellington sued the editor of the Morning Chronicle for libel and were awarded £2, 000 in damages. For Byron’s courtship of Lady Frances see note to Canto XIV 100, 8.
3, 1 Britain owes (and pays you too) so much In 1814, Wellington was given a dukedom, with the recommendation that it be endowed with £300, 000, which the House of Commons raised to half a million.
3, 3–6 You have repaired Legitimacy’s crutch, … The Spanish and the French, as well as Dutch, / Have seen and felt how strongly you restore Since these stanzas were written in July 1819, Byron had in mind (1) the restoration of monarchies after the fall of Napoleon. Wellington and Talleyrand established the French King on his throne in an effort to prevent Prussia and Russia from carving France up. (2) Wellington replaced Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when the latter had to return to England. For the repair there of ‘legitimacy’ in Spain and elsewhere see note to Dedication 14, 5, and note to Canto VI 93, 1–3. The southern (Austrian or Belgian) Netherlands were joined with the northern (Dutch) Netherlands, in spite of their economic and religious incompatibility. The restored Dutch Prince of Orange became King of the United Netherlands. (3) In October-November 1818, Wellington and Castlereagh represented England at Aix-la-Chapelle, where they joined the three continental powers in reaffirming the intention of the Grand Alliance to sustain their treaties and to maintain peace in Europe. This recent declaration aggravated Byron’s hostility. The British ministers, however, at Aix-la-Chapelle would not allow any declaration about the Spanish colonies. Two months after Byron completed Canto IX, Wellington at the Congress of Verona refused to endorse an invasion of Spain to rescue Ferdinand VII from the rebels.
3, 8 I wish your bards would sing it rather better Many lame verses were inspired by Waterloo.
4, 1 ‘the best of cutthroats’ Macbeth III iv 17.
5, 1 You’ve supped full of flattery Macbeth V v 13: ‘I have supp’d full with horrors.’
When the news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo arrived (22 June 1815), Parliament at once granted him £200, 000, ‘accompanied by the most flattering acknowledgments of his services’. In July the London corporation congratulated Wellington, and the Prince Regent eulogized him. When he returned briefly to London in late June 1816, the people and parliament ‘strove emulously’ to make their demonstrations conspicuous (G. N. Wright, Life and Campaigns… of Wellington (1841), IV 58–65, 72).
5, 6 ] May
lucky blunder At the Battle of Waterloo, by mere chance, Bütcher’s army arrived in time to avert a retreat of Wellington’s troops.
5, 8 ] And
6, 1 ]
6, 1–2 the plate / Presented by the Prince of the Brazils The Prince Regent (later John VI) of Portugal fled to Brazil in 1808, when the country was invaded by Napoleon, and he was often referred to as the Prince of the Brazils. Amongst the testimonials presented to Wellington was ‘a magnificent silver plateau’, from the King of Portugal.
6, 8 ] But
7, 1–2 I don’t mean to reflect…|… reflection I don’t mean to censure, for such a great man is above reproach.
7, 3 The high Roman fashion too of Cincinnatus ‘Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion, / And make death proud to take us’ (Antony and Cleopatra IV xiii 87–8). Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a model of integrity and frugality in the annals of the Roman Republic.
7, 7 half a million for your Sabine farm Maecenas, the wealthy Roman, presented Horace with a farm in the Sabine Hills.
8, 2–3 Epaminondas… /… his funeral expenses ‘Epaminondas… was buried by the Thebans at the public cost, because of the poverty in which he died, for it is said that nothing was found in his house after his death except a piece of iron money’ (Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, section 27, Lives, trans. B. Perrin (1916), III 197).
8, 4 George Washington had thanks and nought beside ‘He was unselfish enough to consider his salary as President to be only expense money and set a standard of living in the interests of the office itself which later Presidents sometimes found embarrassing’ (Avery Craven and Walter Johnson, The United States: Experiment in Democracy (1947), 151).
8, 6–8 Pitt too had his pride |… ruining Great Britain gratis Pitt refused to accept, either from the citizens of London or from George III, proffered help in paying his debts.
11 This was originally the first stanza of Canto IX.
11, 1–8 Death laughs…|… without breath! See old Talbot’s speech on the death of his son: ‘Thou antick, death, which laugh’st us here to scorn’ (Henry VI Part I IV vii 18).
14, 1 ‘To be… the question’ Hamlet III i 56.
14, 2 Shakespeare, who just now is much in fashion Motivated by his antipathy for Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb and other ‘bardolaters’, Byron enjoyed sneering at contemporary critics of Shakespeare.
14, 3 I’m neither Alexander n or Hephaestion He makes no pretension of being a conqueror of the world, like Alexander the Great, nor even a close friend to one.
