Purges the eyes and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears, that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief

To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.

I like your moral and machinery;
Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery;
Your dialogue is apt and smart ;
The play's concoction full of art;
Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
All stab, and everybody dies.
In short, your tragedy would be
The very thing to hear and see:
And for a piece of publication,
If I decline on this occasion,
It is not that I am not sensible
To merits in themselves ostensible,
But-and I grieve to speak it-plays
Are drugs-mere drugs, sir-now-a-days.
I had a heavy loss by "Manuel,"-
Too lucky if it prove not annual,-
And Sotheby, with his "Orestes,"
(Which, by the by, the author's best is,)
Has lain so very long on hand,
That I despair of all demand.
I've advertised, but see my books,
Or only watch my shopman's looks ;-
Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber,
My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.

There's Byron too, who once did better,
Has sent me, folded in a letter,
A sort of-it's no more a drama
Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama;
So alter'd since last year his pen is,
I think he's lost his wits at Venice.
In short, sir, what with one and t'other,
I dare not venture on another.

I write in haste; excuse each blunder;
The coaches through the street so thunder!
My room's so full-we've Gifford here
Reading MS., with Hookham Frere,
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles
Of some of our forthcoming Articles.

The Quarterly-Ah, sir, if you
Had but the genius to review !—
A smart critique upon St. Helena,
Or if you only would but tell in a
Short compass what-but, to resume:
As I was saying, sir, the room—
The room's so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits:-

My humble tenement admits

Then you've

's Tour,

No great things, to be sure,

You could hardly begin with a less work; For the pompous rascallion,

Who don't speak Italian

Nor French, must have scribbled by guesswork.

You can make any loss up

With "Spence" and his gossip,

A work which must surely succeed;
Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft,
With the new" Fytte" of " Whistlecraft,"
Must make people purchase and read.

Then you've General Gordon,

Who girded his sword on,

To serve with a Muscovite master And help him to polish

A nation so owlish,

They thought shaving their beards a disaster.

For the man," poor and shrewd,""
With whom you'd conclude

A compact without more delay,
Perhaps some such pen is

Still extant in Venice;

But please, sir, to mention your pay.

Venice, January 8, 1818.

TO MR. MURRAY.

STRAHAN, Tonson, Lintot of the times,
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.

To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all-and sellest some-
My Murray.

* Vide your letter.

Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen,But where is thy new Magazine, My Murray?

Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine-
The "Art of Cookery," and mine,
My Murray.

Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons to thy mill bring grist; And then thou hast the " Navy List," My Murray.

And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without "the Board of Longitude,"
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray.

Venice, March 25, 1818.

On the birth of this child, the son of the British viceonal at Venice, Lord Byron wrote these lines. They are no other respect remarkable, than that they were thought *rthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten erent languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian, (also in the Venetian dialect,) German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan. The original lines, th the different versions above mentioned, were printed, a small neat volume, in the seminary of Padua; from which we take the following:

GREEK.

Φρὴν πυκνὴ Πατρὸς καὶ Μητέρος ἀγλαὸν εἶδος
Αρτιτόκου κοσμοί νοῦν τε, δέμας τε βρέφους"

Οφρα δὲ παντὶ βίῳ η όλβιος, αἱὲν ἐραγνοῦ
Σχοίη παῖς 'Ρίζου καὶ γάνος, ἠδὲ βίην.
LATIN.

Magnanimos Patris verset sub pectore sensus,
Maternus roseo fulgeat ore decor;
Neu quid felici desit, quo robore Rizzus
Festivo pollet, polleat iste puer.

ITALIAN.

Del Padre il senno, e il bel materno aspetto Splendano ognora in Te, fanciul diletto: Felice appien se al tuo corporeo velo Dona il lieto vigor di Rizzo il cielo.

THE VENETIAN DIALECT.

De graziete el to modelo

Sia la Mama, bel Putelo.

E'l talento del Papà

In ti cressa co l' età;
E per salsa, o contentin
Roba a Rizzo el so morbin.

GERMAN.

Aus des Kindes Auge ftrahlet
Eeines Vaters hoher Sinn,
Und der Mutter Schönheit malet
Sich in Wange, Mund und Kinn.
Glüdlich, Kleiner, wirst du sein,

Kannst du Rizzo's frohen Muthes,
Seines feurigen Blutes,

Seiner Stärke dich erfreu'n.

