as

passable,) that one entire province perished by famine in the most melancholy manner, follows: In General Rostopchin's consummate conflagration, the consumption of tallow and train oil was so great, that the market was inadequate to the demand: and thus one hundred and thirty-three thousand persons were starved to death, by being reduced to wholesome diet! the lamplighters of London have since subscribed a pint (of oil) apiece, and the tallow-chandlers have unanimously voted a quantity of best moulds (four to the pound), to the relief of the surviving Scythians; -the scarcity will soon, by such exertions, and a proper attention to the quality rather than the quantity of provision, be totally alleviated. It is said, in return, that the untouched Ukraine has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for a day's meal to our suffering manufacturers.

or

[Hamburg fell to Napoleon's forces in 1810, and thenceforward the mails from the north of Europe were despatched from Anholt, Gothenberg, or Heligoland. In 1811 an attempt to enforce the conscription resulted in the emigration of numbers of young men of suitable age for military service. The unfortunate city was deprived of mails and males at the same time. Mails from Heligoland detailed rumours of what was taking place at the centres of war; but the newspapers occasionally threw doubts on the information obtained from this source. Lord Cathcart's despatch, dated November 23, appeared in the Gazette, December 16, 1812. The paragraph which appealed to Byron's sense of humour is as follows: "The expedition of Colonel Chernichef (sic) [the Czar's aide-de-camp] was a continued and extraordinary exertion, he having marched seven hundred wersts (sic) in five days, and swam several rivers."]

[Austerlitz was fought on December 2,

[A translation of Christopher Meiners' History of the Female Sex, in four volumes, was published in London, in 1808. Lapland wizards, not witches, were said to raise storms by knotting pieces of string, which they exposed to the wind.]

2 [Richard Franz Philippe Brunck (17291803). His editions of the Anthologia Græca, and of the Greek dramatists are among his best known works. Compare Sheridan's doggerel "Huge leaves of that great commentator, old Brunck,

Perhaps is the paper that lined my poor Trunk."]

3 [Christian

Gottlob Heyne (1729-1812) published editions of Virgil (1767-1775), and Pindar (1773).]

Dancing girls who do for hire what Waltz doth gratis. [The Romaika is a modern Greek dance, characterised by serpentining figures and handkerchief-throwing among the dancers. The Fandango (Spaniards use the word "seguidilla") was of Moorish origin. The Bolero was brought from Provence, circ. 1780. "The Bolero intoxicates, the Fandango inflames" (Hist. of Dancing, by G. Vuillier, Heinemann, 1898, ii. 239).]

2

[For Morier, see note to line 211. Galt has a paragraph descriptive of the waltzing Dervishes (Voyages and Travels (1812), p. 190).]

3 It cannot be complained now, as in the Lady Baussière's time, of the "Sieur de la Croix," that there be "no whiskers"; but how far these are indications of valour in the field, or elsewhere, may still be questionable. Much may be, and hath been, avouched on both sides. In the olden time philosophers had whiskers, and soldiers none - Scipio himself was shaven Hannibal thought his one eye handsome enough without a beard; but Adrian, the emperor. wore a beard (having warts on his chin, which neither the Empress Sabina nor even the court

iers could abide) - Turenne had whiskers, Marlborough none Buonaparte is unwhiskered, the Regent whiskered; "argal" greatness of mind and whiskers may or may not go together; but certainly the different occurrences, since the growth of the last mentioned, go further in behalf of whiskers than the anathema of Anselm did against long hair in the reign of Henry I. Formerly, red was a favourite colour. See Lodowick Barrey's comedy of Ram Alley, 1661; Act I. Scene 1.

"Taffeta. Now for a wager - What colcured beard comes next by. the window? ** Adriana. A black man's, I think. "Taffeta. I think not so: I think a red, for that is most in fashion."

