ct iii. sc. 3) signifies an avalanche, not avalanches.
In stanza xii. line 7 a similar mistake occurs. It may seem strange
that, for the sake of local colouring, or for metrical purposes, he
should substitute a foreign equivalent which required a note, for a fine
word already in vogue. But in 1817 "avalanche" itself had not long been
naturalized. Fifty years before, the Italian _valanca_ and _valanche_
had found their way into books of travel, but "avalanche" appears first
(see _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Avalanche") in 1789, in Coxe's _Trav.
Switz._, xxxviii. ii. 3, and in poetry, perhaps, in Wordsworth's
_Descriptive Sketches_, which were written in 1791-2. Like "canon" and
"veldt" in our own day, it might be regarded as on probation. But the
fittest has survived, and Byron's unlovely and misbegotten "lauwine" has
died a natural death.]

[ni] _But I have seen the virgin Jungfrau rear_.--[D.]

[455] {386} These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign
Northerton's remarks, "D--n Homo," etc.;[Sec.] but the reasons for our
dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, that we become
tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by
rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and
the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the
didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand
the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life,
as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same
reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest
passages of Shakspeare ("To be or not to be," for instance), from the
habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an
exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so that when we are old enough to
enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of
the continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do
not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak
on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my
education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one
could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and
with reason;--a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my
life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury, was the best and
worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but
too well, though too lat