V. You-Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion [ocean. That Poesy has wreaths for you alone: There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for VI. I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. You're shabby fellows-true- but poets still, And duly seated on the immortal hill. VII. Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows Perhaps some virtuous blushes; let them go. To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs — And for the fame you would engross below, The field is universal, and allows XIII. Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try An orator of such set trash of phrase 'Gainst you the question with posterity. VIII. For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy, and the skill you need; And recollect a poet nothing loses In giving to his brethren their full meed Of merit, and complaint of present days IX. He that reserves his laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injured by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity To-God knows where- for no one else can know. X. If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, Milton appeal'd to the Avenger, Time, [Mr. Southey is the only poet of the day that ever resided at Keswick. Mr. Wordsworth, who lived at one time on Grasmere, has for many years past occupied Mount Rydal, near Ambleside: Professor Wilson possesses an elegant villa on Windermere: Coleridge, Lambe, Lloyd, and others classed by the Edinburgh Review in the Lake School, never, we believe, had any connection with that part of the country.] 2 Wordsworth's place may be in the Customs-it is, I think, in that or the Excise-besides another at Lord Lonsdale's table, where this poetical charlatan and political parasite licks up the crumbs with a hardened alacrity; the converted Jacobin having long subsided into the clownish sycophant of the worst prejudices of the aristocracy. 3 "Pale, but not cadaverous:" Milton's two elder daughters are said to have robbed him of his books, besides cheating and plaguing him in the economy of his house, &c. &c. His feelings on such an outrage, both as a parent and a scholar, must have been singularly painful. Hayley compares him to Lear. See part third, Life of Milton, by W. Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me). Ineffably-legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, A bungler even in its disgusting trade, And botching, patching, leaving still behind Something of which its masters are afraid, States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confined, Conspiracy or Congress to be made. Cobbling at manacles for all mankind A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, With God and man's abhorrence for its gains. XV. If we may judge of matter by the mind, Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, 4 Or, "Would he subside into a hackney Laureate A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorn d Iscariot ?" I doubt if "Laureate" and " Iscariot " be good rhymes, but must say, as Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with"I, John Sylvester, Lay with your sister." Jonson answered-"I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife." Sylvester answered, "That is not rhyme. ""No," said Ben Jonson ; "but it is true.” 5 For the character of Eutropius, the eunuch and minister at the court of Arcadius, see Gibbon. ["Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and whose vices he soon imitated. He was the first of his artificial sex who dared to assume the character of a Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment, or to repeat elaborate harangues; and sometimes cognised as such by the Legitimacy in Europe)-to whom they were read, to say, that the delineation was complete,' or words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact; - but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt, that I never flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are the incredible antitheses of his character. "Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating myself in Childe Harold, &c. &c. I have denied this long ago-but, even were it true, Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of human understanding was derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by imputing the basest of crimes, viz. praising publicly the same man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity:'the first lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,-the last, though not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more fortunate since 1814?- Byron, Venice, 1819."] 1 [Barnave, one of the most active promoters of the French revolution, was in 1791 appointed president of the Constituent Assembly. On the flight of the royal family, he was sent to conduct them to Paris. He was guillotined, Nov. 1793.] 2 [Brissot de Warville, at the age of twenty, published several tracts, for one of which he was, in 1784, thrown into the Bastile. He was one of the principal instigators of the revolt of the Champ de Mars, in July, 1789. He was led to the guillotine, Oct. 1793.] 3 [Condorcet was, in 1792, appointed president of the Legislative Assembly. Having, in 1793, attacked the new Constitution, he was denounced. Being thrown into prison, he was on the following morning found dead, apparently from poison. His works are collected in twenty-one volumes.] 4 [Mirabeau, so well known as one of the chief promoters of, and actors in, the French revolution, died in 1791.] [Petion, mayor of Paris in 1791, took an active part in the imprisonment of the king. Becoming, in 1793, an object of suspicion to Robespierre, he took refuge in the department of the Calvados; where his body was found in a field, halfdevoured by wolves.] 6 [John Baptiste (better known under the appellation of Anacharsis) Clootz. In 1790, at the bar of the National Convention, he described himself as "the orator of the human race." Being suspected by Robespierre, he was, in 1794, condemned to death. On the scaffold he begged to be decapitated the last, as he wished to make some observations essential to the establishment of certain principles, while the heads of the others were falling; a request obligingly complied with.] 7 [Danton played a very important part during the first years of the French revolution. After the fall of the king, he was made Minister of Justice. His violent measures led to the bloody scenes of September, 1792. Being denounced to the Committee of Safety, he ended his career on the guillotine, in 1794.] 8 [This wretch figured among the actors of the 10th August, and in the assassinations of September, 1792. In May, 1793, he was denounced, and delivered over to the revolutionary tribunal, which acquitted him; but his bloody career was arrested by the knife of an assassin, in the person of Charlotte Cordé.] 9 [Of all these "famous people," the General was the last survivor. He died in 1834.] 10 [Joubert distinguished himself at the engagements of Laono, Montenotte, Millesimo, Cava, Montebello, Rivoli, and especially in the Tyrol. He was afterwards opposed to Suwarrow, and was killed, in 1799, at Novi.] 11 [In 1796, Hoche was appointed to the command of the expedition against Ireland, and sailed in December from Brest; but, a storm dispersing the fleet, the plan failed. After his return, he received the command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse; but died suddenly, in September, 1797, it was supposed of poison.] 12 [General Marceau first distinguished himself in La Vendée. He was killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkerchen. See antè, p.34.] 13 [Lannes, Duke of Montebello, distinguished himself at Millesimo, Lodi, Aboukir. Acre, Montebello, Austerlitz, Jena, Pultusk, Preuss Eylau, Friedland, Tudela, Saragossa, Echmuhl, and, lastly, at Esling; where, in May, 1809, he was killed by a cannon-shot.] 14 [At the taking of Malta, and at the battles of Chebreiss and of the Pyramids, Desaix displayed the greatest bravery. He was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball at Marengo, just as victory declared for the French.] 15 [One of the most distinguished of the republican generals. In 1813, on hearing of the reverses of Napoleon in Russia, he joined the allied armies. He was struck by a cannon-ball at the battle of Dresden, in 1813.] 16 "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," &c. - Hor. "Before great Agamemnon reign'd, Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave, In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown, 17 [Mr. Coleridge, speaking of the original "Atheista Fulminato," says "Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous health, and constitutional hardihood-all these advantages, elevated by the habits and sympathies of noble birth and national character, are supposed to have combined in Don Juan,' so as to give him the means of carrying into all its practical consequences the doctrine of a godless nature, as the sole ground and efficient cause not only of all things, events, and appearances, but likewise of all our thoughts, sensations, impulses, and actions. Obedience to nature is the only virtue: the gratification of the passions and appetites her only dictate: each individual's self-will the sole organ through which nature utters her commands, and "Self-contradiction is the only wrong! For, by the laws of spirit, in the right That acts in strict consistence with itself." See SCHILLER's Wallenstein.] 18 ["Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res, Opens, by just degrees, his whole design."-FRANCIS.] His father's name was Jóse-Don, of course, Or, being mounted, e'er got down again, His mother was a learned lady, famed For every branch of every science known. Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart So that if any actor miss'd his part She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art, 3 And he himself obliged to shut up shop-he Could never make a memory so fine as That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez. 4 ["The women of Seville are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman-added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world. Certainly, they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue."-Byron Letters, 1809.] 2 [" Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla."] 3 [Professor Feinagle, of Baden, who, in 1812, under the especial patronage of the "Blues," delivered a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, on Mnemonics.] 4 ["Lady Byron had good ideas, but could never express them: wrote poetry also, but it was only good by accident. Her letters were always enigmatical, often unintelligible. She was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles squared mathematically."-Byron Letters.] ["Little she spoke-but what she spoke was Attic all, With words and deeds in perfect unanimity."-MS.] 6 [Sir Samuel Romilly lost his lady on the 29th of October, and committed suicide on the 2d of November, 1818."But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. I have at least seen Romilly shivered, who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms -when, after taking my retainer, he went over to themwhen he was bringing desolation on my household godsdid he think that, in less than three years, a natural event Her favourite science was the mathematical, In short, in all things she was fairly what I call She knew the Latin-that is, "the Lord's prayer," And all may think which way their judgments lean 'em, [am,' ""Tis strange-the Hebrew noun which means I The English always use to govern d-n." Some women use their tongues-she look'd a lecture, Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly, 6 In short, she was a walking calculation, Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers,7 Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education, 8 Or" Cœlebs' Wife"9 set out in quest of lovers, Morality's prim personification, In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; To others' share let "female errors fall," For she had not even one-the worst of all. a severe, domestic, but in expected and common calamity. would lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of lunacy! Did he (who in his sexagenary reflect or consider what my feelings must have been, when wife, and child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar,- and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment while I was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs! But he is in his grave," &c.