1

There is "nothing new under the sun": but red, then a favourite, has now subsided into a jaourite's colour. [This is, doubtless, an allusion to Lord Yarmouth, whose fiery whiskers gained him the nickname of "Red Herrings."] [Madame Genlis maintains that the waltz "appears intolerable to German writers of superior merit, who are not accused of severity of manners," and instances Werther (Sorrows of Werther, Letter ix.), who swears that, "were he to perish for it, never should a girl for whom he entertained any affection, and on whom he had honourable views, dance the waltz with any other man besides himself." Selections from the Works of Madame de Genlis (1806), p. 64.]

M

An anachronism Waltz and the battle of Austerlitz are before said to have opened the ball together; the bard means (if he means anything), Waltz was not so much in vogue till the Regent attained the acmé of his popularity. Waltz, the comet, whiskers, and the new government, illuminated heaven and earth, in all their glory, much about the same time: of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three continue to astonish us still. · Printer's Devil.

* Amongst others a new ninepence a creditable coin now forthcoming, worth a pound, in paper, at the fairest calculation. [The "new ninepences" never passed into circulation at A single pattern coin is preserved in the British Museum.]

all.

3 [Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool, was Secretary at War and for the Colonies from 1800 to 1812, in Spencer Perceval's administration, and, on the assassination of the premier, undertook the government. Both as Secretary at War and as Prime Minister his chief efforts were devoted to the support of Wellington in the Peninsula.]

From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,

190

That spot where hearts 3 were once supposed to be;

"Oh that right should thus overcome might!" Who does not remember the "delicate investigation" in the Merry Wives of Windsor ? —— "Ford. Pray you, come near; if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you this?

"Mrs Ford. What have you to do whither they bear it? - You were best meddle with buck-washing." [Act iii. sc. 3.]

The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as he pleases there are several dissyllabic names at his service (being already in the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweep-stakes; a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing ones. [Revise.] [In the Revise the line, which is not in the MS., ran, "So saith the Muse; my M- what say you? The name intended to be supplied is "Moira."]

"We have changed all that," says the Mock

all

Doctor'tis gone Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurd y as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone only to be opened by force and when divided, you discover a load in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous.

[In the MS. the last sentence stood: **In this country there is one man with a heart so thoroughly bad that it reminds us of those unaccountable petrifactions often mentioned in natural history," etc. The couplet

"Such things we know are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the Devil they got there," which was affixed to the note, was subsequently erased. The one man was, of course, the Prince Regent.]

[Compare Sheridan's lines on waltzing, which Moore heard him "repeat in a drawing

room"

"With tranquil step, and timid downcast glance, Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance. In such sweet posture our first parents moved, While, hand in hand, through Eden's bower they roved;

Ere yet the devil, with promise fine and false, Turned their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz.

One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip,

For so the law's laid down by Baron Trip.”]

In Turkey a pertinent here an impertinent and superfluous question-literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a Waltz in Pera. [See A Journey through Persia, etc. By James Morier, London (1812), P. 365.]

[Richard Fitzpatrick (1747-1813), second son of John, first Earl of Ossory. He was noted for his social gifts, and in recognition, it is said, of his "fine manners and polite address,' inherited a handsome annuity from the Duke of Queensberry. Byron associates him with Sheridan as un homme galant and leader of ton of the past generation.]

[William Douglas, third Earl of March and fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), otherwise "old Q.." was conspicuous as a "blood," and evil liver from youth to extreme old age. He was a patron of the turf, a connoisseur of Italian Opera, and, surtout, an inveterate libertine. As a Whig he held office in the Household during North's Coalition Ministry, but throughout George the Third's first illness in 1788, displayed such indecent partisanship with the Prince of Wales, that, when the king recovered, he lost his post. His dukedom died with him, and his immense fortune was divided between the heirs to his other titles and his friends. Lord Yarmouth, whose wife, Maria Fagniani, he believed to be his natural daughter, was one of the principal legatees.]