Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza ii. lines 1-3,
Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 217, note 1.]
[bm] At once by briefer means and better.—[MS.]
[62] {158} In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy, I perceive the expression of "Rome of the Ocean" applied to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the "Two Foscari." My publisher can vouch for me, that the tragedy was written and sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which I only received on the 16th of August. I hasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public.
[Byron calls Lady Morgan's Italy "fearless" on account of her strictures on the behaviour of Great Britain to Genoa in 1814. "England personally stood pledged to Genoa.... When the British officers rode into their gates bearing the white flag consecrated by the holy word of 'independence,' the people ... 'kissed their garments.'... Every heart was open.... Lord William Bentinck's flag of 'Independenza' was taken down from the steeples and high places at sunrise; before noon the arms of Sardinia blazoned in their stead; and yet the Genoese did not rise en masse and massacre the English" (Italy, 1821, i. 245, 246). The passage which Byron feared might be quoted to his disparagement runs as follows: "As the bark glides on, as the shore recedes, and the city of waves, the Rome of the ocean, rises on the horizon, the spirits rally; ... and as the spires and cupolas of Venice come forth in the lustre of the mid-day sun, and its palaces, half-veiled in the aërial tints of distance, gradually assume their superb proportions, then the dream of many a youthful vigil is realized" (ibid., ii. 449).]
[63] [Compare Marino Faliero, act ii. sc. 2, line 110, Poetical Works, 901, iv. 386, note 3.]
[64] {159} The Calenture.—[From the Spanish Calentura, a fever peculiar to sailors within the tropics—
"So, by a calenture misled,
The mariner with rapture sees,
On the smooth ocean's azure bed,
Enamelled fields and verdant trees: