NOTES.
Count Julian called the invaders.—[I. p. 1.]
The story of Count Julian and his daughter has been treated as a fable by some authors, because it is not mentioned by the three writers who lived nearest the time. But those writers state the mere fact of the conquest of Spain as briefly as possible, without entering into particulars of any kind; and the best Spanish historians and antiquaries are persuaded that there is no cause for disbelieving the uniform and concurrent tradition of both Moors and Christians.
For the purposes of poetry, it is immaterial whether the story be true or false. I have represented the Count as a man both sinned against and sinning, and equally to be commiserated and condemned. The author of the Tragedy of Count Julian has contemplated his character in a grander point of view, and represented him as a man self-justified in bringing an army of foreign auxiliaries to assist him in delivering his country from a tyrant, and foreseeing, when it is too late to recede, the evils which he is thus bringing upon her.
Not victory that o’ershadows him, sees he!
No airy and light passion stirs abroad
To ruffle or to sooth him; all are quell’d
Beneath a mightier, sterner stress of mind:
Wakeful he sits, and lonely and unmoved,
Beyond the arrows, views, or shouts of men: