Oh thou God of Quiet! Look like thy brother, Death, so still,—so stirless— For then we are happiest, as it may be, we Are happiest of all within the realm Of thy stern, silent, and unawakening twin. —_Byron_: _Sardanapulus_, _IV_. {44} _An extensive domain_.—Compare what follows with Vergil’s description (Dryden’s trans.): Just in the gate and in the jaws of Hell, Revengeful cares and sullen sorrows dwell, And pale diseases and repining age— Want, fear, and famine’s unresisted rage; Here toils and death, and death’s half-brother, Sleep, Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep. —_Æneid_: _VI. 273–8_ {48a} _Merlin_.—A bard or seer who is supposed to have flourished about the middle of the fifth century, when Arthur was king. He figures largely in early tales and traditions, and many of his prophecies are to be found in later Cymric poetry, to one of which Tennyson refers in his _Morte d’Arthur_: I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talks of knightly deeds Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made— Though Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more—but let what will be, be. {48b} _Brutus_, _the son of Silvius_.—According to the Chronicles of the Welsh Kings, Brwth (Brutus) was the son of Selys (Silvius), the son of Einion or Æneas who, tradition tells, was the first king of Prydain. In these ancient chronicles we find many tales recorded of Brutus and his renowned ancestors down to the fall of Troy and even earlier. {48c} _A huge_, _seething cauldron_.—This was the mystical cauldron of Ceridwen which Taliesin considered to be the source of poetic inspiration. Three drops, he avers, of the seething decoction enabled him to forsee all the secrets of the future. {48d} _Upon the face of earth_.—These lines occur in a poem of Taliesin where he gives an account of himself as existing in various places, and contemporary with various events in the early eras of the world’s history—an echo of the teachings of Pythagoras: Morte carent animae; semperque priore relicta Sede, novis habitant domibus vivuntque receptae. —_Ovid_: _Metam. XV. 158–9_. {48e} _Taliesin_.—Taliesin is one of the earliest Welsh bards whose works are still extant. He lived sometime in the sixth century, and was bard of the courts of Urien and King Arthur.