The Curse of Minerva. (1) "Pallas te hoc vulnere. Pallas Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit." SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, (2) On such an eve his palest beam he cast, And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes; Eneid, lib. xii. But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide, As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane, Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane," first appeared at the commencement of the third canto of the Corsair, the author having, at that time, abandoned all notion of publishing the piece of which they originally made part.-E. (5) Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down. (4) The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration. (1) This fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, whose colection of Athenian marbles was ultimately purchased for the nation, in 1816, at the cost of thirty-five thousand pounds, was written at Athens, in March, 1811, and prepared for publication along with the Hints from Horace; but, like that satire, suppressed by Lord Byron, from motives which the reader will easily understand. It was first given to the world in 1828. Few can wonder that Lord Byron's feelings should have been powerfully excited by the spectacle of the despoiled Parthenon; but it is only due to Lord Elgin to keep in mind, that, had those precious marbles remained, they must, in all likelihood, have perished for ever amidst the miserable scenes of violence which Athens has since witnessed; and that their presence in England has already, by (6) "During our residence of ten weeks at Athens, there was universal admission, been of the most essential advantage to the not, I believe, a day of which we did not devote a part to the fine arts of our own country. The political allusions in this poem contemplation of the noble monuments of Grecian genius, that are not such as require much explanation. It contains many have outlived the ravages of time, and the outrage of barbarous lines which, it is hoped, the author, on mature reflection, and antiquarian despoilers. The Temple of Theseus, which was disapproved of- but is too vigorous a specimen of his iambics within five minutes' walk of our lodgings, is the most perfect anto be omitted in any collective edition of his works.-E. cient edifice in the world. In this fabric, the most enduring (2) The splendid lines with which this satire opens, down to "As stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united (5) The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house. Cepbisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all. And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod Yes, 't was Minerva's self; but, ah! how changed That all may learn from whence the plunderer came, She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's towers "Mortal!"—'t was thus she spake-" that blush Survey Boeotia ;-Caledonia 's ours. of shame Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name: 'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth, (1) | with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship; the QUOD NON FECERUNT GOTI, HOC FECERUNT Scoti. The mortar wall, yet fresh when we saw it, supplying the place of the statue now in Lord Elgin's collection, serves as a comment on this text. This eulogy of the Goths a udes to an unfounded story of a Greek historian, who relates that Alaric, either terriGied by two phantoms, one of Minerva herself, the other of Achilles, terrible as when he strode towards the walls of Troy And well I know within that bastard land (7) to his friends, or struck with a reverential respect, had spared the (2) In the original MS.— "Ah, Athens! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth, "Aspice quos Pallas Scoto concedit honores, (3) See note [A] to the second Canto of Childe Harold. -E. (2) "Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan. And thus-accursed be the day and year!- So may her few, the letter'd and the brave, more Bear back my mandate to thy native shore. While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep; When shall a modern maid have swains like these! And last of all, amidst the gaping crew, Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,(4) In many a branding page and burning line; "So let him stand, through ages yet unborn, Fix'd statue on the pedestal of Scorn; Though not for him alone Revenge shall wait, But fits thy country for her coming fate: Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son To do what oft Britannia's self had done. Look to the Baltic-blazing from afar, Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.(6) (1) In 1816, thirty-five thousand pounds were voted by Par- and all generations: it deprives the past of the trophies of their liament for the purchase of the Elgin marbles.-E. (4) "Alas! all the monuments of Roman magnificence, all the remains of Grecian taste, so dear to the artist, the historian, the antiquary, all depend on the will of an arbitrary sovereign; and that will is influenced too often by interest or vanity, by a nephew or a sycophant. Is a new palace to be erected (at Rome) for an upstart family? the Coliseum is stripped to furnish materials. Does a foreign minister wish to adorn the bleak walls of a northern castle with antiques? the temples of Theseus or Minerva must be dismantled, and the works of Phidias or Praxiteles be torn from the shattered frieze. That a decrepit uncle, wrapped up in the religious duties of his age and station, should listen to the suggestions of an interested nephew, is natural; and that an oriental despot should undervalue the masterpieces of Grecian art, is to be expected-though in both cases the consequences of such weakness are much to be lamented; but that the minister of a nation, famed for its knowledge of the language, and its veneration for the monuments of ancient Greece, should have been the prompter and the instrument of these destructions, is almost incredible. Such rapacity is a crime against all ages genius and the title-deeds of their fame; the present, of the strongest inducements to exertion, the noblest exhibitions that curiosity can contemplate; the future, of the masterpieces of art, ・ the models of imitation. To guard against the repetition of such depredations is the wish of every man of genius, the duty of every man in power, and the common interest of every civilized nation."-Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy. "This attempt to transplant the temple of Vesta from Italy to England may, perhaps, do honour to the late Lord Bristol's pa-, triotism or to his magnificence; but it cannot be considered as an indication of either taste or judgment."-Ibid. (5) That the Elgin marbles will contribute to the improvement ! of art in England cannot be doubted. They must certainly open the eyes of the British artists, and prove that the true and only road to simplicity and beauty is the study of nature. But, had we a right to diminish the interest of Athens for se fish motives, and prevent successive generations of other nations from seeing those admirable sculptures? The Temple of Minerva was spared as a beacon to the world, to direct it to the knowledge of purity of taste. What can we say to the disappointed traveller, who is now deprived of the rich gratification which would have compensated his travel and his toil? It will be little consolation to bim to say, he may find the sculpture of the Parthenon in England." H. W. Williams. (6) The affair of Copenhagen.-E Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid, "Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race And claims his long arrear of northern blood. Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind, "Look on your Spain!-she clasps the hand she And light with maddening hands the mutual pile. hates, But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates. Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly. No misers tremble when there's nothing left. "Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour; (1) "Blest paper credit! last and best supply, That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly!"-Pope. (2) The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie. (3) The beautiful but barren Hymettus, the whole coast of Attica, her hills and mountains, Pentelicus, Anchesmus, PhiloPappus, etc. etc. are in themselves poetical; and would be so if the name of Athens, of Athenians, and her very ruins, were swept from the earth. But am I to be told that the 'nature' of "T is done, 't is past, since Pallas warns in vain; Attica would be more poetical without the 'art' of the Acropolis? of the Temple of Theseus? and of the still all Greek and glorious monuments of her exquisitely artificial genius? Ask the traveller what strikes him as most poetical, the Parthenon, or the rock on which it stands? The COLUMNS of Cape Colonna, or the Cape itself? The rocks at the foot of it, or the recollection that Falconer's ship was bulged upon them? There are a thousand rocks and capes far more pieturesque than those of the Acropolis and TO THE PUBLISHER. Dryden's Virgil. never set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d- -d see-saw up-and-down sort of tune, that reminded me of the "Black joke," only more "affettuoso," till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By-and-by they stopped a bit. and I thought they would sit or fall down:- but no; with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder, “quam familiariter" (3) (as Terence said, when I was at school), they walked about a minute, and then at it again, SIR,-I am a country gentleman of a midland county. I might have been a parliament-man for a certain borough; having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election in 1812.(2) But I was all for domestic happiness; as, fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middleaged maid of honour. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the countess of Waltzaway (a distant re-like two cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin. lation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or, as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a chancery suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, of which, by the by, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs. H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partnergeneral and opera knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H. 's dancing (she was famous for birthnight minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the countess's, expecting to see a country dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge Hussar-looking gentleman I Cape Sunium in themselves. But it is the 'art,' the columns, the temples, the wrecked vessel, which give them their antique and their modern poetry, and not the spots themselves. I opposed, and will ever oppose, the robbery of ruins from Athens, to instruct the English in sculpture; but why did I so? The ruins are as poetical in Piccadilly as they were in the Parthenon; but the Parthenon and its rock are less so without them. Such is the poetry of art." B. Letters, 1821.-E. (1) This trifle was written at Cheltenham, in the autumn of 1812, and published anonymously in the spring of the following year. It was not very well received at the time by the public; and the author was by no means anxious that it should be considered as his handiwork. "I hear," he says, in a letter to a friend, "that a certain malicious publication on waltzing is at I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swappenbach,) said, "Lord! Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing ?" or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now, that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs. H. (though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid, in practising the preliminary steps in a morning). Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq., (4) and a few hints from Dr. Busby, (5) (whose recitations I attend, and am moustrous fond of Master Busby's manner of deli tributed to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict; as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and hells.”—E. (2) State of the poll (last day), 5. (5) My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. I grudged the money to a papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and “No popery,” and quite regretting the downfall of the Pope, because we can't burn him any more. (4) See ante, p. 55.-E (8) See Rejected Addresses.-E. |