No More Learning

Enfin, voici une chanson francaise que
repetaient en repassant les monts les soldats du Marquis de Saluces:--

"Parlons de la deffaiete
De ces pouvres Rommains,
Aussi de la complainete
De notre pere saint.

"'O noble roy de France,
Regarde en pitie
L'Eglise en ballance . . .
Pour Dieu! ne tarde plus,
C'est ta mere, ta substance;
O fils, n'en faictz reffus. '"

"Le dernier monument," adds M. Gebhart, in a footnote, "de cette
litterature, est le singulier drame de Byron, _The Deformed
Transformed_, dont Jules Cesar est le heros, et le Sac de Rome le
cadre. "

It is unlikely that Byron, who read everything he could lay his hands
upon, and spared no trouble to master his "period," had not, either at
first or second hand, acquainted himself with specimens of this popular
literature. (For _La Presa e Lamento di Roma_, _Romae Lamentatio_, etc. ,
see _Lamenti Storici dei Secoli xiv. , xv_. (Medin e Fratri), _Scelta di
Curiosita_, etc. , 235, 236, 237, Bologna, 1890, vol. iii.
See, too, for
"Chanson sur la Mort du Connetable de Bourbon," _Recueil de Chants
historiques francais_, par A. J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, 1842, ii. 99. )

_The Deformed Transformed_ was published by John Hunt, February 20,
1824. A third edition appeared February 23, 1824.

It was reviewed, unfavourably, in the _London Magazine_, March, 1824,
vol. 9, pp. 315-321; the _Scots Magazine_, March, 1824, N. S. vol. xiv.
pp. 353-356; and in the _Monthly Review_, March, 1824, Enlarged Series,
103, pp. 321, 324.