8,
9; and _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xi.]

[qe] {458} ----_unearthed, uncoffined, and unknown_.--[MS. M.]

[545] [Compare _Ps_. cvii. 26, "They mount up to the heaven, they go
down again to the depths."]

[qf] _And dashest him to earth again: there let him lay!_--[D.]

[546] ["Lay" is followed by a plainly marked period in both the MSS. (M.
and D.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. For instances of the
same error, compare "The Adieu," stanza 10, line 4, and ["Pignus
Amoris"], stanza 3, line 3 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 232, note, and p.
241). It is to be remarked that Hobhouse, who pencilled a few
corrections on the margin of his own MS. copy, makes no comment on this
famous solecism. The fact is that Byron wrote as he spoke, with the
"careless and negligent ease of a man of quality," and either did not
know that "lay" was not an intransitive verb or regarded himself as
"super grammaticam."]

[547] {459}
[Compare Campbell's _Battle of the Baltic_ (stanza ii. lines 1, 2)--

"Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine."]

[qg] _These oaken citadels which made and make_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[548] The Gale of wind which succeeded the battle of Trafalgar destroyed
the greater part (if not all) of the prizes--nineteen sail of the
line--taken on that memorable day. I should be ashamed to specify
particulars which should be known to all--did we not know that in France
the people were kept in ignorance of the event of this most glorious
victory in modern times, and that in England it is the present fashion
to talk of Waterloo as though it were entirely an English triumph--and a
thing to be named with Blenheim and Agincourt--Trafalgar and Aboukir.
Posterity will decide; but if it be remembered as a skilful or as a
wonderful action, it will be like the battle of Zama, where we think of
Hannibal more than of Scipio. For assuredly we dwell on this action, not
because it was gained by Blucher or Wellington, but because it was lost
by Buonaparte--a man who, with all his vices and his faults, never yet
found an adversary with a tithe of his talents (as far as the expression
can apply to a conqueror) or his good intentions, his clemency or his
fortitude.

Look at his successors throughout Europe, whose imitation of the worst
parts of his policy is only limited by their comparative impotence, and
their positive imbecility.--[MS. M.]

[549] {460} ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no dou