The Pleasures of Memory (Rogers)/Notes 1

by Samuel Rogers

NOTES

ON THE FIRST PART.

Note a.Page 14, line 21.

Up springs at every step to claim a tear.

I came to the place of my birth, and cried, "The friends of my youth, where are they?"—And an echo answered, "Where are they? " From an Arabic MS.

 

Note b.P. 18, l. 5.

Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!

When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its ancient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and, gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, "Take this home," said he, "for your cabinet; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Antica."

 

Note c.P. 18, l. 32.

The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep.

Every man, like Gulliver in Liliput, is fastened to some spot of earth by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to.

When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to emigrate, "What!" they replied, "shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?" Hist. des Indes, par Raynal, vi. 21.

 

Note d.P. 19, 1. 3.

So, when he breath'd his firm yet fond adieu.

See Hawkesworth's Voyages, ii. 181.

Another very affecting instance of local attachment is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came to Europe with M. de Bougainville. See Les Jardins, chant ii.

 

Note e,P. 20, l. 7.

So Scotia's Queen, &c.

Elle se leve sur son lict, et se met à contempler la France encore, et tant qu'elle peut. Brantôme, i. 140.

 

Note f.P. 20, l. 15.

Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire.

To an accidental association may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray.

Gibbon's Hist. xii. 432.Mem. of Gray, sect. iv. let. 25.

 

Note g.P. 20, l. 19.

Hence home-felt pleasure, &c.

Who can sufficiently admire the affectionate attachment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration of the advantages of a great city to men of letters: "As to myself, I live in a little town; and I choose to live there, lest it should become still less." Vit. Dem.

 

Note h.P. 20, l. 21.

For this young Foscari, &c

He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion is good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibitd in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of Candia for life.

But here his resolution failed him. At such a distance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of any foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded a prisoner to Venice.

Note i.P. 20, l. 34.

And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.

The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne.

 

Note k.P. 20, l. 35.

'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb.

Vows and pilgrimages are not peculiar to the religious enthusiast. Silius Italicus performed annual ceremonies on the mountain of Posilippo; and it was there that Boccaccio, quasi da un divino estro inspirato, resolved to dedicate his life to the muses.

 

Note l.P. 21, l. 1.

So Tully paus'd amid the wrecks of Time.

When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription.Tusc. Quæst. v. 3.

 

Note m.P. 22, l. 11.

Say why the pensive widow loves to weep.

The influence of the associating principle is finely exemplified in the faithful Penelope, when she sheds tears over the bow of Ulysses.

Od. xxi. 55.

 

Note n.P. 22, 1. 27.

If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild.

The celebrated Ranz des Vaches; "cet air si chéri des Suisses qu'il fut défendu sous peine de mort de le jouer dans leurs troupes, parce qu'il faisoit fondre en larmes, déserter ou mourir ceux qui l'entendoient, tant il excitoit en eux l'ardent désir de revoir leur pays."—Rousseau.

The maladie du pays is as old as the human heart. Juvenal's little cupbearer

Suspirat longo non visam tempore matrem,
Et casulam, et notos tristis desiderat hœdos.

And the Argive, in the heat of battle,

Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.

 

Note o.P. 22, 1. 32.

Say why Vespasian lov'd his Sabine farm.

This emperor, according to Suetonius, constantly passed the summer in a small villa near Reate, where he was born, and to which he would never add any embellishment; ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret.

Suet, in Vit. Vesp. cap. ii

A similar instance occurs in the life of the venerable Pertinax, as related by J. Capitolinus. Posteaquam in Liguriam venit, multis agris coemptis, tabernam paternam, manente forma priore, infinitis ædificiis circundedit.

Hist. August. 54.

And it is said of Cardinal Richelieu, that when he built his magnificent palace on the site of the old family chateau at Richelieu, he sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born.

A ém. de Mlle, de Montpensier, i. 27.

An attachment of this nature is generally the characteristic of a benevolent mind; and a long acquaintance with the world cannot always extinguish it.

"To a friend," says John Duke of Buckingham, "I will expose my weakness: I am oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down, than pleased with a saloon which I built in its stead, though a thousand times better in all respects." See his Letter to the D. of Sh.

This is the language of the heart; and will remind the reader of that good-humoured remark in one of Pope's letters—"I should hardly care to have an old post pulled up that I remembered ever since I was a child."

Pope's Works, viii. 151.

Nor did the Poet feel the charm more forcibly than his Editor. See Hurd's Life of Warburton, 51, 99.

The elegant author of Telemachus has illustrated this subject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée, Persan.

 

Note p.P. 22, l. 33.

Why great Navarre, &c.

That amiable and accomplished monarch, Henry the Fourth of France, made an excursion from his camp, during the long siege of Laon, to dine at a house in the forest of Folambray; where he had often been regaled, when a boy, with fruit, milk, and new cheese; and in revisiting which he promised himself great pleasure.

Mém. de Sully, ii. 381.

Note q.P. 22, l. 35.

When Diocletian's self-corrected mind.

Diocletian retired into his native province, and there amused himself with building, planting, and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government and the imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, "that if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own bands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power."

Gibbon, ii. 175.

 

Note r.P. 23, l. 3.

Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne.

When the emperor Charles V. had executed his memorable resolution, and had set out for the monastery of St. Justus, he stopped a few days at Ghent, says his historian, to indulge, that tender and pleasant melancholy which arises in the mind of every man in the decline of life, on visiting the place of his nativity, and viewing the scenes and objects familiar to him in his early youth. Robertson, iv. 256.

 

Note s.P. 24, l. 23.

Then did his horse the homeward track descry.

The memory of the horse forms the groundwork of a pleasing little romance of the twelfth century, entitled, "Lai du Palefroi vair." See Fabliaux ou Contes du XII et du XIII Siecle, iv. 195.

Ariosto likewise introduces it in a passage full of truth and nature. When Bayardo meets Angelica in the forest,

 . . . . Va mansueto a la Donzella,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ch'in Albracca il servia già di sua mano.
Orlando Furioso, canto i. 75.

 

Note t.P. 25, l. 15.

Sweet bird! thy truth shall Harlem's walls attest.

During the siege of Harlem, when that city was reduced to the last extremity, and on the point of opening its gates to a base and barbarous enemy, a design was formed to relieve it; and the intelligence was conveyed to the citizens by a letter which was tied under the wing of a pigeon. Thuanus, lib. lv. c. 5.

The same messenger was employed at the siege of Mutina, as we are informed by the elder Pliny. Hist. Nat. x. 37.

 

Note u.P. 26, l. 6.

Hark! the bee, &c.

This little animal, from the extreme convexity of her eye, cannot see many inches before her.

 

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