-Byron Letters, June, 1819.] 7 [Maria Edgeworth, author of "Treatise on Practical Education," ," "Castle Rackrent," &c. &c. &c.-"In 1813," says Lord Byron, "I recollect to have met Miss Edgeworth in the fashionable world of London. She was a nice little unassuming Jeannie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch say; and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing."- Byron Diary, 1821.] 8 ["Comparative View of the New Plan of Education," "Teacher's Assistant," &c. &c.] 9 [Hannah More's" Celebs in Search of a Wife," &c.; a sermon-like novel, which had great success at the time, and is now forgotten.] XVIL Oh! she was perfect past all parallel Of any modern female saint's comparison; So far above the cunning powers of hell, Her guardian angel had given up his garrison; Even her minutest motions went as well As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison: In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine" incomparable oil," Macassar!! XVIII. Perfect she was, but as perfection is Insipid in this naughty world of ours, Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, Went plucking various fruit without her leave. He was a mortal of the careless kind, With no great love for learning, or the learn'd, Who chose to go where'er he had a mind, And never dream'd his lady was concern'd; To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd, Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, A great opinion of her own good qualities; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities; 3 But then she had a devil of a spirit, And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities, And let few opportunities escape Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. XXI. This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might "brain them with their lady's fan; "4 And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. XXII. 'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed With persons of no sort of education, 1 "Description des vertus incomparables de l'Huile de Macassar." See the Advertisement. 2 ["Where all was innocence and quiet bliss."-MS.] 3 ["And so she seem'd, in all outside formalities."-MS.] 4["By this hand, if I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan."-SHAKSPEARE.] 5 ["Wishing each other damn'd, divorced, or dead."-MS.] [Lady Byron had left London at the latter end of January, on a visit to her father's house in Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was, in a short time after, to follow her. They had parted in the utmost kindness, she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road, and, immediately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory, her father wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. At the time when he had to stand this unexpected shock, his pecuniary embarrassments, which had been fast gathering around him, during the whole of the past year, had arrived at their utmost.-MOORE. "The facts are:-I left London for Kirkby Mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the 15th of January, 1816. Lord Byron had signified to me in writing (Jan. 6th) his absolute desire that I should leave London on the earliest day that I could conveniently Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, I don't choose to say much upon this head, XXIII. Don Jóse and his lady quarrell'd—why, Not any of the many could divine, Though several thousand people chose to try, 'Twas surely no concern of theirs nor mine; I loathe that low vice-curiosity; But if there's any thing in which I shine, 'Tis in arranging all my friends' affairs, Not having, of my own, domestic cares. XXIV. And so I interfered, and with the best XXV. A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing, And mischief-making monkey from his birth; His parents ne'er agreed except in doting Upon the most unquiet imp on earth; Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth To school, or had him soundly whipp'd at home, To teach him manners for the time to come. XXVI. Don Jóse and the Donna Inez led For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead; They lived respectably as man and wife, Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred, And gave no outward signs of inward strife, Until at length the smother'd fire broke out, And put the business past all kind of doubt. 6 XXVII. For Inez call'd some druggists, and physicians, And tried to prove her loving lord was mad, 7 But as he had some lucid intermissions, She next decided he was only bad; fix. It was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the 15th. Previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind, that Lord Byron was under the influence of insanity. This opinion was derived in a great measure from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. It was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. With the concurrence of his family, I had consulted Dr. Baillie as a friend (Jan. 8th) respecting this supposed malady. On acquainting him with the state of the case, and with Lord Byron's desire that I should leave London, Dr. Baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derangement; for Dr. Baillie, not having had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion Byron should avoid all but light and soothing topics. on that point. He enjoined that in correspondence with Lord Under these impressions, I left London, determined to follow the advice given by Dr. Baillie."-Lady Byron.] 7["I was surprised one day by a Doctor (Dr. Baillie) and a Lawyer (Dr. Lushington) almost forcing themselves at the same time into my room. Í did not know till afterwards the ૨૧ |