Yet, since 't is promised at the rector's death, There lives one druid, who prepares in time, Ye, who aspire to “ build the lofty rhyme," 3 Yet, if you only prize your favourite thought, Si carmina condes, Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe latentes. Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes, Hoc (aiebat) et hoc: melius te posse negares, Bis terque expertum frustra, delere jubebat, Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus. Si defendere delictum quam vertere malles, Vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes: prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly an- the contents of his 'foolscap crown octavos.'"- John Joshua swerable for his end; and it ought to be an indictable offence. Proby, first Earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-genBut this is the least they have done ; for, by a retinement of eral in 1805, envoy to Berlin in 1804, and ambassador to barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ri- Petersburg in 1807. Besides his poems, he published two diculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough pamphlets, to show the necessity of universal suffrage and never to print himself. Certcs these rakers of " Remains short parliaments. He died in 1828.) come under the statute against“ resurrection men." What 2 Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up his notice the sole survivor, the “ultimus Romanorum," the in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall ? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders ? Is it not better to gibbet his body Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of last of the Cruscanti! -" Edwin" the " profound," by our on a heath, than his soul in an octavo ? " We know what we “ well said Baviad the Correct." are, but we know not what we may be ; " and it is to be hoped I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penulwe never shall know, if a man who has passed through life timate. with a sort of éclat, is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to CHRONICLE. provide for the child : now, might not some of this “ Sutor " WHAT reams of paper, floods of ink," ultra Crepidam's " friends and seducers have done a decent Do some men spoil, who never think ! action without inveigling Pratt into biography ? And then And so perhaps you 'll say of me, his inscription split into so many modicuins! -" To the In which your readers may ágree. Duchess of Somuch, the Right llon. So-and-So, and Mrs. Still I write on, and tell you why; and Miss Somebody, these volumes are, &c. &c.” - why, Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, this is doling out the " soft milk of dedication" in gills, But may instruct or entertain there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Without the risk of giving pain, &c. &c. Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left ? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child, ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS a book, and a dedication : send the girl to her grace, the vo IN tracing of the human mind lumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil. - (See Through all its various courses. antè, p. 132.) Though strange, 't is true, we often find It knows not its resources: [In the original MS. – “ Some rhyming peer — Carlisle or Carysfort." And men through life assume a part To which is subjoined this note :-" Of John Joshua, Earl of For which no talents they possess, Carysfort' I know nothing at present, but from an advertise Yet wonder that, with all their art, ment in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by They meet no better with success, &c. &c. his Lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morca. Being 3 [See Milton's Lycidas.] a rhymer himself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the 4 "Bastard of your brains." -Minerva being the first by cluse of that couplet ; and as for what follows and goes be- Jupiter's headpiece, and a variety of equally unaccountable fore, let him place it to the account of the other Thane ; parturitions upon earth, such as Jadoc, &c. &c. &c. siace I cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con Give light to passages too much in shade, Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good, (Unless his case be much misunderstood) When teased with creditors' continual claims, “ To die like Catof," leapt into the Thames ! And therefore be it lawful through the town For any bard to poison, hang, or drown. : Who saves the intended suicide receives Small thanks from him who loathes the life be leaves; And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose The glory of that death they freely chose. As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune, Or the sad influence of the angry moon, All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues, As yawning waiters fly? Fitzscribble's 3 lungs; Yet on he mouths - ten minutes — tedious cach As prelate's homily, or placeman's speech ; Long as the last years of a lingering lease, When riot pauses until rents increase. While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways, If by some chance he walks into a well, And shouts for succour with stentorian yell, “ A rope ! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!". Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace; For there his carcass he might freely fling, From frenzy, or the humour of the thing. Though this has happen'd to more bards than one; I'll tell you Budgell's story, — and have done. Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse Prick not the poet's conscience as a cure ; Dosed 6 with vile drams on Sunday he was found, Or got a child on consecrated ground ! And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage — Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage. If free, all fiy his versifying fit, Fatal at once to simpleton or wit, But him, unhappy! whom he seizes, — him He flays with recitation limb by limb; Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach, And gorges like a lawyer -- or a leech. 