132 See his treatise, Ueber das Verhaltnis von Byrons Hints from Horace zu Horaz und Pope.
133 See his article in Anglia, ii., 256.
134 Ars Poetica, 269–270.
135 Essay on Criticism, 124–125.
136 Hints from Horace, 423–424.
137 Hints from Horace, 399–412.
138 Letters, ii., 150.
139 Charity, 420–500.
140 Poetry, i., 396.
141 Pursuits of Literature, page 93.
142 Poetry, i., 444.
143 Letters, iii., 271.
144 Childe Harold, II., 10–15.
145 Life of Byron, ii., 145.
146 Don Juan, x., 17.
147 Churchill’s poem ends with a prophecy from the Goddess of Famine just as Byron’s ends with Minerva’s curse.
149 Childe Harold, II., 12.
150 The Parthenon, stanza 3.
151 The Curse of Minerva, 95–116.
152 Byron expressed his esteem for his new friend in his Journal, December 10, 1813:—“I have just had the kindest letter from Moore. I do think that man is the best-hearted, the only hearted being I ever encountered; and then, his talents are equal to his feelings” (Letters, ii., 371).
153 See Byron’s impromptu lines to Moore in a letter of May 19, 1812, in which he says, speaking of a projected visit to Hunt in prison:—
154 See Letters, ii., 463–492 (Appendix vii.).
155 Letters, iii., 61.
156 Letters, ii., 134.
157 The Real Lord Byron, ii., 51.
158 On December 2, 1813, Byron wrote Hunt:—“I have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering” (Letters, ii., 296).
159 Letters, iii., 58.
160 Byron’s attitude towards war recalls the sardonic passage on the same subject in Gulliver’s Travels, Part IV.
161 Letters, iii., 64.
162 Letters, iii., 66.
163 Letters, ii., 324.
164 Childe Harold, III., 36–52.
165 Letters, ii., 176.
166 Letters, ii., 202.
167 Byron himself was asked to compete, but resolved not to risk his reputation in such a contest. Although 112 poems were submitted, all were adjudged unsatisfactory, and Byron was eventually requested by Lord Holland to save the situation. His verses were recited on October 10, 1812, but met with small commendation.
168 This little volume, published in 1812, after having been refused by Murray and others, proved an overwhelming success. Byron was delighted with Cui Bono? a clever imitation of the gloomy and mournful portions of Childe Harold, in the same stanzaic form. Among the other writers parodied were Wordsworth, Crabbe, Moore, Coleridge, and Lewis. Byron said:—“I think the Rejected Addresses by far the best thing of the kind since the Rolliad” (Letters, ii., 177).
169 Byron himself said of this period:—“I felt that, if what was whispered and murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me” (Reply to Blackwood’s, Letters, iv., 479).
170 Letters, iii., 272.
171 Letters, iii., 278.
172 Childe Harold, I., 26.
173 Childe Harold, I., 69–70.
174 Childe Harold, I., 9.
175 Letters, i., 308.
176 Letters, ii., 5.
177 See Letters, ii., 413 (Appendix i.).
178 Letters, ii., 379; ii, 403.
179 See Fuhrman’s Die Belesenheit des jungen Byron, Berlin, 1903.
180 Letters, iii., 19.
181 Letters, v., 70.
182 Life of Byron, iv., 237.
183 Frere was well known in 1817 as a prominent London wit. His career as a diplomat, which apparently promised him high preferment, had been cut short by some unlucky transactions leading to his being held partly responsible for the failure of the Peninsular campaign, and he had been recalled in 1809 from his position as envoy to Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The incident drew upon him Byron’s lines on “blundering Frere” in some expunged stanzas of Childe Harold, I. Piqued by the action of the government and constitutionally inclined to inactivity, Frere had since led an indolent and self-indulgent existence as scholar and clubman.
184 Dr. Eichler finds that Frere drew something from Aristophanes and Cervantes, but more from Pulci, Berni, and Casti. For Frere’s indebtedness to the Italians, see Eichler’s Frere, 115.
