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Джордж Гордон Байрон
The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry
TO MR. MURRAY
1
Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times,101
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.
2
To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all – and sellest some —
My Murray.
3
Upon thy table's baize so green
The last new Quarterly is seen, —
But where is thy new Magazine,102
My Murray?
4
Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine —
The Art of Cookery,103 and mine,
My Murray.
5
Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist;
And then thou hast the Navy List,
My Murray.
6
And Heaven forbid I should conclude,
Without "the Board of Longitude,"104
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray.
Venice, April 11, 1818.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 171.]
BALLAD.
TO THE TUNE OF "SALLEY IN OUR ALLEY."
1
Of all the twice ten thousand bards
That ever penned a canto,
Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards
For lining a portmanteau;
Of all the poets ever known,
From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,105
The Muse may boast – the World must own
There's none like pretty Gally!106
2
He writes as well as any Miss,
Has published many a poem;
The shame is yours, the gain is his,
In case you should not know 'em:
He has ten thousand pounds a year —
I do not mean to vally —
His songs at sixpence would be dear,
So give them gratis, Gaily!
3
And if this statement should seem queer,
Or set down in a hurry,
Go, ask (if he will be sincere)
His bookseller – John Murray.
Come, say, how many have been sold,
And don't stand shilly-shally,
Of bound and lettered, red and gold,
Well printed works of Gally.
4
For Astley's circus Upton107 writes,
And also for the Surry; (sic)
Fitzgerald weekly still recites,
Though grinning Critics worry:
Miss Holford's Peg, and Sotheby's Saul,
In fame exactly tally;
From Stationer's Hall to Grocer's Stall
They go – and so does Gally.
5
He rode upon a Camel's hump108
Through Araby the sandy,
Which surely must have hurt the rump
Of this poetic dandy.
His rhymes are of the costive kind,
And barren as each valley
In deserts which he left behind
Has been the Muse of Gally.
6
He has a Seat in Parliament,
Is fat and passing wealthy;
And surely he should be content
With these and being healthy:
But Great Ambition will misrule
Men at all risks to sally, —
Now makes a poet – now a fool,
And we know which– of Gally.
7
Some in the playhouse like to row,
Some with the Watch to battle,
Exchanging many a midnight blow
To Music of the Rattle.
Some folks like rowing on the Thames,
Some rowing in an Alley,
But all the Row my fancy claims
Is rowing– of my Gally.
April 11, 1818.109
ANOTHER SIMPLE BALLAT
1
Mrs. Wilmot sate scribbling a play,
Mr. Sotheby sate sweating behind her;
But what are all these to the Lay
Of Gally i.o. the Grinder?
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
2
I bought me some books tother day,
And sent them down stairs to the binder;
But the Pastry Cook carried away
My Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
3
I wanted to kindle my taper,
And called to the Maid to remind her;
And what should she bring me for paper
But Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
4
Among my researches for Ease
I went where one's certain to find her:
The first thing by her throne that one sees
Is Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
5
Away with old Homer the blind —
I'll show you a poet that's blinder:
You may see him whene'er you've a mind
In Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
6
Blindfold he runs groping for fame,
And hardly knows where he will find her:
She don't seem to take to the name
Of Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
7
Yet the Critics have been very kind,
And Mamma and his friends have been kinder;
But the greatest of Glory's behind
For Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
April 11, 1818.[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,now for the first time printed.]
EPIGRAM.
FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIÈRES.110
If for silver, or for gold,
You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,
Then your face we might behold,
Looking, doubtless, much more snugly,
Yet even then 'twould be damned ugly.
August 12, 1819.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 235.]
EPILOGUE.111
1
There's something in a stupid ass,
And something in a heavy dunce;
But never since I went to school
I heard or saw so damned a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once.
2
And now I've seen so great a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once;
I really wish that Peter Bell
And he who wrote it were in hell,
For writing nonsense for the nonce.
3
It saw the "light in ninety-eight,"
Sweet babe of one and twenty years!112
And then he gives it to the nation
And deems himself of Shakespeare's peers!
4
He gives the perfect work to light!
