"The reference to Makistos is from the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylus. The town of Makistos had a watch-tower on a neighbouring eminence, from which the beacon lights flashed the news of the fall of Troy to Greece. Clytemnestra says Sending a bright blaze from Ide, _Beacon did beacon send_, Pass on--the pine-tree--to Makistos' watch-place." This pine tree, as "the brand flamboyant," which should replenish the beacon-fire of Makistos, Browning takes as symbolic of fame. The Knowledge and Learning of Gibbon constitute the trunk-- This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge ... rooted yonder at Lausanne [where Gibbon's History was finished]. But Learning is hardly permitted "its due effulgence," being "dulled by flake on flake of [the] Wit"--nourished at Ferney (sometime the home of Voltaire). To the Learning of Gibbon, the Wit of Voltaire is added in "the terebinth-tree's resin," the "all-explosive Eloquence" of Rousseau and of Diodati:[95] whilst in the heights, above all "deciduous trash," climbs the evergreen of the ivy, significant of the immortality of Byron's poetic fame. Having lifted "the coruscating marvel," the watcher on La Salève would likewise stand as a beacon to those millions who Have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks. That by his help they may Confidently lay to heart ... this: "He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod ... Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God."