[According to Bryant's _Dict. of Painters_, and other biographical dictionaries, Karl Wilhelm Gropius (whom Lamartine, in his _Voyage en Orient_, identifies with the Gropius "injustement accusé par lord Byron dans ses notes mordantes sur Athènes") was born at Brunswick, in 1793, travelled in Italy and Greece, making numerous landscape and architectural sketches, and finally settled at Berlin in 1827, where he opened a diorama, modelled on that of Daguerre, "in connection with a permanent exhibition of painting.... He was considered the first wit in Berlin, where he died in 1870." In 1812, when Byron wrote his note to the third edition of _Childe Harold_, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.] [212] {173} [George Castriota (1404-1467) (Scanderbeg, or Scander Bey), the youngest son of an Albanian chieftain, was sent with his four brothers as hostage to the Sultan Amurath II. After his father's death in 1432 he carried on a protracted warfare with the Turks, and finally established the independence of Albania. "His personal strength and address were such as to make his prowess in the field resemble that of a knight of romance." He died at Lissa, in the Gulf of Venice, and when the island was taken by Mohammed II., the Turks are said to have dug up his bones and hung them round their necks, either as charms against wounds or "amulets to transfer his courage to themselves." (Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_; Gorton's _Biog. Dict._, art. "Scanderbeg.")] [213] {174} [William Martin Leake (1777-1860), traveller and numismatist, published (_inter alia_) _Researches in Greece_, in 1814. He was "officially resident" in Albania, February, 1809-March, 1810.] [214] [_A Journey through Albania during the Years 1809-10_, London, 1812.] [215] {175} [The inhabitants of Albania, of the Shkipetar race, consist of two distinct branches: the Gueghs, who belong to the north, and are for the most part Catholics; and the Tosks of the south, who are generally Mussulmans (Finlay's _History of Greece_, i. 35).] [gg] _I laughed so much as to induce a violent perspiration to which ... I attribute my present individuality_.--[D.] [216] {176} [The mayor of the village; in Greek, προεστός [proestos].] [217] [The father of the Consulina Teodora Macri, and grandfather of the "Maid of Athens."] [218] [_Tristram Shandy_, 1775, iv. 44.] [219] [See _Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, 1824, p.64.] [220] {177} [Compare _The Waltz_, line 125--"O say, shall dull _Romaika's_ heavy sound." _Poems_, 1898, i. 492.] [221] {186} [François Mercy de Lorraine, who fought against the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, was mortally wounded at the battle of Nordlingen, August 3, 1645.]