Will Wordsworth, if I might advise,
Content you with the praise you get
From Sir George Beaumont, Baronet,
And with your place in the Excise!
1819.[First published, Philadelphia Record, December 28, 1891.]
ON MY WEDDING-DAY
Here's a happy New Year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say —
Wish me many returns of the Season,
But as few as you please of the Day.113
January 2, 1820.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 294.]
EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT
With Death doomed to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
January 2, 1820.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 295.]
EPIGRAM
In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett114 has done well:
You visit him on Earth again,
He'll visit you in Hell.
or —
You come to him on Earth again
He'll go with you to Hell!
January 2, 1820.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 295.]
EPITAPH
Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this;
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop traveller, * *
January 2, 1820.[First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1833, xvii. 246.]
EPIGRAM
The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull;
Each tugs it a different way, —
And the greatest of all is John Bull!
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 494.]
MY BOY HOBBIE O.115
New Song to the tune of
"Whare hae ye been a' day,
My boy Tammy O.!
Courting o' a young thing
Just come frae her Mammie O."
1
How came you in Hob's pound to cool,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I bade the people pull
The House into the Lobby O.
2
What did the House upon this call,
My boy Hobbie O?
They voted me to Newgate all,
Which is an awkward Jobby O.
3
Who are now the people's men,
My boy Hobbie O?
There's I and Burdett – Gentlemen
And blackguard Hunt and Cobby O.
4
You hate the house —why canvass, then?
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I would reform the den
As member for the Mobby O.
5
Wherefore do you hate the Whigs,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because they want to run their rigs,
As under Walpole Bobby O.
6
But when we at Cambridge were
My boy Hobbie O,
If my memory don't err
You founded a Whig Clubbie O.
7
When to the mob you make a speech,
My boy Hobbie O,
How do you keep without their reach
The watch within your fobby O?
8
But never mind such petty things,
My boy Hobbie O;
God save the people – damn all Kings,
So let us Crown the Mobby O!
Yours truly,
(Signed) Infidus Scurra
March 23d, 1820.[First published Murray's Magazine, March, 1887, vol. i. pp. 292, 293.]
LINES ADDRESSED BY LORD BYRON TO MR. HOBHOUSE ON HIS ELECTION FOR WESTMINSTER.116
Would you go to the house by the true gate,
Much faster than ever Whig Charley went;
Let Parliament send you to Newgate,
And Newgate will send you to Parliament.
April 9, 1820.[First published, Miscellaneous Poems, printed for J. Bumpus, 1824.]
A VOLUME OF NONSENSE
Dear Murray, —
You ask for a "Volume of Nonsense,"
Have all of your authors exhausted their store?
I thought you had published a good deal not long since.
And doubtless the Squadron are ready with more.
But on looking again, I perceive that the Species
Of "Nonsense" you want must be purely "facetious;"
And, as that is the case, you had best put to press
Mr. Sotheby's tragedies now in M.S.,
Some Syrian Sally
From common-place Gally,
Or, if you prefer the bookmaking of women,
Take a spick and span "Sketch" of your feminine He-Man.117
Sept. 28, 1820.[First published, Letters, 1900, v. 83.]
STANZAS.118
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knocked on the head for his labours.
To do good to Mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for Freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you'll get knighted.
November 5, 1820.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 377.]
TO PENELOPE.119
January 2, 1821
This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you: —
'T is just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.
November 5, 1820.[First published, Medwin's Conversations, 1824, p. 106.]
THE CHARITY BALL.120
What matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronises her "Charity Ball!"
What matters – a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal —
That the Sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the Saint keeps her charity back for "the Ball!"
December 10, 1820.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 540.]
EPIGRAM ON THE BRAZIERS' ADDRESS TO BE PRESENTED IN ARMOUR BY THE COMPANY TO QUEEN CAROLINE.121
It seems that the Braziers propose soon to pass
An Address and to bear it themselves all in brass;
A superfluous pageant, for by the Lord Harry!
They'll find, where they're going, much more than they carry.
Or —
The Braziers, it seems, are determined to pass
An Address, and present it themselves all in brass: —
A superfluous {pageant/trouble} for, by the Lord Harry!
