business for my Miss Medea, etc., etc.15
June, 1810.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 227.] MY EPITAPH.16
Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my lamp in strongly strove;
But Romanelli was so stout,
He beat all three – and blew it out.
October, 1810.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 240.] SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EPITAPH
Kind Reader! take your choice to cry or laugh;
Here Harold lies – but where's his Epitaph?
If such you seek, try Westminster, and view
Ten thousand just as fit for him as you.
Athens, 1810.[First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1832, ix. 4.] EPITAPH FOR JOSEPH BLACKET, LATE POET AND SHOEMAKER.17
Stranger! behold, interred together,
The souls of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all:
You'll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat, and often found
Well stitched, and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly – where the bard is laid —
He cannot mend the shoe he made;
Yet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his sole.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phoebus to the last.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only "leather and prunella?"
For character – he did not lack it;
And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black-it."
Malta, May 16, 1811.[First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1832, ix. 10.] ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR FARCICAL OPERA.18
Good plays are scarce,
So Moore writes farce:
The poet's fame grows brittle19—
We knew before
That Little's Moore,
But now't is Moore that's little.
September 14, 1811.[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 295 (note).] [R. C. DALLAS.]20
Yes! wisdom shines in all his mien,
Which would so captivate, I ween,
Wisdom's own goddess Pallas;
That she'd discard her fav'rite owl,
And take for pet a brother fowl,
Sagacious R. C. Dallas.
[First published, Life, Writings, Opinions, etc., 1825, ii. 192.] AN ODE21 TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL.22
1 Oh well done Lord E – n! and better done R – r!23
Britannia must prosper with councils like yours;
Hawkesbury, Harrowby, help you to guide her,
Whose remedy only must kill ere it cures:
Those villains; the Weavers, are all grown refractory,
Asking some succour for Charity's sake —
So hang them in clusters round each Manufactory,
That will at once put an end to mistake.24
2 The rascals, perhaps, may betake them to robbing,
The dogs to be sure have got nothing to eat —
So if we can hang them for breaking a bobbin,
'T will save all the Government's money and meat:
Men are more easily made than machinery —
Stockings fetch better prices than lives —
Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,
Shewing how Commerce, how Liberty thrives!
3 Justice is now in pursuit of the wretches,
Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street Police,
Twenty-two Regiments, a score of Jack Ketches,
Three of the Quorum and two of the Peace;
Some Lords, to be sure, would have summoned the Judges,
To take their opinion, but that they ne'er shall,
For Liverpool such a concession begrudges,
So now they're condemned by no Judges at all.
4 Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,
When Famine appeals and when Poverty groans,
That Life should be valued at less than a stocking,
And breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.
If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,
(And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)
That the frames of the fools may be first to be broken,
Who, when asked for a remedy, sent down a rope.
[First published, Morning Chronicle, Monday, March 2, 1812.][See a Political Ode by Lord Byron, hitherto unknown as his production, London, John Pearson, 46, Pall Mall, 1880, 8º. See, too, Mr. Pearson's prefatory Note, pp. 5, etc.] TO THE HONBLE MRS GEORGE LAMB.25
1 The sacred song that on mine ear
Yet vibrates from that voice of thine,
I heard, before, from one so dear —
'T is strange it still appears divine.
2 But, oh! so sweet that look and tone
To her and thee alike is given;
It seemed as if for me alone
That both had been recalled from Heaven!
3 And though I never can redeem
The vision thus endeared to me;
I scarcely can regret my dream,
When realised again by thee.
1812.[First published in The Two Duchesses, by Vere Foster, 1898, p. 374.] [LA
<p>15</p>
["I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea [lines 1-7], of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit; – [A 'damned business'] it very nearly was to me; for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients." – Letter to Henry Drury, June 17, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 276.
Euripides, Medea, lines 1-7 —
Εἴθ' ὤφελ' Ἀργοῦς μὴ διαπτάσθαι σκάφος κ.τ.λ. ]
<p>16</p>
["The English Consul … forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph – take it." – Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 298.]
<p>17</p>
[For Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), see Letters, 1898, i. 314, note 2; see, too, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 359, note 1, and 441-443, note 2. The Epitaph is of doubtful authenticity.]
<p>18</p>
["On a leaf of one of his paper books I find an epigram, written at this time, which, though not perhaps particularly good, I consider myself bound to insert." – Moore, Life, p. 137, note 1. The reference is to Moore's M.P.; or, The Blue Stocking, which was played for the first time at the Lyceum Theatre, September 9, 1811. For Moore's nom de plume, "The late Thomas Little, Esq.," compare Praed's The Belle of the Ball-Room—
"If those bright lips had quoted Locke,I might have thought they murmured Little."]<p>19</p>
Is fame like his so brittle? – [MS.]
<p>20</p>
["A person observing that Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu." —Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of Lord Byron, 1825, ii. 191.]
<p>21</p>
["Lord Byron to Editor of the Morning Chronicle.
Sir, – I take the liberty of sending an alteration of the two last lines of stanza 2d, which I wish to run as follows: —
'Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,Shewing how commerce, how liberty thrives.'I wish you could insert it tomorrow for a particular reason; but I feel much obliged by your inserting it at all. Of course do not put my name to the thing – believe me,
Your obliged and very obedient servant,BYRON.8, St. James's Street,
Sunday, March 1, 1812."]
<p>22</p>
[For Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords, February 27, 1812, see Letters, 1898, ii. 424-430.]
<p>23</p>
[Richard Ryder (1766-1832), second son of the first Baron Harrowby, was Home Secretary, 1809-12.]
<p>24</p>
Lord E., on Thursday night, said the riots at Nottingham arose from a "mistake."
<p>25</p>
[Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules (1786-1862) married, in 1809, the Hon. George Lamb (see English Bards, etc., line 55, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 300, note 1), fourth son of the first Viscount Melbourne.]