185 Letters, iv., 172.
186 Letters, iv., 176.
187 While it is undisputed that the ottava rima is a native Italian stanza, its origin has never been satisfactorily determined. That it was a common measure before the time of Boccaccio is easily demonstrable; but it is equally probable that he, in his Teseide, was the earliest writer to employ it consciously for literary purposes. With him it assumed the form which it was to preserve for centuries: eight endecasyllabic lines, rhyming abababcc. In Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore it became freer and less dignified, without losing any of its essential characteristics. Pulci made ottava rima the standard measure for the Italian romantic epic and burlesque, and it was used by men differing so greatly in nature and motive as Boiardo, Berni, Tasso, Marino, Tassoni, Forteguerri, and Casti. To the Italian language, rich in double and triple rhymes, it is especially well suited; and its elasticity is proved by its effective employment in both the lofty epic of Tasso and the vulgar verse of Casti.
In English the borrowed ottava rima has had strange vicissitudes. Transferred to our literature, along with other Italian metrical forms, by Wyatt and Surrey, it was managed by them crudely, but still with some success. At least nineteen short poems by Wyatt are in this stanza. A typical illustration of its state at this period may be examined in Surrey’s To His Mistresse. In Elizabethan days the octave had a sporadic popularity. Although Spenser made choice of his own invented stanza for his Faerie Queen, he tried ottava rima in Virgil’s Gnat. Daniel in The Civille Warres and Drayton in The Barrons’ Warres associated it with tedium and dulness. It was, of course, natural that Fairfax, in his fine version of Tasso, should adopt the stanza of his original; and Harington translated Ariosto in the same measure, giving it, probably for the first time in English, a little of the burlesque tone which was typical of the Italians. Milton, in the epilogue to Lycidas, used the octave with reserved stateliness; while Gay, in Mr. Pope’s Welcome from Greece, made it a vehicle for quiet merriment.
During the eighteenth century the predominance of the heroic couplet hindered the spread of exotic verse forms—and the octave was still exotic. In 1812, William Tennant (1786–1846), an obscure Scotch schoolmaster, revived it in his burlesque epic, Anster Fair, modifying the structure by changing the last line to an alexandrine. Then came Merivale, Byron, Rose, Procter, and Keats, who settled the measure as a standard form in modern English literature.
188 For a detailed comparison of the versification of Beppo with that of The Monks, and the Giants, see Eichler’s Frere, 170–184.
189 The Monks, and the Giants, Introduction, 1.
190 The Monks, and the Giants I., 9.
191 Dr. Eichler has neglected to notice the important fact that at the time of the composition of Beppo, Byron could have been familiar with only the first two cantos of The Monks, and the Giants. A brief comparison of dates will establish this point. Cantos I. and II. of Frere’s poem were published in 1817; Beppo, written in the autumn of 1817 (Letters, iv., 172), was sent to Murray on January 19, 1818 (Letters, iv., 193), and given out for sale on February 28 of the same year. Not until later in 1818 were the last two cantos of Frere’s work printed, and the full edition of four cantos came out some months later. On July 17, 1818, Byron wrote Murray, “I shall be glad of Whistlecraft,” referring doubtless to the newly issued complete edition of The Monks, and the Giants.
192 Only 36 of the 99 stanzas in Beppo are devoted entirely to the plot. The greater portion of the poem is occupied with digressions upon many subjects, containing some personal satire, some comment on political and literary topics, and much discursive chat upon social life and morals. The plot serves only as a frame for the satire.
193 See Memoir of Frere, i., 166.
194 Letters, iv., 193.
195 The Monks, and the Giants, III., 59.
196 Eichler’s Frere, 184.
197 In his Studies in Poetry and Criticism (London, 1905), Churton Collins pointed out Byron’s indebtedness to Casti, but mentioned only Casti’s Novelle. See Collins’s volume, pp. 96–98.
