I. King of Spain. Her dying words sunk
deep into his memory [A.D. 1626, August 22]; his fierce spirit melted
into tears; and, after the last embrace, Alphonso retired into his
chamber to bewail his irreparable loss, and to meditate on the vanity of
human life."--Gibbon's _Miscellaneous Works_ [1837, p. 831].

[This final note was added to the Tenth Edition.]

ODE TO NAPOLEON

BUONAPARTE.[240]

"Expende Annibalem:--quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"
Juvenal, [Lib. iv.] _Sat._ x. line 147.[241]

"The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the _Senate_, by the _Italians_,
and by the Provincials of _Gaul_; his moral virtues, and military
talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private
benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the
restoration of the public felicity. * * By this shameful abdication, he
protracted his life about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between
an Emperor and an Exile, till!!!"--Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, two
vols. notes by Milman, i. 979.[242]

INTRODUCTION TO THE _ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE._

The dedication of the _Corsair_, dated January 2, 1814, contains one of
Byron's periodical announcements that he is about, for a time, to have
done with authorship--some years are to elapse before he will again
"trespass on public patience."

Three months later he was, or believed himself to be, in the same mind.
In a letter to Moore, dated April 9, 1814 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 64), he
writes, "No more rhyme for--or rather, _from_--me. I have taken my leave
of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer." He had
already--_Journal_, April 8 (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 408)--heard a rumour
"that his poor little pagod, Napoleon" was "pushed off his pedestal,"
and before or after he began his letter to Moore he must have read an
announcement in the _Gazette Extraordinary_ (April 9, 1814--the
abdication was signed April 11) that Napoleon had abdicated the "throne
of the world," and declined upon the kingdom of Elba. On the next day,
April 10, he wrote two notes to Murray, to inform him that he had
written an "ode on the fall of Napoleon," that Murray could print it or
not as he pleased; but that if it appeared by itself, it was to be
published anonymously. A first edition consisting of fifteen stanzas,
and numbering fourteen pages, was issued on the 16th