After some desultory attempts at tutoring, he published in 1799, The Pleasures of Hope, a long didactic poem which brought him real fame and a considerable financial reward. Soon after he travelled on the continent, where many of his war ballads were written. In his later days he was a figure in literary circles and was given a pension by the crown. He died in 1844 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Much of Campbell's longer poetic work is dull and unequal. However, in his own field of the vigorous patriotic ballad, he is without a rival. Saintsbury says of him, "He holds the place of best singer of war in a race and language which are those of the best singers, and not the worst fighters, in the history of the world." HOHENLINDEN (Page 39) Written in 1800, after the author had visited the battlefield. In the battle of Hohenlinden (December 3, 1800), the French under General Moreau defeated the Austrians and compelled the Austrian Emperor to sue for peace. The treaty of Luneville, which followed, extended French territory to the Rhine. 4. The Iser is a river rising in northern Switzerland and flowing into the Danube. BATTLE OF THE BALTIC (Page 40) Written in 1809. The battle of the Baltic took place in the Baltic Sea before Copenhagen, April 2, 1801, between the English and the Danish fleets. England had accepted a declaration of the Armed Neutrality League (Russia, Denmark, and Sweden) as being really in the interests of her enemy, France, and the English fleet under Lord Parker was sent to the Baltic. Under Lord Nelson, the second in command, a decisive victory was gained, largely through the fact that Nelson refused to obey the orders of his superior officer. 67. Riou was one of Nelson's officers. CHARLES WOLFE Charles Wolfe was born at Dublin, Ireland, in 1791 and died at Queenstown in 1823. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1814 and became curate of Donoughmore, Ireland. His Remains, with a brief memoir, were published in 1825. His only poem of any distinction is the one here printed, The Burial of Sir John Moore. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA (Page 43) First published in the Newry Telegraph, an Irish paper, in 1817, under the initials C. W. Sir John Moore (1761-1809) was commander of an English army of twenty-four thousand men in Spain against a French force of eighty thousand under Soult. At the battle of Corunna, January 16, 1809, the English army won a doubtful victory in which their leader was killed. After burying him at dead of night, the English troops embarked for their own country. Corunna is a city in northwest Spain. BYRON George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in London, January 22, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, April 19, 1824, at the age of thirty-six. Byron's father, a captain in the guards, after a romantic first marriage, wedded Catharine Gordon, a wealthy girl of Aberdeenshire, whom, after squandering her fortune, Byron's he deserted shortly after young Byron's birth. mother was a quick-tempered, impulsive woman, ill-fitted to bring up a son who had a temperament almost exactly like her own. Once when a companion said to Byron, Your mother's a fool," the boy answered, "I know it.” 66 As a boy at school Byron formed passionate attachments, entered into the games he played with an unusual fierceness of spirit, and exhibited that sensitive pride which was the cause of much of his posing there and in later life. He was clubfooted, a deformity about which he was extremely sensitive. Before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805, he had attended Harrow for five years. At Cambridge he remained less than three years, but in that time made some close friends and took an active part in all sorts of sports, especially riding and swimming. His vacations he spent at London or Southwell, generally quarrelling violently with his mother. His first published poetry was Hours of Idleness, which appeared in 1807, and which was attacked by the Edinburgh Review so strenuously that Byron replied in 1809 with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In the same year he took his seat in the House of Lords, but he had no interest in politics, and, accordingly, left England for two years' travel on the continent. This tour was the occasion of the first two cantos of Childe Harold. This poem was received so warmly that Byron remarked that "he awoke one morning to find himself famous." From now till the separation from his wife in 1816, after a year of wedded life, he was the lion of British society, but society took sides on this family difference, and as most of them sympathized with Lady Byron, Byron himself left England. He spent some time on Lake Geneva, where the Castle of Chillon is situated. He then went to Italy, where, amid his usual life of dissipation, he became interested in the Italian Insurrection. Among his friends and companions in Italy were Shelley and Leigh Hunt. In 1823, becoming attracted by the attempts of the Greeks to overthrow Turkish rule, he went to Greece as a leader, but he contracted a fever at Missolonghi, where he died, April 19, 1824. As a poet Byron appeals especially to youth. His tales are so interesting that Scott made the remark that Byron beat him at his own game. Rapidity and force of movement, intensity and passion, excellent description, and a great, though not fine, command of poetic sound are the chief characteristics of his poetry. The romantic tale, Childe Harold, and the satire, Don Juan, are perhaps his best-known works. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON (Page 45) The castle of Chillon is situated near Montreux at the opposite end of Lake Geneva from the city of Geneva. It is a large castle, built on an isolated rock twenty-two yards from the shore of the lake. Beneath this castle, but some nine or ten feet above the surface of the lake, supported by seven detached pillars and one semi-detached, is a vaulted chamber, which was formerly used as a prison. Here, from 1530 to 1536, was imprisoned Francis Bonnivard. Bonnivard, the son of the Lord of Lune, was born in 1496. When sixteen years old, he inherited from his uncle the priory of St. Victor, near Geneva. Later he allied himself with this city against the Duke of Savoy, but was captured and imprisoned for two years in Grolée. In 1530 he again fell into the hands of the Duke of Savoy, who this time confined him for six years in Chillon castle. At the end of this period he was liberated by the Bernese and Genevese and returned to Geneva to live a brilliant but wild life until 1570. Byron takes no pains to stick to the facts of Bonnivard's imprisonment or life, or even to the facts about the prison itself. Notice, however, that he calls the poem "A Fable." Byron and Shelley made a visit to Chillon in June, 1816, and while delayed for two days at Ouchy, a village on Lake Geneva, Byron wrote this poem. Byron and Shelley belonged to a group of poets who were influenced by the French Revolution. Byron's love of freedom was so great that he aided Italy, and finally died from a fever contracted at Missolonghi, where he had gone to aid the Greek revolutionists. The following sonnet, which was prefixed to The Prisoner of Chillon, gives an idea of Byron's love of liberty. SONNET OF CHILLON "Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, "Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar- for 'twas trod, Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 4. Sudden fears. Marie Antoinette's hair has been said to have turned gray on the return from Varennes to Paris. It certainly turned gray very quickly during the anxiety of the Revolution. 22. Sealed. How? 35. Marsh's meteor lamp; will o' the wisp. |