Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][ocr errors]

and in a note to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,

canto iii., Byron accordingly says, " This is written

in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3, 1816), which

even at this distance dazzles mine."§

The Shelleys and Miss Clairmont had clearly

reached the hotel by the 17th of May. This is

the date of Mrs. Shelley's first letter thence, given

in the Six Weeks' Tour. It is the letter of a per-

son who has arrived a day or two, not of a person

arrived on that same day, inasmuch as she writes,

"We have hired a boat, and every evening at

about six o'clock we sail on the lake." And

again, further "We do not enter into society

on,

here, yet our time passes swiftly and delightfully."
I should fix their arrival at Sécheron late on the
15th of May, on these grounds :- The same letter
commences, "We arrived at Paris on the 8th of
this month, and we were detained two days for
the purpose of obtaining the various signatures
necessary to our passports." That is to say, the
Shelleys left Paris on May 10. We are then told
that Dijon was reached on the third evening after
their departure from Paris (May 13); Cham-
pagnolles was reached at midnight on the fourth
evening (May 14). They leave Les Rousses at
6 P.M. next day (May 15), and no doubt reached
Geneva before midnight on that same evening.

Byron and Dr. Polidori arrived there on May 25,
and acquaintance was made with the Shelleys and
Miss Clairmont within two days.||

Their subsequent movements are thus told by

Moore :-

"After passing a fortnight under the same roof with

Lord Byron at Sécheron, Mr. and Mrs. Shelley removed
to a small house on the Mont Blanc side of the Lake,
within about ten minutes' walk of the villa which their
noble friend had taken, upon the high banks, called

§ Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iii., p. 73. Lon-

don, 1816.

The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, &c.,

and a Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti. London,
Moxon, 1870, 2 vols. 8vo. (See Memoir, vol. i. lxxxvii.)
I copy the dates of the arrival and of the acquaintance-
dori's diary. Subsequently, in narrating that curious but
ship from Mr. W. Rossetti. They are taken from Poli-

often-repeated incident of Shelley's hallucination of the

breast-eyed woman, Mr. Rossetti informs us that the ver-

sion of this story, which he then proceeds to quote, "is

and the occurrence is dated June 18. This diary of Poli-

thus authentically jotted down in the physician's diary,"

dori's was never published. Polidori has also told the in-

cident in his prefatory letter to the Vampyre (London,

1819, 8vo., published anonymously), and this account is

quoted by Moore (vol. ii. p. 208); but, though the two

versions tally, their wording is different. In a letter at

the page last cited Byron, who had received the Vampyre,

comments very amusingly on the various perversions of its

preface. He then continues, "What do you mean about

Polidori's Diary? Why, I defy him to say anything

about me, but he is welcome,"-which sentence thus

ends brokenly, but its general sense is easy to gather,

and the passage shows that the physician had at that

time (1819) thoughts of publishing his journal.

was never done.

Belle Rive, that rose immediately behind them. During
the fortnight that Lord Byron outstayed them at Sécheron,
...he every evening crossed the Lake, with Polidori, to
visit them."*
The next paragraph relates a quarrel between
Byron and his physician; after which Polidori
meditated suicide, but was ultimately reconciled
to his patron. Moore then continues, "Soon after
this the noble poet removed to Diodati." Let us
compare these accounts with yet another furnished
by Moore somewhat earlier in the same biography

"Arriving at Geneva (Byron) took up his abode at the well-known hotel, Sécheron. After a stay of a few weeks at this place, he removed to a villa in the neighbourhood, called Diodati, very beautifully situated on the high banks of the Lake, where he established his residence for the remainder of the summer."t

pendent evidence that this date cannot be very
wide of the mark, because Polidori sprained his
ankle in jumping from the terrace at Diodati a day
or two before June 23-a most important date in
this discussion. On that day Byron and Shelley
started on their nine days' circumnavigation of the
lake; and Byron was clearly in possession of the
Villa Diodati before he started, because he writes
to Murray, while weather-bound at Ouchy, during
his trip, that Polidori remained behind invalided
at Diodati. T
J. LEICESTER WARREN.
(To be continued.)