7 Ornamenta ; parum claris lucem dare coget; Ut mala queni scabies aut morbus regius urguet, Servari nolit ? Dicam : Siculique poetæ ! "A crust for the critics." — Bayes, in the “ Rehearsal." And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can “fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the “ Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming. “ Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz with bad wine, or worse poetry) “me servavit Apollo !” 3 [“ Fitzscribble," originally Fitzgerald." See antè. p. 421.) * On his table were found these tords: “ What Cato did, and Addison approved. cannot be wrong." But Addison did not " approre; and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had_invited his daughter on the same water. party ; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of " Atticus," and the enemy of Pope !--[Eustace Budgell, a friend and relative of Addison's, leapt into the Thames" to escape a prosecution, on account of forging the will of Dr. Tindal; in which Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. To this Pope alludes " Let Budgell charge los Grub-street on my quill, And write whate'er he please -except my will."'] $(" We talked (sars Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. JOHNSON. ' I should never think it time to inake away with myself.' I put the case of Eustace Budgell, who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on. Suppose, Sir,' said I, that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few dars longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society.' JOHNSON. Then, Sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.'”– See Boswell, vol. iv. p. 50. ed. 1835.) 6 If dosed with," &c. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate " Minxerit in patrios cineres," &c. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present. 7 [In tracing the fortunes of men, it is not a little curious to obserre, how often the course of a whole life has depended on one single stop. Had Lord Byron persisted in his original purpose of giving this poem to the press, instead of Childe Harold, it is more than probable that he would hare been lost, as a great poet, to the world. Inferior as this Paraphrase is, in every respect, to his former Satire, and, in some places, eren descending below the level of under-graduate versifiers, its failure, there can be little doubt, would have been certain and signal ;-his former assailants would have resumed their advantage over him, and either, in the bitterness of his mor. tification, he would have flung Childe Harold into the tire ; or, had he summoned up surficient confidence to publish that poem, its reception, even if sufficient to retriere him in the eyes of the pubiic and his own, could nerer have, at all, resembled that explosion of success, – that instantaneous and universal acclaim of admiration, into which, coming, as it were, fresh from the land of song, he surprised the world, and in the midst of which he was borne, buoyant and selfassured, along, through a succession of new triumphs, each more splendid than the last. Happily, the better judgment of his friends averted such a risk. - DIOORE.] 2 No murky vapour, herald of the storm, *Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 17. 1811. On such an eve his palest beam he cast But, lo ! from high Hymettus to the plain Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile. As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane, I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore, Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore; Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan, Sacred to gods, but not secure from man, The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease, And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece ! Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky; And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god : But chiefly, Pallas ! thine; when Hecate's glare, Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair 1 (This fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, whose collection of Athenian marbles was ultimately purchased for the nation, in 1816, at the cost of thirty-five thousand pounds, was written at thens, in Jarch, 1811, and prepared for publication along with the “Hints from Horace;" but, like that satire, suppressed by Lord Byron, from inotives which the reader will easily understand. It was first given to the world in 1828. Few can wonder that Lord Byron's feelings should have been powerfully excited by the spectacle of the despoiled Parthenon ; but it is only due to Lord Elgin to keep in mind, that, had those precious marbles remained, they must, in all likelihood, have perished for ever amidst the miserable scenes of violence which Athens has since witnessed ; and that their presence in England has already, by universal admission, been of the most essential advantage to the tine arts of our own country. The political allusions in this poem are not such as require much explanation. It contains many lines, which, it is hoped, the author, on mature reflection, disapproved of — but is too vigorous a specimen of his iambics to be omitted in any collective edition of his works.) ? (The splendid lines with which this satire opens, down to " As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane," first appeared at the commencement of the th'rd canto of the Corsair, the author having, at that tinie, abandoned all notion of publishing the piece of which they originally made part.) 3 Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down. 4 The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration 5 The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house ; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all. 6 (During our residence of ten weeks at Athens, there was not, I believe, a day of which we did not devote a part to the contemplation of the noble monuments of Grecian genius, that have outlived the ravages of time, and the outrage of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers. The Temple of Theseus, which was within five minutes' walk of our lodgings, is the most perfect ancient edifice in the world. In this falric, the most enduring stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship ; the characteristic of the Doric style, whose chaste beauty is not, in the opinion of the tirst artists, to be equalled by the graces of any of the other orders. A gen. tleman of Athens, of great taste and skill, assured us that, after a continued contemplation of this temple, and the remains of the Parthenon, he could never again look with his accustomed satisfaction upon the lonic and Corinthian ruins of Athens, much less upon the specimens of the more modern species of architecture to be seen in Italy. - Hlobilou SE.] G g 3 Another name with his pollutes my shrine : Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine ! Some retribution still might Pallas claim, When Venus balf avenged Minerva's shame." 