FOOTNOTES:
[160:1] First published in the Cambridge Intelligencer, December 31, 1796, and at the same time issued in a quarto pamphlet (the Preface is dated December 26): included in 1797, 1803, Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1829, and 1834. The Argument was first published in 1797. In 1803 the several sentences were printed as notes to the Strophes, Antistrophes, &c. For the Dedication vide Appendices.
This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year. Footnote, 1797, 1808: This Ode was composed and was first published on the last day of that year. Footnote, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834.
[160:2] The Ode commences with an address to the great Being, or Divine Providence, who regulates into one vast Harmony all the Events of Time, however Calamitous some of them appear to mortals. 1803.
[161:1] The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private Joys and Sorrows, and to devote their passions for a while to the cause of human Nature in general. 1803.
[161:2] The Name of Liberty, which at the commencement of the French Revolution was both the occasion and the pretext of unnumbered crimes and horrors. 1803.
[162:1] The first Epode refers to the late Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796, having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the kings combined against France. 1803. The Empress died just as she had engaged to furnish more effectual aid to the powers combined against France. C. I.
[162:2] A subsidiary Treaty had been just concluded; and Russia was to have furnished more effectual aid than that of pious manifestoes to the Powers combined against France. I rejoice—not over the deceased Woman (I never dared figure the Russian Sovereign to my imagination under the dear and venerable Character of Woman—Woman, that complex term for Mother, Sister, Wife!) I rejoice, as at the disenshrining of a Daemon! I rejoice, as at the extinction of the evil Principle impersonated! This very day, six years ago, the massacre of Ismail was perpetrated. Thirty Thousand Human Beings, Men, Women, and Children, murdered in cold blood, for no other crime than that their garrison had defended the place with perseverance and bravery. Why should I recal the poisoning of her husband, her iniquities in Poland, or her late unmotived attack on Persia, the desolating ambition of her public life, or the libidinous excesses of her private hours! I have no wish to qualify myself for the office of Historiographer to the King of Hell—! December, 23, 1796. 4o.
[164:1] The first Antistrophe describes the Image of the Departing Year, as in a vision; and concludes with introducing the Planetary Angel of the Earth preparing to address the Supreme Being. 1803.