WHITSUNDAY: WHITSUNTIDE.

A great deal has been written, both in "N. & Q." and elsewhere, on the derivation of our English name for the feast of Pentecost, and it might be considered that the subject had been pretty well threshed out. This is, however, by no means the case. It cannot be said that any definite conclusion was reached by the former discussions, and there is still virgin soil left to turn up in search of the genuine root. I may possibly not succeed where so many have failed, but the attempt, at least, is worth making.

question, I may refer to "N. & Q.," 5th S. i. 401, for an able summary by the editor, and also to a letter signed C*** (Mr. Cockayne), 4th S. xi. 437. These articles, with the references which they contain, are sufficient to bring out the various theories, which may in a few words be summarized

On comparing these extracts, the question at once arises whether Belle Rive was not merely a second name of the Villa Diodati (just as Chapuis was another appellation of the Campagne Mont Alègre). Both are described as situated upon the high banks of the lake; both were in or near Coligny. Observe, also, that in the second passage quoted, Moore represents Byron as moving directly from the Hôtel de Sécheron to the Villa Diodati. We need only suppose that, in printing or copying, the words " For Diodati" were acci- In order to avoid repetition, and to put such of dentally omitted in the first extract after "called your readers as may be bitten by the etymological Belle Rive," to clear away and reconcile all dis-maggot au courant with the present aspect of the crepancies. Medwin follows in the same sense, omitting any allusion to Belle Rive. He says:§ "After a fortnight's residence at Dejean's, Shelley and his female friends removed to the Campagne Montallegre, on the opposite side of the lake; and shortly after Lord Byron took that (the campagne) of Diodati." In deciding for or against the separate existence of a Villa Belle Rive the dates are all-important. Counting a fortnight from the Shelleys' arrival at the Hôtel de Sécheron, they would move on May 28 or 29; and, indeed, on June 1, Mrs. Shelley writes that they had changed their residence, and she, moreover, dates her letter from "Campagne C******" which initial, and six sequent asterisks, must stand for Campagne Chapuis, that is Mont Alegre. If, as we are told, Byron outstayed his friends a fortnight at the 3. Another correspondent quotes Brady's Clavis Hôtel, he would have occupied the Villa Diodati Calendaria, in which it is said that the original on the 11th or 12th of June; and we have inde-name of the season of the year was Wittentide, or

* Letters, vol. ii. p. 27. Ibid., vol. ii. p. 6.

This seems to have been a common topographical name. Compare our "Mount Pleasant."

§ See vol. i. p. 238 of The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, by Thomas Medwin. The words in parenthesis are mine. Medwin is a loose and incorrect writer, but in this instance he seems to know the ground, and he tells us that he was at Diodati "two years after," i.e. in 1818, I suppose.

The name is filled in at full in the reprint of the Six Weeks' Tour as a portion of the Essays and Letters from Abroad, Moxon, 1840, 8vo. See vol. ii. p. 56. I suppose "Chapius" (sic) is a misprint.

as follows:

1. Whitsunday is equivalent to Dominica Alba, and was so called from the white garments worn by neophytes on that day.

2. "This day is called Wytsonday because the Holy Ghost brought wytte and wysdome into Cristis disciples." This is quoted by Hearne from a book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and is supported by a passage from Richard Rolle of Hampole (A.D. 1358).

the time of choosing the wits or wise men to the Wittenagemote.

4. Verstegan, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, suggests A.-S. wiera, Fl. wijen, to consecrate, applied as a period of peculiar sanctity.

5. Reading, in his Sermons on the Lessons for Sundays throughout the Year (vol. ii. 291), says :"It was a custom amongst our ancestors upon this day (Whitsunday) to give all the milk of their ewes and kine to their poor neighbours, for the love of God, and in

Letters and Journals, vol. ii. p. 7. The date of the letter is June 27.

« ZurückWeiter »