They'll find, where they're going, much more than they carry.
January 6, 1821.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 442.]
ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.
JANUARY 22, 1821.122
Through Life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragged to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing – except thirty-three.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 414.]
MARTIAL, Lib. I. Epig. I
"Hic est, quem legis, ille, quem requiris,
Toto notus in orbe Martialis," etc.
He, unto whom thou art so partial,
Oh, reader! is the well-known Martial,
The Epigrammatist: while living,
Give him the fame thou would'st be giving;
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it —
Post-obits rarely reach a poet.
[N.D.? 1821.][First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1833, xvii. 245]
BOWLES AND CAMPBELL
To the air of "How now, Madam Flirt," in the Beggar's Opera.123
BOWLES
"Why, how now, saucy Tom?
If you thus must ramble,
I will publish some
Remarks on Mister Campbell.
Saucy Tom!"
CAMPBELL
"Why, how now, Billy Bowles?
Sure the priest is maudlin!
(To the public) How can you, d – n your souls!
Listen to his twaddling?
Billy Bowles!"
February 22, 1821.[First published, The Liberal, 1823, No. II. p. 398.]
ELEGY
Behold the blessings of a lucky lot!
My play is damned, and Lady Noel not.
May 25, 1821.[First published, Medwin's Conversations, 1824, p. 121.]
JOHN KEATS.124
Who killed John Keats?
"I," says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
"'T was one of my feats."
Who shot the arrow?
"The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man)
"Or Southey, or Barrow."
July 30, 1821.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 506.]
FROM THE FRENCH
Ægle, beauty and poet, has two little crimes;
She makes her own face, and does not make her rhymes.
Aug. 2, 1821.[First published, The Liberal, 1823, No. II. p. 396.]
TO MR. MURRAY
1
For Orford125 and for Waldegrave126
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray!
2
Because if a live dog, 't is said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth two dead,
My Murray!
3
And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose, —
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray!
4
But now this sheet is nearly crammed,
So, if you will, I shan't be shammed,
And if you won't, —you may be damned,
My Murray!127
August 23, 1821.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 517.]
[NAPOLEON'S SNUFF-BOX.]128
Lady, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff:
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!
1821.[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 235.]
THE NEW VICAR OF BRAY
1
Do you know Doctor Nott?129
With "a crook in his lot,"
Who seven years since tried to dish up
A neat Codicil
To the Princess's Will,130
Which made Dr. Nott not a bishop.
2
So the Doctor being found
A little unsound
In his doctrine, at least as a teacher,
And kicked from one stool
As a knave or a fool,
He mounted another as preacher.
3
In that Gown (like the Skin
With no Lion within)
He still for the Bench would be driving;
And roareth away,
A new Vicar of Bray,
Except that his bray lost his living.
4
"Gainst Freethinkers," he roars,
"You should all block your doors
Or be named in the Devil's indentures:"
And here I agree,
For who e'er would be
A Guest where old Simony enters?
5
Let the Priest, who beguiled
His own Sovereign's child
To his own dirty views of promotion,
Wear his Sheep's cloathing still
Among flocks to his will,
And dishonour the Cause of devotion.
6
The Altar and Throne
Are in danger alone
From such as himself, who would render
The Altar itself
But a step up to Pelf,
And pray God to pay his defender.
7
But, Doctor, one word
Which perhaps you have heard
"He should never throw stones who has windows
Of Glass to be broken,
And by this same token
As a sinner, you can't care what Sin does.
8
But perhaps you do well:
Your own windows, they tell,
Have long ago sufferéd censure;
Not a fragment remains
Of your character's panes,
Since the Regent refused you a glazier.
9
Though your visions of lawn
Have all been withdrawn,
And you missed your bold stroke for a mitre;
In a very snug way
You may still preach and pray,
And from bishop sink into backbiter!"
[First published, Works (Galignani), 1831, p. 116.]
LUCIETTA. A FRAGMENT
Lucietta, my deary,
That fairest of faces!
