"The harmony of colours, features, grace, Resulting airs (the magic of a face) Of musical sweet tunes, all which combin'd, To crown one sovereign beauty, lie confined To this dark vault."--_Epitaph on the Lady S._
All will recollect the wonderful description of the shipwreck in _Don Juan_; and more particularly the incidents so graphically related in stanzas 52 and 53 of the Second Canto: to a part of which, the following passage fro Lee's _Oedipus_ bears some resemblance:
"Methought I heard a voice, Now roaring like the ocean, when the winds Fight with the waves; now in a still small tone Your dying accents fell, as wrecking ships, After the dreadful yell, sink murm'ring down, And bubble up a noise."
I have now before me a print of John, the first Lord Byron, engraved from a painting in the collection of Lord Delaware; in which he is pourtrayed in armour, with a truncheon in the left hand, and the _right arm bare_ to above the elbow. Can this have suggested to Lord Byron the idea of describing "Alp the renegade" as fighting with "the white arm bare," in the _Siege of Corinth_?
Byron refers to Smollett as an authority for "blatant beast," apparently forgetting that the figure originated with Spenser. Again, in a note to _Don Juan_ respecting his use of the phrase "reformadoes," he remarks:
"The Baron Bradwardine, in _Waverley_, is authority for the word."
It occurs, however, in Ben Jonson, and may be found in Blount's _Glossographia_; Phillips's _World of Words_, and other old dictionaries of the same period.
Amidst the Apennines, far removed from the ordinary track of tourists, is the diminutive republic of San Marino, which boasts never to have been subjugated. Whether it has escaped invasion because it has escaped notice, or because burglars never attack an empty cottage, is a point which I shall not stop to discuss. Few travellers visit it, but the trouble of doing so would be amply repaid. The situation is highly romantic; and the view from the summit of the bold escarpment, upon which the town is perched, extends over a wilderness of mountains.
The population of the territory is said not to exceed 6,000 or 7,000 souls. Its whole income is derived from a moderate duty on tobacco; and its standing army (for it possesses this indispensable incident to political independence) is chiefly employed in vain attempts to prevent the evasion of that duty.