NOTES.

Note 1. Page 266.

The Turcoman hath left his herd.

The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents.
Note 2. Page 267.

Coumourgi-be whose closing scene.

Ali Coumourgi, the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians, in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners; and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said "I shall become a greater, and at his expense."

Note 3. Page 273.

There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea.

The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean,

Note 4. Page 274.

And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull.

This spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's Travels. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

Note 5. Page 274.

And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair.

This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superstition that Mahomet will draw them into paradise by it.

Note 6. Page 276.

I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will no longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

Note 7. Page 278.

There is a light cloud by the moon.

I have been told that the idea expressed from lines 598 to 603 have been admired

by those whose approbation is valuable. I am lad of it: but it is not original-at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek” (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.

Note 8. Page 279.

The horse-tails are pluck'd from the ground, and the sword.

The horse-tail, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard.

Note 9. Page 282.

And since the day, when in the strait.

In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and the Turks.

Note 10. Page 288.

The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry.

I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies.

PARISINA.

TO SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, ESQ. ·

THE FOLLOWING POEM IS INSCRIBED,

BY ONE WHO HAS LONG ADMIRED HIS TALENTS, AND VALUED HIS FRIENDSHIP.

January 22, 1816.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's " Antiquities of the House of Brunswick."—I am aware that in modern times the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical.

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of an attendant, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty; if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve that last act of the justice of a parent."—GIBBON'S Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 470, new edition.

PARISINA.

1.

Ir is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard:
It is the hour when lovers' vows

Seem sweet in every whisper'd word,
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,

And in the sky the stars are met,

And on the wave is deeper blue,

And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,

Which follows the decline of day,

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.1

II.

But it is not to list to the waterfall

That Parisina leaves her hall,

And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light

That the lady walks in the shadow of night:

And if she sits in Este's bower,

'T is not for the sake of its full-blown flower : She listens but not for the nightingale

Though her ear expects as soft a tale.

There glides a step through the foliage thick,

And her cheek grows pale-and her heart beats quick;

There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves.

And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves:

A moment more-and they shall meet—

'T is past her lover 's at her feet.

III.

And what unto them is the world beside,
With all its change of time and tide?