man is."--_Anima Poetae_, 1895, p. 303.]

[296] [According to Lady Blessington (_Conversations_, p. 176), Byron
maintained that the image of the broken mirror had in some mysterious
way been suggested by the following quatrain which Curran had once
repeated to him:--

"While memory, with more than Egypt's art
Embalming all the sorrows of the heart,
Sits at the altar which she raised to woe,
And finds the scene whence tears eternal flow."

But, as M. Darmesteter points out, the true source of inspiration was a
passage in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_--"the book," as Byron
maintained, "in my opinion most useful to a man who wishes to acquire
the reputation of being well-read with the least trouble" (_Life_, p.
48). Burton is discoursing on injury and long-suffering. "'Tis a Hydra's
head contention; the more they strive, the more they may; and as
Praxiteles did by his glass [see Cardan, _De Consolatione_, lib. iii.],
when he saw a scurvy face in it, break it in pieces; but for the one he
saw, he saw many more as bad in a moment; for one injury done, they
provoke another _cum fanore_, and twenty enemies for one."--_Anatomy of
Melancholy_, 1893, ii. 228. Compare, too, Carew's poem, _The Spark_,
lines 23-26--

"And as a looking-glass, from the aspect,
Whilst it is whole doth but one face reflect,
But being crack'd or broken, there are shewn
Many half-faces, which at first were one.
Anderson's _British Poets_, 1793, iii. 703.]

[hr] {237} _But not his pleasure--such might be a task_.--[MS. erased.]

[297] [The "tale" or reckoning of the Psalmist, the span of threescore
years and ten, is contrasted with the tale or reckoning of the age of
those who fell at Waterloo. A "fleeting span" the Psalmist's; but,
reckoning by Waterloo, "more than enough." Waterloo grudges even what
the Psalmist allows.]

[hs] {238}

_Here where the sword united Europe drew_
_I had a kinsman warring on that day_.--[MS.]

[ht] _On little thoughts with equal firmness fixed._--[MS.]

[hu]
_For thou hast risen as fallen--even now thou seek'st_
_An hour_----.--[MS.]

[298] [Byron seems to have been unable to make up his mind about
Napoleon. "It is impossible not to be dazzled and overwhelmed by his
character and career," he wrote to Moore (March 17, 1815), when his
Heros de Roman, as he called him, had broken open his "captive's cage"
and was making victorious prog