Is made up of kisses;
But, in love, oft the case is
Even stranger than this is —
There's another, that's slyer,
Who touches me nigher, —
A Witch, an intriguer,
Whose manner and figure
Now piques me, excites me,
Torments and delights me —
Cætera desunt.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
EPIGRAMS
Oh, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so did'st thou:
He perished rather than see Rome enslaved,
Thou cut'st thy throat that Britain may be saved!
So Castlereagh has cut his throat! – The worst
Of this is, – that his own was not the first.
So He has cut his throat at last! – He! Who?
The man who cut his country's long ago.
?August, 1822.[First published, The Liberal, No. I. October 18, 1822, p. 164.]
THE CONQUEST.131
The Son of Love and Lord of War I sing;
Him who bade England bow to Normandy,
And left the name of Conqueror more than King
To his unconquerable dynasty.
Not fanned alone by Victory's fleeting wing,
He reared his bold and brilliant throne on high;
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast,
And Britain's bravest Victor was the last.
March 8-9, 1823.[First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1833, xvii. 246.]
IMPROMPTU.132
Beneath Blessington's eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an Apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the Devil?
April, 1823.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635.]
JOURNAL IN CEPHALONIA
The dead have been awakened – shall I sleep?
The World's at war with tyrants – shall I crouch?
The harvest's ripe – and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my Couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart —
June 19, 1823.[First published, Letters, 1901, vi. 238.]
SONG TO THE SULIOTES
1
Up to battle! Sons of Suli
Up, and do your duty duly!
There the wall – and there the Moat is:
Bouwah!133 Bouwah! Suliotes!
There is booty – there is Beauty,
Up my boys and do your duty.
2
By the sally and the rally
Which defied the arms of Ali;
By your own dear native Highlands,
By your children in the islands,
Up and charge, my Stratiotes,
Bouwah! – Bouwah! – Suliotes!
3
As our ploughshare is the Sabre:
Here's the harvest of our labour;
For behind those battered breaches
Are our foes with all their riches:
There is Glory – there is plunder —
Then away despite of thunder!
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
101. [William Strahan (1715-1785) published Johnson's Dictionary, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Cook's Voyages, etc. He was great-grandfather of the mathematician William Spottiswoode (1825-1883).
Jacob Tonson (1656? -1736) published for Otway, Dryden, Addison, etc. He was secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, 1700. He was the publisher (1712, etc.) of the Spectator.
Barnaby Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was at one time (1718) in partnership with Tonson. He published Pope's Iliad in 1715, and the Odyssey, 1725-26.]
102. [See note 2, .]
103. [Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, published in 1806, was one of Murray's most successful books. In 1822 he purchased the copyright from Mrs. Rundell for £2000 (see Letters, 1898, ii. 375; and Memoir of John Murray, 1891, ii. 124).]
104. [The sixth edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1813) was "printed by T. Davison, Whitefriars, for John Murray, Bookseller to the Admiralty, and the Board of Longitude." Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 259) attributes to Byron a statement that Murray had to choose between continuing to be his publisher and printing the "Navy Lists," and "that there was no hesitation which way he should decide: the Admiralty carried the day." In his "Notes" to the Conversations (November 2, 1824) Murray characterized "the passage about the Admiralty" as "unfounded in fact, and no otherwise deserving of notice than to mark its absurdity."]
105. [For Fop's Alley, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 410, note 2.]
106. [H. Gally Knight (1786-1846) was at Cambridge with Byron.]
107. [William Upton was the author of Poems on Several Occasions, 1788, and of the Words of the most Favourite Songs, Duets, etc., sung at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. In the dedication to Mrs. Astley he speaks of himself as the author of the Black Cattle, Fair Rosamond, etc. He has also been credited with the words of James Hook's famous song, A Lass of Richmond Hill, but this has been disputed. (See Notes and Queries, 1878, Series V. vol. ix. p. 495.)]
108. [Compare —
"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow.Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray." Alashtar (by H. G. Knight), 1817, Canto I, stanza viii, lines 5, 6.]
109. [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. For stanzas 3, 4, 6, see Letters, 1900, iv. 219, 220. For stanzas 1, 2, 3 of "Another Simple Ballat. To the tune of Tally i.o. the Grinder" (probably a variant of Dibdin's song, "The Grinders, or more Grist to the Mill"), vide ibid., pp. 220, 221.]
