LXXXVII Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, In chronological commemoration, Or graven stone found in a barrack's station In digging the foundation of a closet, XC. And glory long has made the sages smile; 'Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind — Depending more upon the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind: Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle: The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe. XCI. Milton's the prince of poets-so we say; An independent being in his day Learn'd, pious, temperate in love and wine; But his life falling into Johnson's way, XCII. All these are, certes, entertaining facts, Like Shakspeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's bribes; Like Titus' youth, and Cæsar's earliest acts; Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes); As most essential to their hero's story, 1 See Johnson's Life of Milton. 2 ["Confined his pedlar poems to democracy."- MS.] 3 [See Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, 1817.] 4 [ Flourish'd its sophistry for aristocracy."-MS.] [The followers of this fanatic are said to have amounted, at one time, to a hundred thousand. She announced herself as the mother of a second Shiloh, whose speedy advent she confidently predicted. A cradle of expensive materials was prepared for the expected prodigy. Dr. Reece and another medical man attested her dropsy; and many were her dupes down to the moment of her death, in 1914.] [Here follows in the original MS. — "Time has approved Ennui to be the best Of friends, and opiate draughts; your love and wine, XCIIL All are not moralists, like Southey, when Such names at present cut a convict figure, Are good manure for their more bare biography; Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger Than any since the birthday of typography; A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the "Excursion," Writ in a manner which is my aversion. XCV. He there builds up a formidable dyke Between his own and others' intellect; But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like Joanna Southcote's Shiloh 5, and her sect, Are things which in this century don't strike The public mind, so few are the elect; And the new births of both their stale virginities Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities. XCVI. But let me to my story: I must own, If I have any fault, it is digressionLeaving my people to proceed alone, While I soliloquize beyond expression; But these are my addresses from the throne, Which put off business to the ensuing session: Forgetting each omission is a loss to The world, not quite so great as Ariosto. T'our tale. - The feast was over, the slaves gone, The Arab lore and poet's song were done, The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired; — Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee! CII. Ave Maria! blessed be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so soft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, 2 Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. СІІІ. Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty doveWhat though 'tis but a pictured image?-strikeThat painting is no idol,—'t is too like. CIV. Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print 3-that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion "The verses of Dryden, once highly celebrated, are forgotten." Mr. W. WORDSWORTH's Preface. 2["While swung the signal from the sacred tower."MS.] 3["Are not these pretty stanzas ?- some folks say— Downright in print-"- MS.] 4" The first time I had a conversation with Lord Byron on the subject of religion was at Ravenna, my native country, in 1820, while we were riding on horseback in an extensive solitary wood of pines. The scene invited to religious meditation. It was a fine day in spring. How,' he said, 'raising our eyes to heaven, or directing them to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of God? or how, turning them to what is within us, can we doubt that there is something more noble and durable than the clay of which we are formed?"-COUNT GAMBA.] ["By her example warn'd, the rest beware; Sweet hour of twilight!—in the solitude Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learn'd from this example not to fly From a true lover,-shadow'd my mind's eye.5 CVII. Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things 6. Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart When Nero perish'd by the justest doom Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Of feeling for some kindness done, when power 7 And that one hunting, which the devil design'd For one fair female, lost him half the kind." DRYDEN'S Theodore and Honoria.] "'ESTigi TAYTA Çigus Pigus over-cigus aiya, Φέρεις ματέρι παιδα. "-Fragment of Sappho. "Era gia l' ora che volge 'l disio, A' naviganti, e 'ntenerisce il cuore ; Lo di ch' han detto a' dolci amici a dío; E che lo nuovo peregrin' d' amore Punge, se ode Squilla di lontano, Che paía 'l giorno pianger che si muore." DANTE's Purgatory, canto viii. This last line is the first of Gray's Elegy, taken by him without acknowledgment. See Suetonius for this fact. - ["The public joy was so great upon the occasion of his death, that the common people ran up and down with caps upon their heads. And yet there CX. But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero, More than such madmen's fellow man—the moon's? Sure my invention must be down at zero, And I grown one of many " wooden spoons" Of verse (the name with which we Cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees). CXI. I feel this tediousness will never do- They'll never find it out, unless I own And then as an improvement 't will be shown: I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is From Aristotle passim. - - See Ποιητικής. were some, who for a long time trimmed up his tomb with spring and summer flowers, and one while placed his image upon his rostra dressed up in state robes, another while published proclamations in his name, as if he was yet alive, and would shortly come to Rome again, with a vengeance to all his enemies."] ["But I'm digressing-what on earth have Nero And Wordsworth - both poetical buffoons," &c. -MS.] [Canto III. originally included almost all the stanzas which now form Canto IV. Cantos III., IV., and V. were published together, in 8vo., in August, 1821. The following are extracts from Lord Byron's letters to Mr. Murray: Ravenna. December 4. 1819." The third Canto of Don Juan is completed, in about two hundred stanzas; very decent, I believe, but do not know, and it is useless to discuss." December 10. 1819.-"I have finished the third Canto, but the things I have read and heard discourage all further publication at least for the present. The cry is up, and cant is up. I should have no objection to return the price of the copyright." February 7. 