My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I'll call the work " Longinus o'er a Bottle, (')
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle."

CCV.

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Southey;

Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and
mouthy :(2)

"Serv. Oh, the devil, the devil! (Marble ghost enters).

"D. Juan. Ha! 'tis the ghost! Let's rise and receive him! Come, governor, you are welcome, sit there; if we had thought you would have come, we would have staid for you. Here, governor, your health! Friends, put it about! Here's excellent meat, taste of this ragout. Come, I'll help you, come, eat, and let old quarrels be forgotten. (The ghost threatens him with vengeance.)

"D. Juan. We are too much confirmed-curse on this dry discourse: Come, here's to your mistress; you had one when you were living: not forgetting your sweet sister. (Devils enter.) Are these some of your retinue? Devils, say you? I'm sorry I have no burnt brandy to treat 'em with, that's drink fit for devils," &c.

Nor is the scene from which we quote interesting in dramatic probability alone; it is susceptible likewise of a sound moral; of a moral that has more than common claims on the notice of a too numerous class, who are ready to receive the qualities of gentlemanly courage, and scrupulous honour (in all the recognised laws of honour) as the substitutes of virtue, instead of its ornaments. This, indeed, is the moral value of the play at large. COLERIDGE.]

(1) [MS. "I'll call the work' Reflections o'er a Bottle.'"]

(2) ["There are the Lakers, my lord; ay, the whole school of Glaramara and Skiddaw and Dunmailraise, who have the vanity to be in the habit of undervaluing your poetical talents. Mr. Southey thinks you would never have thought of going over the sea had it not been for his Thalaba; Mr. Wordsworth is humbly of opinion that no man in the world ever thought a tree beautiful, or a mountain grand, till he announced his own wonderful perceptions. Mr. Charles Lambe thinks you would never have

With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,

And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit-flirtation with the muse of Moore.

CCVI.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,
His Pegasus, nor any thing that's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues".
(There's one, at least, is very fond of this);
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
This is true criticism, and you may kiss—
Exactly as you please, or not, the rod;
But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G―d!

written Beppo had he not joked, nor Lara had he not sighed. Mr. Lloyd half suspects your lordship has read his Nuga Canoræ now all these fancies are alike ridiculous, and you are well entitled to laugh as much as you please at them. But there is one Laker who praises your lordship,— and why? Because your lordship praised him. This is Coleridge, who, on the strength of a little compliment in one of your notes*, ventured at last to open to the gaze of the day the long secluded loveliness of Christabel, and with what effect his bookseller doth know. Poor Coleridge, however, although his pamphlet would not sell, still gloated over the puff; and he gave your lordship, in return, a great many reasonable good puffs in prose. You may do very well to quiz Wordsworth for his vanity, and Southey for his pompousness; but what right have you to say any thing about Mr. Coleridge's drinking? Really, my lord, I have no scruple in saying, that I look upon that line of yours' Coleridge is drunk,' &c. as quite personal -shamefully personal. As Coleridge never saw Don Juan, or, if he did, forgot the whole affair next morning, it is nothing as regards him; but what can be expected from his friends? Has not any one of them (if he has any) a perfect right, after reading that line, to print and publish, if he pleases, all that all the world has heard about your lordship's own life and conversation? And if any one of them should do so, what would you, my Lord Byron, think of it ?"-JOHN BULL.]

*See antè, Vol. X. p. 126.

VOL. XV.

CCVII.

If any person should presume to assert
This story is not moral, first, I pray,
That they will not cry out before they're hurt,
Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say,
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert,)

That this is not a moral tale, though gay;
Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show
The very place where wicked people go.

CCVIII.

If, after all, there should be some so blind
To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind,

Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they "the moral cannot find,"
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark, or critics, make,
They also lie too-under a mistake.

CCIX.

The public approbation I expect,

And beg they'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel:

For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I've bribed my grandmother's review the British. (1

(1) [For the strictures of "The British," on this and the following stanza, see "Testimonies," No. XVI., antè, p. 14.; and compare Lord Byron's "Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review," antè, p. 41.

"I wrote to you by last post," says Lord B., Bologna, Aug. 24. 1819,

CCX.

I sent it in a letter to the Editor,

Who thank'd me duly by return of postI'm for a handsome article his creditor;

Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,

And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is that he had the money.

CCXI.

I think that with this holy new alliance
I may ensure the public, and defy
All other magazines of art or science,
Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I
Have not essay'd to multiply their clients,
Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,
And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.

CCXII.

"Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventâ

Consule Planco," (1) Horace said, and so Say I; by which quotation there is meant a Hint that some six or seven good years ago

"enclosing a buffooning letter for publication addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch.”]

(1) [ Such treatment Horace would not bear,

When warm with youth when Tullus fill'd the chair."

FRANCIS.]

(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)

I was most ready to return a blow,

And would not brook at all this sort of thing

In my hot youth—when George the Third was King.

CCXIII.

But now at thirty years my hair is grey

(I wonder what it will be like at forty? I thought of a peruke the other day (1)-)

My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squander'd my whole summer while 'twas May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I

Have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible.

CCXIV.

No more-no more- Oh! never more on me

The freshness of the heart can fall like dew, Which out of all the lovely things we see Extracts emotions beautiful and new, Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew? Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power

To double even the sweetness of a flower.

No more

CCXV.

no more-Oh! never more, my heart, Canst thou be my sole world, my universe! Once all in all, but now a thing apart,

Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:

(1) [MS." I thought of dyeing it the other day."]