110. ["Would you like an epigram – a translation? It was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe." – Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 346.
Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1718-1791), historian, poet, and epigrammatist, was the author of Anecdotes sur la revolution de Russie en l'anneé 1762, Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne (1807), etc. His epigrams are included in "Poésies Diverses," which are appended to Les jeux de Mains, a poem in three cantos, published in 1808, and were collected in his Oeuvres Posthumes, 1819; but there is no trace of the original of Byron's translation. Perhaps it is after de Rulhière, who more than once epigrammatizes "Une Vieille Femme."]
111. [The MS. of the "Epilogue" is inscribed on the margin of a copy of Wordsworth's Peter Bell, inserted in a set of Byron's Works presented by George W. Childs to the Drexel Institute. (From information kindly supplied by Mr. John H. Bewley, of Buffalo, New York.)
The first edition of Peter Bell appeared early in 1819, and a second edition followed in May, 1819. In Byron's Dedication of Marino Faliero, "To Baron Goethe," dated October 20, 1820 (Poetical Works, 1891, iv. 341), the same allusions to Sir George Beaumont, to Wordsworth's "place in the Excise," and to his admission that Peter Bell had been withheld "for one and twenty years," occur in an omitted paragraph first published, Letters, 1891, v. 101. So close a correspondence of an unpublished fragment with a genuine document leaves little doubt as to the composition of the "Epilogue."]
112. [The missing line may be, "To permanently fill a station," see Preface to Peter Bell.]
113. [Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 156) prints an alternative —
"You may wish me returns of the season,Let us, prithee, have none of the day!"]
114. [Cobbett, by way of atonement for youthful vituperation (he called him "a ragamuffin deist") of Tom Paine, exhumed his bones from their first resting-place at New Rochelle, and brought them to Liverpool on his return to England in 1819. They were preserved by Cobbett at Normanby, Farnham, till his death in 1835, but were sold in consequence of his son's bankruptcy in 1836, and passed into the keeping of a Mr. Tilly, who was known to be their fortunate possessor as late as 1844. (See Notes and Queries, 1868, Series IV. vol. i. pp. 201-203.)]
115. [John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869) (see Letters, 1898, i. 163, note 1) was committed to Newgate in December, 1819, for certain passages in a pamphlet entitled, A Trifling Mistake in Thomas Lord Erskine's recent Preface, which were voted (December 10) a breach of privilege. He remained in prison till the dissolution on the king's death, February 20, 1820, when he stood and was returned for Westminster. Byron's Liberalism was intermittent, and he felt, or, as Hobhouse thought, pretended to feel, as a Whig and an aristocrat with regard to the free lances of the Radical party. The sole charge in this "filthy ballad," which annoyed Hobhouse, was that he had founded a Whig Club when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. He assured Murray (see his letter, November, 1820, Letters, vol. iv. Appendix XI. pp. 498-500) that he was not the founder of the club, and that Byron himself was a member. "As for his Lordship's vulgar notions about the mob" he adds, "they are very fit for the Poet of the Morning Post, and for nobody else." There is no reason to suppose that Byron was in any way responsible for the version as sent to the Morning Post.]
"MY BOY HOBBY O[Another Version.]To the Editor of the Morning Post Sir, – A copy of verses, to the tune of 'My boy Tammy,' are repeated in literary circles, and said to be written by a Noble Lord of the highest poetical fame, upon his quondam friend and annotator. My memory does not enable me to repeat more than the first two verses quite accurately, but the humourous spirit of the Song may be gathered from these: —
1Why were you put in Lob's pond,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)For telling folks to pull the HouseBy the ears into the Lobby O!2Who are your grand Reformers now,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)There's me and Burdett, – gentlemen,And Blackguards Hunt and Cobby O!3Have you no other friends but these,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Yes, Southwark's Knight,143 the County Byng,And in the City, Bobby O!4"How do you recreate yourselves,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)We spout with tavern Radicals,And drink with them hob-nobby O!5"What purpose can such folly work,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)It gives our partisans a chanceWatches to twitch from fob-by O!6"Have they no higher game in view,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Oh yes; to stir the people up,And then to head the mob-by O.7"But sure they'll at their ruin pause,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)No! they'd see King and ParliamentBoth d – d without a sob-by O!8But, if they fail, they'll be hanged up,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Why, then, they'll swing, like better men,And that will end the job-by O!Philo-Radicle."April 15, 1820."
