9. The population of Venice at the end of the seven teenth century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. 10. Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir, peculiar to the Alps. 11. The above description may seem fantastical or ex aggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening contemplated along the banks of the Brenta near La Mira. 12. Thanks to the critical acumen of a Scotchman, we know as little of Laura as ever. 13. Petrarch retired to Arqua immediately on his return from the unsuccessful aftempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to Venice, in company with Francesco Novella da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last years of his life between that charming solitude and Padua. 14. The struggle is to the full as likely to be with dæmons as with our better thoughts. 15. Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau deprecates Tasso, may serve as well as any other specimen to justify the opinion given of the harmony of French verse. 16. Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by light. ning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away. 17. The eagle, the sea calf, the laurel, and the white vine, were amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning, 18. The Curtain lake and the Ruminal fig-tree in the Forum, having been touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the memory of the accident was preserved by a puteal, or altar, resembling the mouth of a well, with a little chapel covering the cavity supposed to be made by the thunderbolt. 19. The two stanzas, XLII. and XLIII. are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: 66 'Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte." 20. The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. 21. It is Poggio who, looking from the Capitoline bil! upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation; "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gi gantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi." 22. The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with the description proves correct. 23. "Atque oculos pascat uterque suos," 24. This name will recal the memory of those whose tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the Mecca of Italy 25. Alfieri is the great name of this age. 26. The tomb of Machiavelli gives no information as to place or time of the birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian, 27. Dante was born in Florence in the year 1261. 28. The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb if he was not buried at Liternum, whither he had retired to voluntary banishment. 29. The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit to their city in 1350, to revoke the decree which confiscated the property of his father, who had been banished shortly after the exile of Dante. 30. Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James, at Certaldo. 31. Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and expires with his grandson, 32. "And such was their mutual animosity, so intent were they upon the batttle, that the earthquake was not noticed by the combatants. 33. No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. 34. I saw the " Cascata dei marmore" of Termi twice, at different periods. 35. Of the time, place and qualities of this kind of Iris, the reader may have seen a short account in a note to Manfred. 36. In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine. 37. These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-» Homo," &c. 38. For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 39. Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the number of triumphs. 40. Certainly were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by an admirable quality. 41. On the third of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy "of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. 42 The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Declineand Fall of the Roman Empire. 43. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most propably with images of the foster-mother of her founder. 44. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thonght of all antiquity. 45."....omnes pene veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nibil percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerent; angustos sensus; imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitæ; in profundo veritatem demersam; opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui: deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerent." The eighteenth hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any of the imperfections of humanity: and the complaints of the ancient phisolophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday. 46. Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Matalla, called Capo di Beve, in the Appian Way, See-Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold. 47. Rich. Franc. Phil. Brunck. Poetæ. Gnomici, p. 231 edit. 1784. 48. The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion entertained of Britian by that orator and his contemporary Romans, has some elegant passages. 49. The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peters; that of Aurelius by St. Paul. See Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto, &c. 50. Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes. 51. The name and exploits of Rtenzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. 52. The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto. 53." At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions," I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought to possess. 54. We read in Suetonius, that Augustus, from a warning received in a dream, counterfeited, once a year, the beggar, sitting before the gate of this palace with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. 55. Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquerian gladiator, a Greek herald, a Spartan or barbarian shield-bearer,it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which represented a wounded man dying who perfectly expressed what there remained of life in him." 56. When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted, " he has it," "hoc habet," or" habet.". END OF CHILDE HAROLD. W⋅ Dugdale, Printer, 23, Russell Court, Drury Lane. |