Wordsworth seems to have resented Byron's tardy conversion to "natural piety," regarding it, no doubt, as a fruitless and graceless endeavour without the cross to wear the crown. But if Nature reserves her balms for "the innocent," her quality of inspiration is not "strained." Byron, too, was nature's priest-- "And by that vision splendid Was on his way attended."] [jc] {259} _In its own deepness_----[MS.] [316] [The metaphor is derived from a hot spring which appears to boil over at the moment of its coming to the surface. As the particles of water, when they emerge into the light, break and bubble into a seething mass; so, too, does passion chase and beget passion in the "hot throng" of general interests and individual desires.] [jd] _One of a worthless world--to strive where none are strong._--[MS.] [317] [The thought which underlies the whole of this passage is that man is the creature and thrall of fate. In society, in the world, he is exposed to the incidence of passion, which he can neither resist nor yield to without torture. He is overcome by the world, and, as a last resource, he turns to nature and solitude. He lifts up his eyes to the hills, unexpectant of Divine aid, but in the hope that, by claiming kinship with Nature, and becoming "a portion of that around" him, he may forego humanity, with its burden of penitence, and elude the curse. There is a further reference to this despairing recourse to Nature in _The Dream_, viii. 10, _seq_.-- " ... he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe He held his dialogues! and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries."] [je] {260} ----_through Eternity._--[MS.] [318] [Shelley seems to have taken Byron at his word, and in the _Adonais_ (xxx. 3, _seq._) introduces him in the disguise of-- "The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument." Notwithstanding the splendour of Shelley's verse, it is difficult to suppress a smile. For better or for worse, the sense of the ludicrous has asserted itself, and "brother" cannot take "brother" quite so seriously as in "the brave days of old." But to each age its own humour. Not only did Shelley and Byron worship at the shrine of Rousseau, but they took delight in reverently tracing the footsteps of St. Preux and Julie.] [319] {261} [The name "Tigris" is derived from the Persian _tîr_ (Sanscrit _Tigra_), "an arrow." If Byron ever consulted Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_, he would have read, "_Tigris_, a velocitate dictus quasi _sagitta_;" but most probably he neither had nor sought an authority for his natural and beautiful simile.] [jf] _To its young cries and kisses all awake._--[MS.] [320] [Compare _Tintern Abbey_. In this line, both language and sentiment are undoubtedly Wordsworth's--