Note 318 — BOOK IX[247]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Chateaubriand cannot have read the Age of Bronze: it is true that this poem was written in 1823, at Genoa, a year later than the earlier portion of these remarks. In Stanza XVI. of the Age of Bronze, or Carmen Seculare et Annus haud Mirabilis, treating of the Congress of Verona (1822), occur the following lines:
There Metternich, power's foremost parasite, Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight; There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs; And subtle Greeks intrigue for stupid Tartars.
And Byron appends the following note:
"Monsieur de Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, receives a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: 'Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who-who-who has written something?' (écrit quelque chose!). It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy."—T.