says Professor Lanciani, "These materials for a
_hortus siccus_, so dear to the visitors of our ruins, were destroyed by
Rosa in 1871, and the ruins scraped and shaven clean, it being feared by
him that the action of roots would accelerate the disintegration of the
great structure." If Byron had lived to witness these activities, he
might have devoted a stanza to the "tender mercies" of this zealous
archaeologist.]

[509] {426} [The whole of this appeal to Nemesis (stanzas
cxxx.-cxxxviii.) must be compared with the "Domestic Poems" of 1816, the
Third Canto of _Childe Harold_ (especially stanzas lxix.-lxxv., and
cxi.-cxviii.), and with the "Invocation" in the first act of _Manfred_.
It has been argued that Byron inserted these stanzas with the deliberate
purpose of diverting sympathy from his wife to himself. The appeal, no
doubt, is deliberate, and the plea is followed by an indictment, but the
sincerity of the appeal is attested by its inconsistency. Unlike
Orestes, who slew his mother to avenge his father, he will not so deal
with the "moral Clytemnestra of her lord," requiting murder by murder,
but is resolved to leave the balancing of the scale to the omnipotent
Time-spirit who rights every wrong and will redress his injuries. But in
making answer to his accusers he outruns Nemesis, and himself enacts the
part of a "moral" Orestes. It was true that his hopes were "sapped" and
"his name blighted," and it was natural, if not heroic, first to
persuade himself that his suffering exceeded his fault, that he was more
sinned against than sinning, and, so persuaded, to take care that he
should not suffer alone. The general purport of plea and indictment is
plain enough, but the exact interpretation of his phrases, the
appropriation of his dark sayings, belong rather to the biography of the
poet than to a commentary on his poems. (For Lady Byron's comment on the
"allusions" to herself in _Childe Harold, vide ante_, p. 288, note 1.)]

[op] {427} _Or for my fathers' faults_-----.-[MS. M.]

[oq] {428}
'tis not that now
And if my voice break forth--{-it is not that-}
I shrink from what is suffered--let him speak
decline upon my
Who {-humbler in-}
{-What-} hath beheld {-me quiver on my-} brow
seen my mind's convulsion leave it {-blenched or-} weak?
Or {-my internal spirit changed or weak-}
{-found my mind convulse