INTRODUCTION TO THE AGE OF BRONZE.

In the long line of English Barons few could be prouder of their peerage than Lord Byron, or more tenacious of its privileges. It is common enough for the most jealous aristocrats to be the advocates of the people, if for no better motive than to join the sweets of popularity to the dignity of rank. Lord Byron never made politics a pursuit, nor did he usually take in them the ordinary interest which is felt by the generality of educated men. Circumstances, however, induced him to throw his weight into the liberal scale. The first important connections which he formed in London were of the Whig persuasion, and social influence, in a disposition like his, helped largely to determine his political bias. He was inclined, too, on every subject to stand forth among the champions of the latitudinarian side, from his love of startling sober people with the extravagance of his doctrines, and shocking them by the virulence with which he railed at the dignitaries in whom they confided. Add to this, that most of his manhood was passed abroad, where there was little to conciliate a generous nature to the governments of the day, and where revolutionary projects attracted a spirit that delighted in storms. He professed, nevertheless, to be quite as averse to the tyranny of mobs, as to the tyranny of kings, but not having deliberated on the most difficult of sciences-the means of obtaining and securing a well-regulated freedom-it is easy to perceive that he spoke and acted from the impulse of the hour, and often from his desire to show his wit, or to gratify his spleen. Until he composed the "Age of Bronze," at Genoa, in the early part of 1823, politics had only been treated by him incidentally or in minor pieces, and when at last he devoted this satire to the subject, he appears not to have written from the fulness of his mind, or on any well-defined plan. He returned to a favourite theme, -the low and lofty qualities which were antithetically mixed in the character of Napoleon,-jeered at the Congress of Verona and the sovereigns who convened it, rated the landed interest of England for their attempt to keep up rents, and concluded with exclaiming against Maria Louisa for her second marriage, and with laughing at Sir William Curtis for appearing at Holyrood in a tartan dress. None of these topics are handled with his wonted power, except a portion of the first, where a few sparks are called forth by the exile of Napoleon which shine with the brilliancy of the former flame. Brief as are these passages no other pen could have produced them, and they are only wanting in effect because the lofty flight is not long sustained. On the publication of the poem in London, by Mr. John Hunt, considerable doubts of its authenticity were expressed, for the knight having failed in his usual prowess, some clumsy imitator was suspected of having borrowed the device on his shield.

THE AGE OF BRONZE.

I.

THE "good old times"-all times when old are good-
Are gone; the present might be if they would;
Great things have been, and are, and greater still
Want little of mere mortals but their will:

A wider space, a greener field, is given

To those who play their "tricks before high heaven."
I know not if the angels weep, but men

Have wept enough-for what ?—to weep again!

II.

All is exploded-be it good or bad.

Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deem'd him such.'
We, we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face-
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,
As the deep billows of the Egean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they-the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.

1 [Mr. Fox used to say-"I never want a word, but Pitt never wants the word."]

2 [The grave of Mr. Fox, in Westminster Abbey, is within eighteen inches of that of Mr. Pitt.]

How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old
Of" dust to dust;" but half its tale untold:
Time tempers not its terrors-still the worm
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,
Varied above, but still alike below;

The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow,
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea
O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;
Though Alexander's urn a show be grown
On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown-
How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!
He wept for worlds to conquer-half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,
And desolation; while his native Greece.
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.

He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he who ne'er
Conceived the globe, he panted not to spare!
With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,
Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.3

III.

But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings,"
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawl'd of late,
Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state?

Yes! where is he, the champion and the child

Of all that's great or little, wise or wild;

Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones;
Whose table earth-whose dice were human bones?

Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,'

And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile.

3 [The sarcophagus, of breccia, which is supposed to have contained the dust of Alexander, came into the possession of the English army, at the capitulation of Alexandria, in February, 1802, and is now in the British Museum.]

4 [Sesostris is said by Diodorus, to have had his chariot drawn by eight vanquished sovereigns.] 5 [St. Helena.]

Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines;
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.

Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's statement, and an earl's' harangues!
A bust delay'd, a book refused, can shake
The sleep of him who kept the world awake.
Is this indeed the tamer of the great,

Now slave of all could tease or irritate

9

The paltry gaoler and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;
How low, how little was this middle state,
Between a prison and a palace, where
How few could feel for what he had to bear!
Vain his complaint,-my lord presents his bill,
His food and wine were doled out duly still;
Vain was his sickness, never was a clime
So free from homicide-to doubt's a crime;
And the stiff surgeon, who maintain'd his cause,
Hath lost his place, and gain'd the world's applause.*
But smile-though all the pangs of brain and heart
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art;

Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face
Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace,
None stand by his low bed—though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind :

6 [Mr. Barry O'Meara.]

7 Earl Bathurst.]

8 The bust of his son.]

9 Sir Hudson Lowe.]

1 [Captain Basil Hall's interesting account of his interview with the ex-emperor occurs in his "Voyage to Loo-choo."]

2 [In 1818, O'Meara, in a letter to the admiralty, insinuated that two years previously Sir Hudson Lowe had suggested to him to rid the world of Napoleon. O'Meara was in consequence dismissed the service, on the ground that if the charge was not a calumny he was inexcusable for having kept it so long a secret.]

Smile for the fetter'd eagle breaks his chain,
And higher worlds than this are his again."

IV.

How, if that soaring spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,
How must he smile, on looking down, to see
The little that he was and sought to be!
What though his name a wider empire found
Than his ambition, though with scarce a bound;
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse,
He tasted empire's blessings and its curse;
Though kings, rejoicing in their late
From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's ape;
How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,
The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the wave!
What though his gaoler, duteous to the last,
Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep him fast,
Refusing one poor line along the lid,

escape

To date the birth and death of all it hid;
That name shall hallow the ignoble shore,
A talisman to all save him who bore:

The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast
Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast;
When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise,
Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies,
The rocky isle that holds or held his dust,
Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust,
And mighty nature o'er his obsequies
Do more than niggard envy still denies.
But what are these to him? Can glory's lust
Touch the freed spirit or the fetter'd dust?
Small care hath he of what his tomb consists;
Nought if he sleeps-nor more if he exists:
Alike the better-seeing shade will smile
On the rude cavern of the rocky isle,

As if his ashes found their latest home
In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome.

3 [Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.]