[158:1] First published in a Bristol newspaper in aid of a subscription for the family of Robert Burns (the cutting is bound up with the copy of Selection of Sonnets (S. S.) in the Forster Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum): reprinted in the Annual Anthology, 1800: included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[159:1]

Pind. Olymp. ii. 149, κ. τ. λ.

[159:2] Verbatim from Burns's Dedication of his Poems to the Nobility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt.

[160:1] First published in the Cambridge Intelligencer, December 31, 1796, and at the same time issued in a quarto pamphlet (the Preface is dated December 26): included in 1797, 1803, Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1829, and 1834. The Argument was first published in 1797. In 1803 the several sentences were printed as notes to the Strophes, Antistrophes, &c. For the Dedication vide Appendices.

This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year. Footnote, 1797, 1808: This Ode was composed and was first published on the last day of that year. Footnote, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834.

[160:2] The Ode commences with an address to the great Being, or Divine Providence, who regulates into one vast Harmony all the Events of Time, however Calamitous some of them appear to mortals. 1803.

[161:1] The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private Joys and Sorrows, and to devote their passions for a while to the cause of human Nature in general. 1803.

[161:2] The Name of Liberty, which at the commencement of the French Revolution was both the occasion and the pretext of unnumbered crimes and horrors. 1803.

[162:1] The first Epode refers to the late Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796, having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the kings combined against France. 1803. The Empress died just as she had engaged to furnish more effectual aid to the powers combined against France. C. I.

[162:2] A subsidiary Treaty had been just concluded; and Russia was to have furnished more effectual aid than that of pious manifestoes to the Powers combined against France. I rejoice—not over the deceased Woman (I never dared figure the Russian Sovereign to my imagination under the dear and venerable Character of Woman—Woman, that complex term for Mother, Sister, Wife!) I rejoice, as at the disenshrining of a Daemon! I rejoice, as at the extinction of the evil Principle impersonated! This very day, six years ago, the massacre of Ismail was perpetrated. Thirty Thousand Human Beings, Men, Women, and Children, murdered in cold blood, for no other crime than that their garrison had defended the place with perseverance and bravery. Why should I recal the poisoning of her husband, her iniquities in Poland, or her late unmotived attack on Persia, the desolating ambition of her public life, or the libidinous excesses of her private hours! I have no wish to qualify myself for the office of Historiographer to the King of Hell—! December, 23, 1796. 4^o.

[164:1] The first Antistrophe describes the Image of the Departing Year, as in a vision; and concludes with introducing the Planetary Angel of the Earth preparing to address the Supreme Being. 1803.

[164:2] 'My soul beheld thy vision!' i. e. Thy Image in a vision. 4^o.

[165:1] Gifts used in Scripture for corruption. C. I.

[166:1] The poem concludes with prophecying in anguish of Spirit the Downfall of this Country. 1803.

[167:1] 'Disclaim'd of Heaven!'—The Poet from having considered the peculiar advantages, which this country has enjoyed, passes in rapid transition to the uses, which we have made of these advantages. We have been preserved by our insular situation, from suffering the actual horrors of War ourselves, and we have shewn our gratitude to Providence for this immunity by our eagerness to spread those horrors over nations less happily situated. In the midst of plenty and safety we have raised or joined the yell for famine and blood. Of the one hundred and seven last years, fifty have been years of War. Such wickedness cannot pass unpunished. We have been proud and confident in our alliances and our fleets—but God has prepared the canker-worm, and will smite the gourds of our pride. 'Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the Sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength and it was infinite: Put and Lubim were her helpers. Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. Thou also shalt be drunken: all thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven. Thy crowned are as the locusts; and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cool-day; but when the Sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all, that hear the report of thee, shall clap hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?' Nahum, chap. iii. 4^o, 1797, 1803.

[168:1] 'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows [France: an Ode. First published as The Recantation: an Ode], a kind of Palinodia.' MS. Note by S. T. C.