Why do I joy the lonely spot to view,

By artless friendship bless'd when life was new?

Eternal HOPE! when yonder spheres sublime

Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade.

When all the sister planets have decay'd;

When rapt in fire the realms of ether glow,

And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below;

Thou, undismay'd, shalt o'er the ruins smile,

And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!

NOTES.

ON PART I.

NOTE a, p. 18.

And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore

The hardy Byron to his native shore.

The following picture of his own distress, given by BYRON in his simple and interesting narrative, justifies the description in page 18.

After relating the barbarity of the Indian cacique to his

child, he proceeds thus: "A day or two after we put to

sea again, and crossed the great bay I mentioned we had "been at the bottom of when we first hauled away to the

"westward. The land here was very low and sandy, and

something like the mouth of a river which discharged

" itself into the sea, and which had been taken no notice "of by us before, as it was so shallow that the Indians

were obliged to take every thing out of their canoes, and

carry them over land. We rowed up the river four or "five leagues, and then took into a branch of it that ran "first to the eastward, and then to the northward: here "it became much narrower, and the stream excessively ra

ઃઃ

pid, so that we gained but little way, though we wrought

very hard. At night we landed upon its banks, and had a most uncomfortable lodging, it being a perfect swamp,

" and we had nothing to cover us, though it rained exces

sively. The Indians were little better off than we, as "there was no wood here to make their wigwams; so that "all they could do was to prop up the bark, which they

carry in the bottom of their canoes, and shelter them

"selves as well as they could to the leeward of it. Know

ing the difficulties they had to encounter here, they had

provided themselves with some seal; but we had not a

"morsel to eat, after the heavy fatigues of the day, ex

cepting a sort of root we saw the Indians make use of, "which was very disagreeable to the taste. We laboured "all next day against the stream, and fared as we had "done the day before. The next day brought us to the

35

carrying place. Here was plenty of wood, but nothing "to be got for sustenance. We passed this night, as we "had frequently done, under a tree; but what we suffered

at this time is not easy to be expressed. I had been

"three days at the oar without any kind of nourishment

66

except the wretched root above mentioned. I had no

shirt, for it had rotted off by bits. All my clothes con

"sisted of a short grieko (something like a bear-skin), a

piece of red cloth which had once been a waistcoat, and

a ragged pair of trowsers, without shoes or stockings."

NOTE b, p. 19.

a Briton and a Friend.

Don Patricio Gedd, a Scotch physician in one of the Spanish settlements, hospitably relieved Byron and his wretched associates, of which the commodore speaks in the warmest terms of gratitude.

NOTE c, p. 20.

Or yield the lyre of Heaven another string.

The seven strings of Apollo's harp were the symbolical representation of the seven planets. Herschell, by discovering an eighth, might be said to add another string to the instrument.

NOTE d, p. 21.

The Swedish sage.

Linnæus.