116. ["I send you 'a Song of Triumph,' by W. Botherby, Esqre price sixpence, on the election of J. C. H., Esqre., for Westminster (not for publication)." – Letter to Murray, April 9, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 6.]
117. [For Felicia Dorothea Browne (1793-1835), married in 1812 to Captain Hemans, see Letters, iii. 368, note 2. In the letter which contains these verses he writes, "I do not despise Mrs. Heman; but if she knit blue stockings instead of wearing them it would be better." Elsewhere he does despise her: "No more modern poesy, I pray, neither Mrs. Hewoman's nor any female or male Tadpole of poet Wordsworth's." —Ibid., v. 64.]
118. [The lines were sent in a letter to Moore (November 5, 1820) by way of Autoepitaphium, "if 'honour should come unlooked for' to any of your acquaintance;" i.e. if Byron should fall in the cause of Italian revolution, and Moore should not think him worthy of commemoration, here was a threnody "ready at hand."]
119. ["For the anniversary of January 2, 1821, I have a small grateful anticipation, which, in case of accident, I add." – Letter to Moore, November 5, 1820, Letters, 1891, v. 112.]
120. [Written on seeing the following paragraph in a newspaper: "Lady Byron is this year the lady patroness at the annual Charity Ball, given at the Town Hall, at Hinckley, Leicestershire…" —Life, p. 535. Moore adds that "these verses [of which he only prints two stanzas] are full of strong and indignant feeling, – every stanza concluding pointedly with the words 'Charity Ball.'"]
121. [The allusion is explained in Rivington's Annual Register, October 30, 1820 (vol. lxii. pp. 114, 115) —
"ADDRESSES TO THE QUEEN.
" … The most splendid exhibition of the day was that of the brass-founders and braziers. The procession was headed by a man dressed in a suit of burnished plate armour of brass, and mounted on a handsome black horse, the reins being held by pages … wearing brass helmets… A man in a complete suite of brass armour … was followed by two persons, bearing on a cushion a most magnificent imitation of the imperial Crown of England. A small number of the deputation of brass-founders were admitted to the presence of her Majesty, and one of the persons in armour advanced to the throne, and bending on one knee, presented the address, which was enclosed in a brass case of excellent workmanship." – See Letters, 1901, v. 219, 220, note 2.
In a postscript to a letter to Murray, dated January 19, 1821, he writes, "I sent you a line or two on the Braziers' Company last week, not for publication. The lines were even worthy
'Of – dsworth the great metaquizzical poet,A man of great merit amongst those who know it,Of whose works, as I told Moore last autumn at MestriI owe all I know to my passion for Pastry.'" He adds, in a footnote, "Mestri and Fusina are the ferry trajects to Venice: I believe, however, that it was at Fusina that Moore and I embarked in 1819, when Thomas came to Venice, like Coleridge's Spring, 'slowly up this way.'"
Again, in a letter to Moore, dated January 22, 1821, he encloses slightly different versions of both epigrams, and it is worth noting that the first line of the pendant epigram has been bowdlerized, and runs thus —
"Of Wordsworth the grand metaquizzical poet." – Letters, 1901, v. 226, 230.]
122. ["To-morrow is my birthday – that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight; i. e. in twelve minutes I shall have completed thirty and three years of age!!! and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose. * * * It is three minutes past twelve – ''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,' and I am now thirty-three! —
'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,Labuntur anni;' — but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done." – Extracts from a Diary, January 21, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 182.
In a letter to Moore, dated January 22, 1821, he gives another version —
"Through Life's road, so dim and dirty,I have dragged to three-and-thirty.What have these years left to me?Nothing – except thirty-three." Ibid., p. 229.]
