[43] ["_Lisboa_ is the Portuguese word, consequently the very best. Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I have _Hellas_ and _Eros_ not very long before, there would be something like an affectation of Greek terms, which I wish to avoid" (letter to Dallas, September 23, 1811: _Letters_, 1898, ii. 44. See, too, _Poetical Works_, 1883, p. 5).] [as] _Ulissipont, or Lisbona_.--[MS. pencil.] [at] _Which poets, prone to lie, have paved with gold_.--[MS.] _Which poets sprinkle o'er with sands of gold_.--[MS. pencil.] _Which fabling poets_--[D. pencil.] [44] {33} [For Byron's estimate of the Portuguese, see _The Curse of Minerva_, lines 233, 234, and note to line 231 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 469, 470). In the last line of the preceding stanza, the substitution of the text for _var._ i. was no doubt suggested by Dallas in the interests of prudence.] [au] _Who hate the very hand that waves the sword_ _To shield them, etc_.--[MS. D.] _To guard them, etc_.--[MS. pencil.] [av] _Mid many things that grieve both nose and ee_.--[MS.] _Midst many_----.--[MS. D.] [aw] ----_smelleth filthily_.--[MS. D.] [ax] ----_dammed with dirt_.--[MS. erased.] [45] {34} [For a fuller description of Cintra, see letter to Mrs. Byron, dated August 11, 1808 (_Life_, p. 92; _Letters_, 1898, i. 237). Southey, not often in accord with Byron, on his return from Spain (1801) testified that "for beauty all English, perhaps all existing, scenery must yield to Cintra" (_Life and Corr. of R. Southey_, ii. 161).] [ay] ----_views too sweet and vast_----.--[MS. erased.] [az] ----_by tottering convent crowned_.--[MS. erased.] _Alcornoque_.--[Note (pencil).] [46] "The sky-worn robes of tenderest blue." Collins' _Ode to Pity_ [MS. and D.]. [ba] _The murmur that the sparkling torrents keep_.--[MS. erased.] [47] {35} [The convent of Nossa Señora (now the Palazio) da Peña, and the Cork Convent, were visited by Beckford (circ. 1780), and are described in his _Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal_ (8vo, 1834), the reissue of his _Letters Picturesque and Poetical_ (4to, 1783). "Our first object was the convent of Nossa Senhora da Penha, the little romantic pile of white building I had seen glittering from afar when I first sailed by the coast of Lisbon. From this pyramidical elevation the view is boundless; you look immediately down upon an immense expanse of sea. ... A long series of detached clouds of a dazzling whiteness suspended low over the waves had a magic effect, and in pagan times might have appeared, without any great stretch of fancy, the cars of marine divinities, just risen from the bosom of their element."--_Italy, etc._, p. 249.