This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to tell us, let us think a little whether he is in all respects right.  And first, as he compares his two kinds of painting to history and poetry, let us see how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of variable and invariable details.  I am writing at a window which commands a view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I look up from my paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of softly moving water, and the outline of the mountains above Chillon, bathed in morning mist.  The first verses which naturally come into my mind are—­

    A thousand feet in depth below
    The massy waters meet and flow;
    So far the fathom line was sent
    From Chillon’s snow-white battlement.[37]

Let us see in what manner this poetical statement is distinguished from a historical one.

It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in being simply false.  The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.[38] Herein, certainly, these lines fulfil Reynolds’s first requirement in poetry, “that it should be inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail.”  In order, however, to make our comparison more closely in other points, let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that it was to be recorded, first historically, and then poetically.

Historically stating it, then, we should say:  “The lake was sounded from the walls of the Castle of Chillon, and found to be a thousand feet deep.”

Now, if Reynolds be right in his idea of the difference between history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out of this statement certain unnecessary details, and retains only the invariable,—­that is to say, the points which the Lake of Geneva and Castle of Chillon have in common with all other lakes and castles.

Let us hear, therefore.

    A thousand feet in depth below.

“Below”?  Here is, at all events, a word added (instead of anything being taken away); invariable, certainly in the case of lakes, but not absolutely necessary.

    The massy waters meet and flow.

“Massy”! why massy?  Because deep water is heavy.  The word is a good word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and expresses a character, not which the Lake of Geneva has in common with all other lakes, but which it has in distinction from those which are narrow, or shallow.

“Meet and flow.”  Why meet and flow?  Partly to make up a rhyme; partly to tell us that the waters are forceful as well as massy, and changeful as well as deep.  Observe, a farther addition of details, and of details more or less peculiar to the spot, or, according to Reynolds’s definition, of “heavy matter, retarding the progress of the imagination.”

    So far the fathom line was sent.

Why fathom line?  All lines for sounding are not fathom lines.  If the lake was ever sounded from Chillon, it was probably sounded in metres, not fathoms.  This is an addition of another particular detail, in which the only compliance with Reynolds’s requirement is, that there is some chance of its being an inaccurate one.