198 Eichler’s Frere, 163.
199 Letters, iv., 217.
200 Born in 1721 in Italy, Casti had been a precocious student at the seminary of Montefiascone, where he became Professor of Literature at the age of sixteen. In 1764 he moved, with the musician, Guarducci, to Florence, where he was created Poeta di Corte by the Grand Duke Leopold. Here he came to the attention of Joseph II., who invited him to Vienna and bestowed upon him several posts of honor. A lucky friendship with Count Kaunitz enabled him to visit most of the capitals of Europe in company with that Prime Minister’s son, and he gained in this way an inside knowledge of court life in several countries. In 1778 he took up his residence in St. Petersburg, where Catharine II. received him cordially. Later he returned to Vienna and was crowned Court Poet by the Emperor Leopold. The attraction of the French Revolution drew him to Paris in 1796, where he lived until his death, February 16, 1804.
201 Quarterly Review, April, 1819.
202 Churton Collins, however, makes the statement that “Don Juan is full of reminiscences of the Novelle,” and points out definite parallelisms between Novella IV., La Diavolessa, and the plot of Don Juan. He adds: “To Casti, then, undoubtedly belongs the honour of having suggested and furnished Byron with a model for Don Juan.” (Studies in Poetry and Criticism, pp. 97–98.) It seems probable, however, that Byron took even more from Il Poema Tartaro than he did from the Novelle. Casti’s Gli Animali Parlanti and Il Poema Tartaro are not mentioned in Collins’s study.
203 To this work Byron refers in a letter to Murray, March 25, 1818: “Rose’s Animali I never saw till a few days ago,—they are excellent.” (Letters, iv., 217.)
204 Gli Animali Parlanti, VII., 6 ff.
205 Ibid., III., 37.
206 Ibid., III., 32.
207 Ibid., XX., 69.
208 Ibid., XIV., 47; XVII., 36, 56.
209 Gli Animali Parlanti, I., 52.
210 Don Juan, X., 25.
211 Gli Animali Parlanti, XVIII., 33.
212 Don Juan, VII., 68.
213 Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 13.
214 Don Juan, XIV., 13. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, X., 1; XVIII., 32, and Don Juan, VII., 26, 41; VIII., 124.
215 Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 73.
216 Don Juan, XV., 19. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, III., 95; VII., 38; Don Juan, VI., 8; VIII., 89; The Vision of Judgment, 34.
217 Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 107.
218 Don Juan, I., 231. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, XX., 126, and Don Juan, IV., 117; V., 159; VI., 120; VII., 35; IX., 85; XV., 98.
219 In Childe Harold the digression had been used, not for satire, but for personal reminiscences, eulogy, and philosophical meditation; see Canto I., 91–92, with its tribute to Wingfield, and Canto I., 93, with its promise of another canto to come.
220 Il Poema Tartaro, II., 8.
221 Don Juan, IX., 62.
222 Il Poema Tartaro, IV., 76.
223 Don Juan, IX., 81. See also Don Juan, IX., 80.
224 Il Poema Tartaro, I., 5.
225 See Il Poema Tartaro, IV., 54–55, and Don Juan, IX., 82.
226 See Il Poema Tartaro, V., 32 ff., and Don Juan, X., 39.
227 See Il Poema Tartaro, VIII., 85, and Don Juan, VII., 14–15.
228 See Il Poema Tartaro, III., 81, and Don Juan, III., 20; X., 69.
229 Il Poema Tartaro, VI., 98.
230 Don Juan, VII., 18.
231 Il Poema Tartaro, VIII., 12.
232 Ibid., III., 68.
233 Ibid., IV., 69.
234 Il Poema Tartaro, VI., 47.
235 Ibid., XII., 79.
236 Letters, iv., 217.
237 Letters, iv., 407.
238 In structure, the Morgante Maggiore, is made up of the rifacimenti of two earlier works: one, the Orlando, rather commonplace and monotonous in tone, was the basis of the first twenty-three cantos; the other, La Spagna, in prose, loftier and more stately, gave a foundation for the last five cantos.
239 Don Juan, IV., 6.
240 It is probable that Byron had read Merivale’s poem, Orlando in Roncesvalles (1814), for in the advertisement to his translation of Pulci he refers to “the serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language [English]—and particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale.” Merivale’s work, based though it is upon the Morgante, is without humor, and could have given Byron nothing of the spirit of Pulci.