6 She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye : “ Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured namne, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim. Frown not on England; England owns him not : Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot. Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's towers Survey Baotia ; - Caledonia's ours. And well I know within that bastard land 7 Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command ; A barren soil, where Nature's germs, contined To stern sterility, can stint the mind ; Whose thistlc well betrays the niggard earth, Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth ; Each genial influence nurtured to resist ; A land of meanness, sophistry, and míst. Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain, Till, burst at length, each watery head o'crflows, Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows. Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride Despatch her scheming children far and wide : Some east, some west, some every where but north, In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth. And thus — accursed be the day and year! She sent a Pict to play the felon here. Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, As dull Bæotia gave a Pindar birth; So may her few, the letter'd and the brave, Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave, Shake off the sordid dust of such a land, And shine like children of a happier strand; As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place, Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.' O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread Yes, 't was Minerva's self; but, ah! how changed “ Mortal!" _'t was thus she spake " that blush of shame “ Mortal !” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “ once “ First on the head of him who did this deed 1 (On the plaster wall, on the west side of the chapel, these words have been very deeply cut: QUOD NON FECERUNT GOTI, Hoc FECERUNT Scoti. The mortar wall, yet fresh when we saw it, supplying thie place of the statue now in Lord Elgin's collection, serves as a comment on this text. 'This eulogy of the Goths alludes to an unfounded story of a Greek historian, who relates that Alaric, either territied by two phantoms, one of Minerva herself, the other of Achilles, terrible as when he strode towards the walls of Troy to his friends, or struck with a reverential respect, had spared the treasures, ornaments, and people of the venerable city. – HOBHOUSE.] 2 [In the original MS." Ab, Athens ! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth: Heil sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both.”] 3 This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian ; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and architecture. * [On the original MS. is written Aspice quos Pallas Scoto concedit honores, Inirà stat nomen — facta supraque vide.'') $ (For Lord Byron's detailed remarks on Lord Elgin's dealing with the Parthenon, see APPENDIX, note A. to the second canto of Childe Harold.) 6 His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon ; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso relievos, destroyed in a vain atteinpt to remove them. 7 " Irish bastards,” according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan. THE CURSE OF MINERVA. 455 Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly bead, 1 “ Look on your Spain !- she clasps the hand she hates, Still with his hireling artists let him prate, creep, “Look last at home — ye love not to look there; a “ So let him stand, through ages yet unborn, “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour; dream. “ Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race Shal shake your tyrant empire to its base ; " (In 1816, thirty-five thousand pounds were voted by Par. for selfish motives, and prevent successive generations of liament for the purchase of the Elgin marbles.) other nations from seeing those admirable sculptures? The ? Mr. West, on seeing the “Elgin Collection" (I suppose Temple of Vinerva was spared as a beacon to the world, we shall hear of the " Abershaw" and " Jack Shephard "col. to direct it to the knowledge of purity of taste. What can we lection), declares himself" a mere tyro" in art. say to the disappointed traveller, who is now deprived of the rich gratification which would have compensated his travel 3 Poor Cribb was sadly puzzled when the marbles were first and his toil? It will be little consolation to him to say, he may exhibited at Elgin llouse : he asked if it was not "a stone find the sculpture of the Parthenon in England. - H. W. shop ?" - He was right; it is a shop. Williaus.) 4 (That the Elgin marbles will contribute to the improve- 5 [The affair of Copenhagen.) ment of art in England, cannot be doubted. They must cer. “ Blest paper credit ! last and best supply, tainly open the pyes of the British artists, and prove that the That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly!” –Pope. true and only road to simplicity and beauty is the study of nature. But, bad we a right to diminish the interest of Athens 7 The Deal and Dover trathckers in specie. |