FRENCH.

Sois en tout fortuné, semillant Jouvenceau,

Porte dans les festins la valeur de Rizzo,

Porte au barreau l'esprit que fait briller ton père,

Et pour vaincre -au boudoir sois beau comme ta mère.

SPANISH.

Si à la gracia materna el gusto ayuntas
Y cordura del Padre, o bello Infante,
Serás feliz, y lo serás bastante;
Mas, si felicidad guieres completa,
Sé, como Rizo, alegre, sé un atleta.

2 [About the middle of April, 1819, Lord Byron travelled from Venice to Ravenna, at which last city he expected to find the Countess Guiccioli. The above stanzas, which have been as much admired as any thing of the kind he ever wrote, were composed, according to Madame Guiccioli's statement, during this journey, and while Lord Byron was actually sailing on the Po. In transmitting them to England, in May, 1820, he says,-" They must not be published: pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions." They were first printed in 1824.]

3 [Ravenna-a city to which Lord Byron afterwards declared himself more attached than to any other place, except Greece. He resided in it rather more than two years, "and quitted it," says Madame Guiccioli," with the deepest regret, and with a presentiment that his departure would be the forerunner of a thousand evils; he was continually performing generous actions: many families owed to him the few prosperous days they ever enjoyed; his arrival was spoken of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a public calamity." In the third canto of Don Juan," Lord Byron has pictured the tranquil life which, at this time, he was leading:

"Sweet hour of twilight-in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

"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 bells that rose the boughs among; 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."]

What do I say-a mirror of my heart?

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;

And such as thou art were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,-not forever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away,

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,

Borne in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I-to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.

She will look on thee,-I have look'd on thee,

Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparablo sigh for her!

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,—
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,

That happy wave repass me in its flow!

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?—
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,

But the distraction of a various lot,

As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves the lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood

Is all meridian, as if never fann'd

By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

My blood is all meridian; were it not,

I had not left my clime, nor should I be, In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,

A slave again of love,—at least of thee.

"Tis vain to struggle-let me perish youngLive as I lived, and love as I have loved; To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,

And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.

1["So, the prince has been repealing Lord Fitzgerald's forfeiture Ecco un' sonetto! There, you dogs! there's a sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an' ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good: it was a very noble piece of principality."-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray.] 2["Would you like an epigram-a translation? It was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe."Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 12, 1819.]

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;

A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When link'd together,
In every weather,
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing-

He'll stay forever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage, when past the Spring

3 [A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Revenna when he wrote these Stanzas, says.-" They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediate y quit Italy, and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was laboring under an access of fever."]

4 [V. L. That sped his Spring."

[Or,

"You come to him on earth again,

He'll go with you to hell."

has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly fear, will subside into Newgate."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore.]

These lines were written on reading in the newspapers, that Lady Byron had been patroness of a ball in aid of some

1 [In Lord Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, we find the following entry:-"January 21, 1821. Dined-visited -came home-read. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's

Correspondence, which says, that Regnard et la plupart des poètes comiques étaient gens bilieux et mélancoliques; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est très-gai, n'a jamais fait que des tragedies-et que la comédie gaie est le seul genre où il n'ait point réussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux hommes fort differens! At this moment I feel as bilious as the best comic writer of them all, (even as Regnard himself, the next to Molière, who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed suicide,) and am not in spirits to continue my proposed tragedy. 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!-

*

*

THE CONQUEST

[This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's papers, after his departure from Genoa for Greece.]

March 8-9, 1823.

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.

"Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni;'-

for what I might have done."]
but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as

[The procession of the Braziers to Brandenburgh House was one of the most absurd fooleries of the time of the late Queen's trial.]

["There is an epigram for you, is it not?-worthy

Of Wordsworth, the grand metaquizzical poet,
A man of vast merit, though few people know it;
The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri)
I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry.”
Byron Letters, January 22, 1821.]

4["Excuse haste,-I write with my spurs putting on."Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Feb. 22, 1821.)

["Are you aware that Shelley has written an elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him "-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, July 30, 1821.]