1820. "I have cut the third Canto into two, because it was too long; and I tell you this beforehand, because in case of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first so remember that I have not made this division to double upon you. I have not yet sent off the Cantos, and have some doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the first. The outcry has not frightened but it has hurt me, and I have not written con amore this time." October 12. 1820.-"I don't feel inclined to care further about Don Juan. What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day? She had read it in the French, and paid me some compliments, with due DRAWBACKS, upon it. answered, that what she said was true, but that I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. - Ah, but' (said she) I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an IMMORTALITY of Don Juan!' The truth is, that it is TOO TRUE, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of sentiment; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate De Grammont's Memoirs for the same reason. We subjoin a single specimen of the contemporary criticism on Cantos III., IV., and V. "It seems to have become almost an axiom in the literary world, that nothing is so painful to the sensibilities of an author as the palpable neglect of his productions. From this species of mortification, no poet has ever, perhaps, been more fully exempt than Lord Byron. None of his publications have failed in at least exciting a sufficient portion of general interest and attention; and even those among them which the scrutinising eye of criticism might deem somewhat unworthy of his powers, have never compelled him, like many of his poetical brethren, to seek refuge from the apathy and want of discernment of contemporaries, in the consoling anticipation of posthumous honours and triumphs. But, if we are to infer, from the axiom already alluded to, that extensive notoriety must be pleasing in the same proportion that neglect is distressing to an author, then none of his lordship's productions can afford him so ample a field for self-congratu lation as the Don Juan. Revilers and partisans have alike contributed to the popularity of this singular work; and the result is, that scarcely any poem of the present day has been more generally read, or its continuation more eagerly and impatiently awaited. Its poetical merits have been extolled to the skies by its admirers; and the Priest and the Levite, though they have joined to anathematise it, have not, when they came in its way, passed by on the other side.' "But little progress is made in the history and adventures of the hero in these three additional cantos. The fact is, however, that nothing has appeared, from the beginning, to be farther from the author's intention, than to render his Don Juan any thing like a regular narrative. On the contrary, its general appearance tends strongly to remind us of the learned philosopher's treatise- De rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis.' And here we cannot avoid remarking, what an admirable method those persons must possess ot reconciling contradictions, who, in the same breath, censure the poem for its want of plan, and impeach the writer of a deliberate design against the religion and government of the country. His lordship has himself given what appears to us a very candid exposition of his motives - the fact is, that I have nothing plann'd, Unless it were to be a moment merry, A novel word in my vocabulary.' Indeed, the whole poem has completely the appearance of being produced in those intervals in which an active and powerful mind, habitually engaged in literary occupation, relaxes from its more serious labours, and amuses itself with comparative trifling. Hence the narrative is interrupted by continual digressions, and the general character of the language is that of irony and sarcastic humour; - an apparent levity, which, however, often serves but as a veil to deep reflection. Nor can the talent of the master-hand be always concealed it involuntarily betrays itself in the touches of the pathetic and sublime which frequently present themselves in the course of the poem; in the thoughts too big for utterance, and too deep for tears,' which are interspersed in various parts of it."- CAMPBELL.] 3 4 "Pride and worse Ambition threw me down, Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King." Paradise Lost.] ["the same sin that overthrew the angels, And of all sins most easily besets Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature: ["Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, III. As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, And wish'd that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. IV. And if I laugh at any mortal thing, "Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep, "Tis that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, for we must steep Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring, Young Juan and his lady-love were left To their own hearts' most sweet society; Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he "'Tis a grand poem-and so true!-true as the 10th of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things— time-language- the earth-the bounds of the sca-the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment.' - Byron Diary, 1521.] 1 my May of life Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf.”— Macbeth.] [Achilles is said to have been dipped by his mother in the river Styx, to render him invulnerable.] 3 [Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks [e. g." Lord Byron is the very Comus of poetry, who, by the bewitching airiness of his numbers, aims to turn the nioral world into a herd of monsters."-WATKINS. Deep as Byron has dipped his pen into vice, he has dipped it still deeper into immorality. Alas! he shines only to inislead-he flashes only to destroy.". - COLTON. The heart-which may be broken: happy they! Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold And all which must be borne, and never told; "Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore, 8 The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for They found no fault with Time, save that he fled; They saw not in themselves aught to condemn : Each was the other's mirror, and but read Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem, And knew such brightness was but the reflection Of their exchanging glances of affection. "In Don Juan he is highly profane; but, in that poem, the profaneness is in keeping with all the other qualities, and religion comes in for a sneer, or a burlesque, only in common with every thing that is dear and valuable to us as moral and social beings."- Ecl. Rev. "Dost thou aspire, like a Satanic mind, To make them, from restraint and conscience free, Bad as thyself, or worse-if such can be?"— COTTLE.] 5 [See antè, p. 482.] ["Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem |