Byron made the fame of Chillon, and his Bonivard (or, as he spelt the name with two n’s, Bonnivard) was a far more ideal patriot than the actual prisoner, whose character has been shown of late years in a somewhat unfavourable light. Byron was devoted to the Lake of Geneva. He commemorated some of the great names associated with its shores in a sonnet, one of the few that he ever wrote:—
“Rousseau—Voltaire—our Gibbon—and De Staël—
Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these. Wert thou no more
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
“Where dwells the wise and wondrous; but by thee