Declining gently, falls a fading flower; But fiery Nisus stems the battle's tide, The tyrant's soul fled groaning through the wound. No future day shall see your names expire, TRANSLATION FROM THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES. Ερωτὲς ὑπὲρ μὲν ἄγαν, και το λο] WHEN fierce conflicting passions urge The breast where love is wont to glow, What mind can stem the stormy surge Which rolls the tide of human woe? The hope of praise, the dread of shame, Can rouse the tortured breast no more; The wild desire, the guilty flame, Absorbs each wish it felt before. But if affection gently thrills The soul by purer dreams possest, The pleasing balm of mortal ills In love can soothe the aching breast : If thus thou comest in disguise, Fair Venus! from thy native heaven, May I beneath the shaft expire! Repentance, source of future tears, From me be ever distant far! May no distracting thoughts destroy The holy calm of sacred love! May all the hours be wing'd with joy, Which hover faithful hearts above! Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine May I with some fond lover sigh, Whose heart may mingle pure with mineWith me to live, with me to die! My native soil! beloved before, Now dearer as my peaceful home, Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore, A hapless banish'd wretch to roam! This very day, this very hour, May I resign this fleeting breath! Nor quit my silent humble bower; A doom to me far worse than death. And seen the exile's silent tear, No friend thy wretched fate deplores, Thy steps within a stranger's doors. Perish the fiend whose iron heart, To fair affection's truth unknown, Unpitied, helpless, and alone; The miider treasures of his soul,- And ocean's storms between us roll! THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE HIGH in the midst, surrounded by his peers, Happy the youth in Euclid's axioms tried, (1) Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, was deserted by him for the daughter of Creon, king of that city. The chorus from which this is taken here addresses Medea; though a considerable liberty is taken with the original, by (3) No reflection is here intended against the person mentioned expanding the idea, as also in some other parts of the translation. (3) The original is Καθαρὰν ἀνοίξαντι κλῆδα φρενών, literally "disclosing the bright key of the mind." When Edward bade his conquering bands advance, Such is the youth whose scientific pate We speak to please ourselves, not move the crowd: A proper mixture of the squeak and groan : The man who hopes to obtain the promised cup The sons of science these, who, thus repaid, under the name of Magnus. He is merely represented as performing an unavoidable function of his office. Indeed, such an attempt could only recoil upon myself; as that gentleman is now as much distinguished by his eloquence, and the dignified propriety with which he fills his situation, at he was in his younger days for wit and conviviality. [Dr. William Lort Mansel was, in 1798, appointed to the headship of Trinity College, by Mr. Pitt. He was indebted to the influence of his fellow collegian, the late Mr. Perceval, for his subsequent promotion to the see of Bristol. He is supposed to have materially assisted in the Pursuits of Literature. His Lordship died at Trinity Lodge, in June, 1820.-E.] (1) Demosthenes. In manners rude, in foolish forms precise, Yet prizing Bentley's, Brunck's, or Porson's (3) note, 1806. TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER. SWEET girl! though only once we met, I would not say, "I love," but still What though we never silence broke, to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties; and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both. I mean in an evening; for, in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour ; but i have seen him, in a private party of under-graduates, take up a poker to them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times I saw him went. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents; as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot : and certainly Sparta (2) In most colleges, the Fellow who superintends the chape Inever shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this service is called Dean.-E. (3) The present Greek professor at Trinity College, Cambridge; a man whose powers of mind and writings may, perhaps, justify their preference. man's intoxication." 1818.-E.] (4) Since this was written, Lord Henry Petty has lost his place, and subsequently (I had almost said consequently) the honour of representing the University. A fact so glaring requires no com[Lord Byron, in a letter written in 1818, says: "I remember ment. [Lord Henry Petty is now Marquess of Lansdowne. —E. But, soul's interpreters, the eyes, Say rather "t was the spirit moved us." Thy form appears through night, through day : In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams; Which make me wish for endless night; Alas! again no more we meet, Then let me breathe this parting prayer, The dictate of my bosom's care : May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker, (1) Written at Harrowgate, in August 1806.-E. (2) The cornelian of these verses was given to Lord Byron by the Cambridge chorister, Eddlestone, whose musical talents first introduced him to the young poet's acquaintance, and for whom be appears to have entertained, subsequently, a sentiment of the ost romantic friendship.-E. THE CORNELIAN. (2) No specious splendour of this stone And blushes modest as the giver. (3) Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, Have, for my weakness, oft reproved me; Yet still the simple gift I prize, For I am sure the giver loved me. He offer'd it with downcast look, As fearful that I might refuse it; Still, to adorn his humble youth, Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield; But he who seeks the flowers of truth Must quit the garden for the field. 'T is not the plant uprear'd in sloth Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume; The flowers which yield the most of both In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. Had Fortune aided Nature's care, For once forgetting to be blind, His would have been an ample share, If well proportion'd to his mind. But had the goddess clearly seen, His form had fix'd her fickle breast; Her countless hoards would his have been, And none remain'd to give the rest. in 1811. Lord Byron, on bearing of his death, thus writes to the mother of his fair correspondent: :-"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember a cornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss Pigot, indeed gave to her, and now I am about to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, is dead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, at it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss Pigot should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him who formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last, of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, an-making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August. "The cornelian heart was returned accordingly; and, indeed, Miss Pigot reminded Lord Byron that he had left it with her as a deposit, not a gift. It is now in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh. - E. "During this period of his stay in Greece, we find him forming one of those extraordinary friendships of which I have already mentioned two or three instances in his younger days. The object was a Greek youth, named Nicolo Giraud, the son, I believe, of a widow lady, in whose house the artist Lusieri lodged. In this young man he appears to have taken the most lively and even brotherly interest; so much so, as not only to have presented to him, on their parting at Malta, a considerable sum of money, but to have subsequently designed for him a still more unificent, as well as permanent, provision." — Moore. (3) In a letter to Miss Pigot, of Southwell, written in June, 1807, Lord Byron thus describes Eddlestone:-"He is exactly to bour two years younger than myself, nearly my height, very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. My opinion of his mind you already know; I hope I shall never have occasion to change it." Eddlestone, on leaving his choir, entered into a mercantile house in the metropolis, and died of a consumption, AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE, DELIVERED PREVIOUS TO THE PERFORMANCE OF SINCE the refinement of this polish'd age Still let some mercy in your bosoms live, ON THE DEATH OF MR. FOX, THE FOLLOWING ILLIBERAL IMPROMPTU APPEARED "OUR nation's foes lament on Fox's death, TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE PIECES SENT THE OH factious viper! whose envenom'd tooth Who hopes, yet almost dreads, to meet your praise; As all his errors slumber'd in the grave; But all our dramatis personæ wait, He sunk, an Atlas bending 'neath the weight Or round our statesman wind her gloomy veil. Το all the persons concerned in the representation. Some in- (1) "When I was a youth, I was reckoned a good actor. Besides Harrow speeches, in which I shone, I enacted Penruddock, in The Wheel of Fortune, and Tristram Fickle, in the farce of The Weathercock, for three nights, in some private theatrica's at Southwell, in 1806, with great applause. The occasional prologue for our volunteer play was also of my composition. The other performers were young ladies and gentlemen of the neigh-request that it should be preserved, he would most willingly bourhood; and the whole went off with great effect upon our good-natured audience.” — Diary, 1821. (2) This prologue was written by the young poet, between stages, on his way from Harrowgate. On getting into the carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion," Now Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play ;" and before they reached Mansfield he had completed his task,-interrupting only once his rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronunciation of the French word "début," and, on being answered (not, it would seem, very correctly), exclaimed, "Ay that will do for rhyme to "new." The epilogue, which was from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Becher, was delivered by Lord Byron.-E. "For the purpose of affording Lord Byron, who was to speak it, an opportunity of displaying his powers of mimicry, this composition consisted of good-humoured portraits of withdraw it. In the mean time it was concerted between this gentleman and Lord Byron, that the latter should, on the morning of rehearsal, deliver the verses in a tone as innocent, and as free from all point, as possible, reserving his mimicry, in which the whole sting of the pleasantry lay, for the evening of representation. The desired effect was produced. All the personages of the green-room were satisfied, and even wondered how a suspicion of waggery could have attached itself to so well-bred a production. Their wonder, however, was of a different nature a night or two after, when, on hearing the audience convulsed with laughter at this same composition, they discovered at last the trick which the unsuspected mimic had played on them, and had no other resource than that of joining in the laugh which his playful imitation of the whole dramatis personas excited. " Moore. Fox! o'er whose corse a mourning world must weep, THE TEAR. "O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."-Gray. WHEN Friendship or Love our sympathies move, Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile, Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soul-telling eye Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below, Shows the soul from barbarity clear; Compassion will melt where this virtue is felt, And its dew is diffused in a Tear. The man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, Through billows Atlantic to steer, As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave, The green sparkles bright with a Tear. The soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath But he raises the foe when in battle laid low, If with high-bounding pride he return to his bride, All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid, From her eyelid he kisses the Tear. Sweet scene of my youth! (2) seat of Friendship and Truth, Where love chased each fast-fleeting year, With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine, Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart, When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night, And my corse shall recline on its bier, May no marble bestow the splendour of woe No fiction of fame shall blazon my name, REPLY October 26th, 1806 TO SOME VERSES OF J. M. B. PIGOT, ESQ., ON WHY, Pigot, complain of this damsel's disdain, For months you may try, yet, believe me, a sigh Would you teach her to love? for a time seem to rove; But leave her awhile, she shortly will smile, If again you shall sigh, she no more will deny If still, from false pride, your pangs she deride, Sone other admire, who will melt with your fire, This whimsical virgin forget; And laugh at the little coquette. For me, Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd, for a last look I turn'd, Though my heart they enthral, I'd abandon them all, But that spire was scarce seen through a Tear. Though my vows I can pour to my Mary no more, My Mary, to Love once so dear, In the shade of her bower I remember the hour She rewarded those vows with a Tear. By another possest, may she live ever blest! (1) The "illiberal impromptu" appeared in the Morning Post, and Lord Byron's" reply" in the Morning Chronicle.- E. (2) Harrow. Did they act like your blooming coquette. No longer repine, adopt this design, And break through her slight-woven net; Away with despair, no longer forbear To fly from the captious coquette. Then quit her, my friend! your bosom defend, Ere quite with her snares you 're beset : Lest your deep-wounded heart, when incensed by the smart, Should lead you to curse the coquette. October 27th, 1896. |