NOTE 15.

Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why?
Stanza lxx. line 5.

This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question; not as the birth-place of Pindar, but as the capital of Boeotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved.

NOTE 16.

Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. Stanza lxxxii. line last.

"Medio de fonte leporum

“Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat. Luc.

NOTE 17.

A traitor only fell beneath the feud.

Stanza Ixxxv. line 7.

Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the Governor of Cadiz.

NOTE 18.

"War even to the knife!"

Stanza lxxxvi. line last.

"War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French General at the siege of Saragoza.

NOTE 19.

And thou, my friend! etc.

Stanza xci. line 1.

The Honourable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine.

In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of YOUNG are no fiction:

"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain,
And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn."

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired, while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority.

VOL. II.

4

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

A ROMAUNT.

CANTO II.

I.

COME, blue-eyed maid of heaven!—but thou, alas!

Didst never yet one mortal song inspire-
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,

And is, despite of war and wasting fire,

I

And years, that bade thy worship to expire:

But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,

Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire

Of men who never felt the sacred glow

That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow. 2

II.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone-glimmering through the dream of things that

were:

First in the race that led to Glory's goal,

They won, and pass'd away—is this the whole? A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power.

III.

Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!
Come-but molest not yon defenceless urn:

Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre !
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
Even gods must yield-religions take their turn:
'Twas Jove's-'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;

Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.