123. [Compare the Beggar's Opera, act ii. sc. 2 —
Air, "Good morrow, Gossip Joan."
"Polly. Why, how now, Madam Flirt?If you thus must chatter,And are for flinging dirt,Let's try who best can spatter,Madam Flirt!"Lucy. Why, how now, saucy jade?Sure the wench is tipsy!How can you see me madeThe scoff of such a gipsy? [To him.]Saucy jade!" [To her.] Bowles replied to Campbell's Introductory Essay to his Specimens of the English Poets, 7 vols., 1819, by The Invariable Principles of Poetry, in a letter addressed to Thomas Campbell. For Byron's two essays, the "Letter to… [John Murray]" and "Observations upon Observations," see Letters, 1901, v. Appendix III. pp. 536-592.]
124. [For Croker's "article" on Keats's Endymion (Quarterly Review, April, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 204-208), see Don Juan, Canto XI. stanza lx. line 1, Poetical Works, 1902, vi. 445, note 4.]
125. [Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the Last Nine Years of the Reign of George II. ]
126. [Memoirs by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.]
127. ["Can't accept your courteous offer [i. e. £2000 for three cantos of Don Juan, Sardanapalus, and The Two Foscari.] These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season' – 'flat public' – 'don't go off' – 'lordship writes too much' – 'won't take advice' – 'declining popularity' – 'deductions for the trade' – 'make very little' – 'generally lose by him' – 'pirated edition' – 'foreign edition' – 'severe criticisms,' etc., with other hints and howls for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer." – Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 348.]
128. [Napoleon bequeathed to Lady Holland a snuff-box which had been given to him by the Pope for his clemency in sparing Rome. Lord Carlisle wrote eight (not seven) stanzas, urging her, as Byron told Medwin, to decline the gift, "for fear that horror and murder should jump out of the lid every time it is opened." —Conversations, 1824, p. 362. The first stanza of Lord Carlyle's verses, which teste Medwin, Byron parodied, runs thus —
"Lady, reject the gift! 'tis tinged with gore!Those crimson spots a dreadful tale relate;It has been grasp'd by an infernal Power;And by that hand which seal'd young Enghien's fate." The snuff-box is now in the jewel-room in the British Museum.]
129. [George Frederick Nott (1767-1841), critic and divine, was Rector of Harrietsham and Woodchurch, a Prebendary of Winchester and of Salisbury. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1802, and, soon afterwards, was appointed sub-preceptor to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. He was a connoisseur of architecture and painting, and passed much of his time in Italy and at Rome. When he was at Pisa he preached in a private room in the basement story of the house in Pisa where Shelley was living, and fell under Byron's displeasure for attacking the Satanic school, and denouncing Cain as a blasphemous production. "The parsons," he told Moore (letter, February 20, 1820), "preached at it [Cain] from Kentish Town to Pisa." Hence the apostrophe to Dr. Nott. (See Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author, by E. T. Trelawny, 1887, pp. 302, 303.)]
130. [According to Lady Anne Hamilton (Secret History of the Court of England, 1832, i. 198-207), the Princess Charlotte incurred the suspicion and displeasure of her uncles and her grandmother, the Queen, by displaying an ardent and undue interest in her sub-preceptor. On being reproved by the Queen for "condescending to favour persons in low life with confidence or particular respect, persons likely to take advantage of your simplicity and innocence," and having learnt that "persons" meant Mr. Nott, she replied by threatening to sign a will in favour of her sub-preceptor, and by actually making over to him by a deed her library, jewels, and all other private property. Lady Anne Hamilton is not an accurate or trustworthy authority, but her extremely circumstantial narrative was, no doubt, an expansion of the contemporary scandal to which Byron's lampoon gave currency.]
131. [This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's papers, after his departure from Genoa for Greece.]
132. [With the view of inducing these friends [Lord and Lady Blessington] to prolong their stay at Genoa, he suggested their taking a pretty villa, called "Il Paradiso," in the neighbourhood of his own, and accompanied them to look at it. Upon that occasion it was that, on the lady expressing some intention of residing there, he produced the following impromptu. —Life, 577.]
133. "Bouwah!" is their war-cry.