14, 6 Buonaparte’s cancer Byron was accurate in attributing Napoleon’s death to cancer. For the pronunciation of his name here and in stanza 32 see note to Canto VII 82, 1.
14, 7 ] Through
15, 1 Oh dura ilia messorum Horace, Epode III 4. Dura: tough, vigorous. This epode is a playful diatribe on the vile potency of garlic, which only rugged farmworkers could digest.
15, 2 Ye rigid guts ] Ye
16, 7–8 I sometimes think that life is death, / Rather than life a mere affair of breath ‘The constant work of your life is to build death. You are in death while you are in life; for you are after death when yo
u are no longer in life. Or, if you prefer it this way, you are dead after life; but during life you are dying… ’ (Montaigne, That to philosophize is to learn to die, 65). Compare also Shelley’s Adonais, stanza 41: ‘He lives, he wakes – ’tis Death is dead, not he.’
17, 1 Que sais-je? ] Que scais-je Y, 1823 and later editions. According to Pascal, the motto ‘Que sais-je’, which appeared in the 1635 edition of Montaigne, characterized perfectly his philosophy. Not long before Byron began Canto IX he received a letter from Isaac D’Israeli (written 19 July 1822) that posed the elusiveness and relativity of truth: ‘old Montaigne… shrugged up his shoulders with a “Que scais-je!” ’ Byron seems to have been reading some of the essays at this time.
17, 2 academicians According to Maxwell (NQ, 302–3) Byron used the word in a sense not recorded in OED. He compares OED’s ‘Academist, 7’: ‘an Academic philosopher; a sceptic’.
17, 8 I doubt if doubt itself be doubting ‘… they [the Pyrrhonians] seek to be contradicted, so as to create doubt and suspension of judgment, which is their goal… And by this extremity of doubt that shakes its own foundations, they separate and divide themselves from many opinions, even from those which in many ways have upheld doubt and ignorance’ (Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond, 372).
18, 2 Like Pyrrho on a sea of speculation Byron’s references to Pyrrho are derived from his reading of Montaigne: ‘… the profession of the Pyrrhonians is to waver, doubt, and inquire, to be sure of nothing, to answer for nothing’ (Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond, 372).
18, 8 Some pretty shell Compare Canto VII 5.
19, 1–2 ‘But heaven,’ as Cassio says, ‘is above all. / No more of this then – let us pray!’ Byron modified Cassio’s drunken talk: ‘Well, God’s above all and there be souls must be saved.… Let’s have no more of this; let’s to our affairs. God forgive us our sins!’ (Othello II iii 103–4, 111–13).
19, 5–6 ‘The sparrow’s fall / Is special providence’ Byron inverted Hamlet’s phrasing: ‘there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’ (V ii 218–19). See also Matthew x 29: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.’ Luke xii 6: ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?’
20, 6 Lycanthropy ] Lykanthropy Y, 1823 and later editions
‘Lycanthropia,… or Wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves or some such beasts’ (Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy I 1, i, 4).
21, 2 Like Moses or Melancthon The traditional humility of Moses was probably based on such remarks as the following: ‘And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ (Exodus iii 11). ‘And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent neither heretofore, nor since thou has spoken to thy servant; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue’ (Exodus iv 10).
Melancthon (the grecized name of the German humanist Philip Schwartzerd, 1497–1560) was noted for his piety and forbearance.
23, 6 Much flattery, even Voltaire’s Voltaire’s letters to Catherine II contain fulsome praise of her character and her imperial power (Oeuvres de Voltaire, ed. Louis E. D. Moland (1877–85), XI 44; XXVI 310; XLIV 566; XLVII 47; and index, LI 166–8).
24, 8 ] Of every
25, 1–2 It is not that I adulate the people. / Without me, there are demagogues enough Byron seems to have associated democracy and anarchy; of Hunt and Cobbett he wrote to Hobhouse, 22 April 1820: ‘I do not think the man who would overthrow all laws should have the benefit of any.… I protest, not against reform, but my most thorough contempt… of the persons calling themselves reformers, radicals… I am no enemy to liberty, however’ (Correspondence II 143–4).
26, 1–2 The consequence is, being of no party, / shall offend all parties Medwin quotes Byron: ‘I am not made for what you call a politician, and should never have adhered to any party’ (Medwin, 228).
26, 8 ]
27, 2 I’ve heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl When Byron visited Ephesus in 1810, he was more impressed by the barking of hundreds of jackals than by the ruins. See Lf I 268, and Byron’s note to The Siege of Corinth 1069–72.