241 Letters, iv., 402.
242 Letters, iv., 407.
243 Cantos III. and IV. of Don Juan were written in the winter of 1819–1820, while Byron was at work on his translation of the Morgante; hence it is certain that the influence of Pulci may be looked for at least as early as Canto III. It is probable, moreover, that Byron became acquainted with Pulci’s work before, or soon after, the beginning of Don Juan in September, 1818.
244 Don Juan, X., 87.
245 Don Juan, VII., 55.
246 Morgante Maggiore, XIV., 7.
247 Ibid., III., 51.
248 Ibid., XI., 21.
249 Don Juan, II., 92.
250 Morgante Maggiore, XVIII., 117.
251 Ibid., XVIII., 144.
252 Don Juan, XII., 50.
253 Morgante Maggiore, XXIV., 83.
254 Don Juan, XII., 88.
255 Morgante Maggiore, XXVIII., 138–9.
256 Don Juan, XV., 19.
257 Ibid., V., 159.
258 Other examples occur in the Morgante Maggiore, I., 4; II., 1; XIV., 1; XVI., 1; XXI., 1; XXIV., 1; XXVIII., 1.
259 Don Juan, X., 4.
260 Morgante Maggiore, I., 8.
261 Morgante Maggiore, XXV., 283.
262 Ibid., XXVIII., 35.
263 Don Juan, XV., 20.
264 It is significant that Byron was able to make his translation of the first canto of the Morgante so faithful to the original. On September 28, 1820, he wrote Murray:—“The Pulci I am proud of; it is superb; you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life” (Letters, i., 83). It is obvious that there were features in Pulci’s style which appealed to Byron.
265 Berni was a priest, who became, with Molza, La Casa, Firenzuola, and Bini, a member of the famous Accademia della Vignajuoli in Rome, in which circle he was accustomed to recite his humorous poetry. He died under suspicious circumstances, perhaps poisoned by one of the Medicean princesses. He was the bitter enemy of Pietro Aretino, the most scurrilous satirist of the age.
266 See, Don Juan, XII., 1–22, with its discussion of avarice.
267 See, for example, the Innamorato, II., 70:
268 Don Juan, VII., 85.
269 Many characteristics of the Innamorato, however, are like those of the work of Pulci and Casti. There are the same equivocal allusions and obscenities, the same pervasive skepticism and pessimism, and the same colloquial style that are to be met with in the Morgante and the Novelle. Berni was perhaps greater as a craftsman and artist, but otherwise had the virtues and the faults of the other burlesque poets.
270 Letters, iii., 444–445.
271 Buratti’s career is treated at length in Vittorio Malamani’s monograph, Il Principe dei satirici Veneziani (1887). An edition of his poetry, in two volumes, was printed in 1864.
272 Buratti’s after-life brought him once into relation with Byron. On the birth of a son to Hoppner, the British Consul at Venice, Byron presented the father with a short madrigal:—
The Count Rizzo Pattarol, named in the last line, had the verses translated into several languages, in the Italian version changing the word “appetite” to “buonomore.” This piece of vanity so excited the mirth of Buratti that he commemorated the affair in an epigram. Byron, however, seems to have paid no attention to the incident.
273 There is less of the mock-heroic in Don Juan than is ordinarily supposed. It has little in common with the classical Mock-Epic, represented in English by the Dunciad, the Scribleriad, and the Dispensary, poems which use the epic machinery of gods and goddesses, ridiculing the manner of the Greek and Roman epics through the method of parody. Don Juan, on the other hand, is unrelated to the work of either Homer or Virgil. Nor does it burlesque the Italian epics: its characters, modern and unconventional as they are, are not, even in a humorous sense, heroic, and the matter dealt with is borrowed from none of the Italian romances. The fact that exalted emotions are made absurd, or that fine feelings are jeered at does not warrant us in classing Don Juan with the mock-heroic poems. Indeed, the mere absence of the typical addresses to the Muse—they occur only twice in Don Juan (II., 7; III., 1)—indicates that Byron did not imitate the epic form.