[D. erased.]

[533] {452} [Compare Canto III. stanza xxxiv. lines 6, 7--

"Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,
All ashes to the taste."]

[534] [Mr. Tozer traces the star simile to Homer (_Iliad_, viii.
559)--[Greek: Pa/nta de/ t' ei)/detai a)/stra, ge/gethe de/ te phre/na
poime/n]]

[535] [Compare _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 2, lines 22, 23--

"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."]

[536] [Compare _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 121, 122--

"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens."]

[537] {453} Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth, of a broken heart;
Charles V., a hermit; Louis XIV., a bankrupt in means and glory;
Cromwell, of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a
prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added
of names equally illustrious and unhappy.

[qa] _Which sinks_----.--[MS. M.]

[538] [The simile of the "earthquake" was repeated in a letter to
Murray, dated December 3, 1817: "The death of the Princess Charlotte has
been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home.... The
death of this poor Girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty
or so, in childbed--of a _boy_ too, a present princess and future queen,
and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes
which she inspired."]

[539] {454} The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria,
and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved
to this day its distinctive appellation of _The Grove_. Nemi is but an
evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.

[The basin of the Lago di Nemi is the crater of an extinct volcano.
Hence the comparison to a coiled snake. Its steel-blue waters are
unruffled by the wind which lashes the neighbouring ocean into fury.
Hence its likeness to "cherished hate," as contrasted with "generous and
active wrath."]

[qb] _And calm as speechless hate_----.--[MS. M.]

[540] [The spectator is supposed to be looking towards the Mediterranean
from the summit of Monte Cavo. Tusculum, where "Tully reposed," lies to
the north of the Alban Hills, on the right; but, as Byron points to a
spot "beneath thy right," he probably refers to the traditional site of
the Villa Ciceronis at Grotta Ferrata, and not to an alternative site at
the Villa Ruffinella, between Frascati and the