Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/51

 9*8. V.JAN. 20, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

43

126. In another room at the Gobelins is a piece of tapestry of a high form having Taurus in an oval frame at the top.

127. In the dining-saloon of the Chateau de Chantilly are seven large magnificent pieces of tapestry, representing hunting scenes. Within circles in the centre of the lowest borders are Capricornus, Scorpio, Libra, Sagittarius, Virgo kneeling, Gemini, Leo.

128. The constellations are illustrated by Flamsteed in his atlas or ' Historia Coelestis Britannica,' 1725.

129. Large bronze medal to commemorate a visit of the king to the Mint, bearing an arc with Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Sol in Sagittarius, 1719, No. 417, Cat. No. 19. Great hall, Mint, Paris.

130. Small bronze medal, same subject, an arc with Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Sol in Taurus, 1719, Cat. No. 19 B.

131 . A standing clock with a large bronze and brass face has inside the clock circle a broad bronze circle with the signs engraved on it, each divided by brass slips bearing the month names. An astronomical clock made by Kriegseissen, and approved by the Paris Academy of Sciences, 10 July, 1726. A revolving gilt sun points to each sign in turn. A metal globe is in the centre of the face, having a circle of stars around it. The order is Egyptian ; Aries is a horse, Cancer a nondescript. On high wooden stand. In first -floor gallery. Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, Paris, No. 7492.

132. A famous astronomical clock, invented by Passemante and executed by Danthiau, 1749, is in the clock-room of Louis XIV. " This masterpiece of clockwork and mechan- ism is 7 ft. high, marks regularly the seconds, the different phases of the moon, the position of the heavens relative to the planets," &c., Dewharne, p. 47. Above the face is a crystal globe containing a planetary, the signs being embossed on a broad gilt metal band around it. The standing case and ornamental ad- juncts are of the heaviest solid gilt metal. At Versailles Palace. A. B. G.

(To be continued.)

BYRONIANA.

IN reading Madame de StaeTs 'Corinne' I have been struck with a close resemblance between two passages in the first book of this work and several expressions in Byron's 'Address to the Ocean 'in the fourth canto of ' Childe Harold,' stanzas 179-184 :

' Oil aime h rapprocher le plus pur des sentiments de Tame, la religion, avec le spectacle de cette

superbe mer, sur laquelle I'homme jamais ne pent imprimer sa trace. La, terre est travailUe par lui,

les montagnes sont couples par ses routes ; mais si

les raisseaux sillonnent un moment les ondes, la vague vient effacer aussitot cette Ugere marque de servitude^ et la mer reparait telle qu'elle fut au premier jour de la creation" Chap. iv.

" Le spectacle de la mer fait ton jours une impres- sion profonde ; die est P image de cet infini qui attire sans cesse la pensee, et dans lequel sans cesse elle

va se perdre. Oswald se rappelait le temps ou

le spectacle de la mer animait sa jeunesse, par le ddsir defendre lesjlots a la nage, de mesurer sa force contre elle" Chap. i.

The portions I have italicized seem to me to come very near in the thought, and now and then in the very wording, to some of Byron's expressions :

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin ; his control

Stops with the shore nor doth remain

A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, &c.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields

Are not a spoil for him ; thou dost arise

And shake him from thee.

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

The image of Eternity.

And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, &c.

The fine lines that commence stanza 182,

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ?

are referred for their probable source, by the editor of Murray's ' Byron,' to a remark of Dr. Johnson's recorded by Bos well (p. 505 in Croker's edition, Murray, 1890) ; and it does not seem unlikely that Byron was also, either consciously or unconsciously, utilizing in this poetical apostrophe the above thoughts and language of Madame de Stael.

This supposition may seem confirmed by an interesting foot-note on p. 407 of Moore's 'Life of Byron,' ed. 1860. The text has recorded the poet's habit of writing notes in Madame Guiccioli's books :

" One of these notes, written at the end of the fifth chapter, eighteenth book of 'Corinne' ('Frag- ments des Pens^es de Corinne'), is as follows: 'I knew Madame de Stael well better than she knew Italy but I little thought that, one day, I should think ivith her thoughts, in the country where she has laid the scene of her most attractive produc- tion.'"

The italics are apparently Byron's, and the remark refers doubtless to the chapter he had just been reading ; but it goes to show that the resemblances I have noted are not mere coincidences.

The date of ' Corinne, ou 1'Italie,' is 1807 ; the fourth canto of ' Childe Harold ' is dated Venice, 1818. I do npt wish tp be under-