27, 4 who for pickings prowl ] who
27, 8 ]
28, 7–8 the Spanish fly and Attic bee, / As yet are strongly stinging to be free strongly stinging to be free ] strongly
Spanish fly A common name for cantharides ‘or a dried beetle, formerly considered an aphrodisiac, used externally as a rubefacient, and internally as a diuretic’. Byron’s figurative use was cited by OED. The Spaniards and Greeks were active in revolt
Attic bee Hymettus, a mountain in Attica, was famous for its honey. It was about three miles south of Athens.
29, 7 main of cocks ‘A match fought between cocks’ OED.
30, 1 kibitka A carriage usually employed by the Russians in their winter journeys.
32, 1–8 At least he pays no rent… /… fall with oats! For the economic depression in England see note to Canto VII 44–5.
32, 6 farmers can’t raise Ceres from her fall See notes toCanto II 169, 7–8, and Canto VII 45, 8.
33, 4–8 Nadir Shah… /… could no more digest his dinner ‘He was killed in a conspiracy, after his temper had been exasperated by his extreme costivity to a degree of insanity’ (Byron, 1823).
Though Nadir Shah (1688–1747) is his more familiar name, he early received a title that has been variously spelled in English: Tahmasp Quili Khan. After he gained political power in Persia in 1726, he waged for fourteen years a succession of victorious campaigns against domestic rebels, Turkey and India. From about the age of fifty he suffered severe ailments (malaria, liver, digestive and intestinal disorders) that impaired his mind and temper. In fits of depression and frenzy he butchered hundreds. After he blinded his son, his diseases and derangement worsened. Military defeats and ferocious atrocities caused his assassination. L. Lockhart’s Nadir Shah (1938) generally corroborates Byron’s judgement in lines 3–8.
33, 5 Hindustan ] Hindostan Y, 1823 and later editions
33, 7–8 ] To soothe his woes withal
Killed because what he swallowed would not pass.>
34, 6 ] With
35, 6 ‘courtier’s kibes’ ‘The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe’ (Hamlet V i 150–52). See Byron’s misuse of the same reference to kibes in CH I 67, 5.
36, 1 Apropos des bottes In regard to nothing in particular.
38, 1 So Cuvier says Cain and its Preface (1821) reveal how impressed Byron was by the notion he derived from Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) that the world had been destroyed several times before the creation of man.
41, 1 But I am apt The verb should be read as a contraction: But I’m apt.
41, 2 ‘The time is out of joint’ Hamlet I v 189.
42, 3 I left Don Juan with his horses baiting Juan had halted along the road to bait, that is, to rest and give food and drink to his horses.
42, 8 painted snows The metaphor may suggest the artificial glitter of aristocratic society that flourished in spite of the severe winter. E. H. Coleridge thought Byron might have in mind William Tooke’s description of the winter garden of the Taurida Palace in the Life of Catherine II (1798), III 48.
43, 2 black facings black trimmings sewed on the cuffs or collar of a coat or on the front under a row of buttons.
43, 5 And brilliant breeches ] And
43, 5 bright as a cairngorm Scotch topaz,
of a yellow or wine colour, derives its name from the mountain called Cairn Gorm near Aberdeen.
43, 6 cassimere Byron used various spellings of the name of this soft woollen cloth: on Y in this line ‘Casimire’; earlier in Canto V 68, 6, ‘Cachemire’ on PM and ‘cashmire’ on M.
43, 7 uncurdled as new milk ] unruffled as new milk
44, 7 ] Behold him placed
45, 4 ]
46, 2–4 ] The Empress smiled,
]
Mild Catherine owed the chance of being crown’d>
The reigning favourite Catherine was notorious for her fickleness in lavishing gifts upon a new favourite and then dismissing him when she was attracted to someone else.
46, 6 Since first Her Majesty was singly crowned After the murder of her husband, Peter III, Catherine, by birth a German, had herself crowned empress in 1762.
46, 7–8 six-foot fellows, / All fit to make a Patagonian jealous Two of Catherine’s favourites, Orlov and Potemkin, were extremely tall. For Patagonian see note to Canto VI 28, 5.
47, 8 ] And
the fair faced Lanskoi ‘He was the “grande passion” of the grande Catherine. [William] Tooke in his Life of Catherine [1798, III 88] also said she loved Lanskoi the most among her favourites’ (Byron, 1823). See stanza 54, 5–6.
48, 1–2 Yermoloff…|… or any other off After a period of mourning for Lanskoi, Catherine took Iermolov as a favourite; some months later he was displaced by Dmitrief Mamonov. Byron may have borrowed the name ‘Scherbatoff’ here from the princess of that name, a maid of honour to Catherine, whom the Empress allowed Mamonov to marry later on.
49, 3–8 Londonderry’s Marquess…|… the sole gleaning ‘This was written long before the suicide of that person’ (Byron, 1823).
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