Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 59.]

Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 59.]

[ed] {412}Suggesting dreams or unseen Symmetry.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ee] Which give their glitter lack, and the vast Æther.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ef] ----seaborn palaces.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[433] {413}[Compare "What, ma'amselle, don't you remember Ludovico, who rowed the Cavaliero's gondola at the last regatta, and won the prize? and who used to sing such sweet verses about Orlando's ... all under my lattice ... on the moonlight nights at Venice?"--Mysteries of Udolpho, by Anne Radcliffe, 1882, p. 195. Compare, too, Beppo, stanza xv. lines 1-6, vide ante, p. 164.]

[434] [Compare "The gondolas gliding down the canals are like coffins or cradles ... At night the darkness reveals the tiny lanterns which guide these boats, and they look like shadows passing by, lit by stars. Everything in this region is mystery--government, custom, love."--Corinne or Italy, by Madame de Staël, 1888, pp. 279, 280. Compare, too--

"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
  And silent rows the songless Gondolier."

                    _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii. lines 1, 2,
                                  _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. note 3.]

[eg] ----or towering spire.--[MS. M.]

[eh] ----at this moment.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ei] {414} ----Has he no name?--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ej] His voice and carriage----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ek] {415}If so withdraw and fly and tell me not.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[el] {416}Good I would now requite----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[em] Remain at home----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[en] {417}Why what hast thou to gainsay of the Senate?--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[eo] On the accursed tyranny which taints.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ep] {418}I would not draw my breath----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[435] {419}[If Gifford had been at the pains to read Byron's manuscripts, or revise the proofs, he would surely have pointed out, if he had not ventured to amend, his bad grammar.]

[436] {421}The Doge's family palace.

[eq] {422}A Loredano----.--[MS. erased.]

[437] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, Poetical Works, 1898, ii. 339, note i.]

[438] {423}[Compare "Themistocles was sacrificing on the deck of the admiral-galley."--Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne, 1838, p. 89.]

[439] [For Timoleon, who first saved, and afterwards slew his brother Timophanes, for aiming at sovereignty, see The Siege of Corinth, line 59, note 1, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 452.]

[er] {424}The night is clearing from the sky.--[MS. M. erased.]

[440] [For the use of "dapple" as an intransitive verb, compare Mazeppa, xvi. line 646, vide ante, p. 227.]

[es] ----Now--now to business.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[et] {425}The signal----.--[MS. M. erased.]

The storm-clock----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[441] ["'Tis done ... unerring beak" (six lines), not in MS.]

[442] [Byron had forgotten the dictum of the artist Reinagle, that "eagles and all birds of prey attack with their talons and not with their beaks" (see Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xviii. line 6, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 226, note 1); or, possibly, had discovered that eagles attack with their beaks as well as their talons.]

[443] [Vide ante, p. 368, note 1.]

[eu]

----_ten thousand caps were flung_
_Into the air and thrice ten_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[444] {426}[Compare--

"Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!"

                        _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xii. line 8,
                                     _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 337.]

[ev]

                       /   _iron oracle_.      \

Where swings the sullen < > \ huge oracular bell. / [Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[445] {427} "I Signori di Notte" held an important charge in the old republic. [The surveillance of the "sestieri" was assigned to the "Collegio dei Signori di notte al criminal." Six in all, they were at once police magistrates and superintendents of police. (See Cappelletti, Storia, etc., 1856, ii. 293.)]

[446] [The Doge overstates his authority. He could not preside without his Council "in the Maggior Consiglio, or in the Senate, or in the College; but four ducal councillors had the power to preside without the Doge. The Doge might not open despatches except in the presence of his Council, but his Council might open despatches in the absence of the Doge."--Venetian Studies, by H. F. Brown, 1887, p. 189.]

[ew] {428}That thus you dare assume a brigand's power.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ex] ----storm-clock.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[447] [Byron may have had in his mind the "bell or clocke" (see var. ii.) in Southey's ballad of The Inchcape Rock.

"On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung."]

[ey] Or met some unforeseen and fatal obstacle.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[448] {430}[A translation of Beltramo Bergamasco, i.e. a native of the town and province of Bergamo, in the north of Italy. Compare "Comasco." Harlequin ... was a Bergamasc, and the personification of the manners, accent, and jargon of the inhabitants of the Val Brembana.--Handbook: Northern Italy, p. 240.]

[ez] {431}While Manlius, who hurled back the Gauls----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fa] The Grand Chancellor of the Ten.--[MS. M. erased.]

[449] ["In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that 'Benintende' was not really of the ten, but merely Grand Chancellor--a separate office, though an important one: it was an arbitrary alteration of mine."--Letter to Murray, October 12, 1820.

Byron's correction was based on a chronicle cited by Sanudo, which is responsible for the statement that Beneintendi de Ravignani presided as Grand Chancellor at the Doge's trial, and took down his examination. As a matter of fact, Beneintendi was at Milan, not at Venice, when the trial took place. The "college" which conducted the examination of the Doge consisted of Giovanni Mocenigo, Councillor; Giovanni Marcello, Chief of the Ten; Luga da Lezze, "Inquisitore;" and Orio Pasqualigo, "Avogadore."--La Congiura, p. 104(2).]

[450] "Giovedi grasso,"--"fat or greasy Thursday,"--which I cannot literally translate in the text, was the day.

[451] {435}Historical fact. See Sanuto, Appendix, Note A [vide post, p. 466].

[452] {436}["I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's spitting at Bertram: that's national--the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of Abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the Stage as too familiar. But we who spit nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. Remember Massinger, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach--

'Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and thy Counsel!'"