["Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but I'll be among ye! How go on the weaversthe breakers of frames-the Lutherans of politics-the reformers?...... There's an amiable chanson for you!-all impromptu. I have written it principally to shock your neighbour who is all clergy and loyalty-mirth and innocence-milk and water."Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Dec. 24. 1816.]

[" And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort of strumming."-Beppo. See antè, p. 145.]

["I went to most of the ridottos, &c., and though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I found the sword wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Feb. 28, 1817.]

* [“ I have been ill with a slow fever, which at last took to flying, and became as quick as need be. But, at length, after

TO MR. MURRAY.

March, 1817.

To hook the reader, you, John Murray,

Have publish'd "Anjou's Margaret,' Which won't be sold off in a hurry

(At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up " Ilderim ;" So mind you don't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail.

And mind you do not let escape

These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry,
Which would be very treacherous —very,

And get me into such a scrape!

For, firstly, I should have to sally,

All in my little boat, against a Galley;
And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight,
Have next to combat with the female knight.
March 25, 1817.

EPISTLE FROM MR. MURRAY TO
DR. POLIDORI. 6

DEAR Doctor, I have read your play
Which is a good one in its way,-

a week of half delirium, burning skin, thirst, not headach, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see my physician, I recovered. It is an epidemic of the place. Here are some versicles, which I made one sleepless night."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, March 25, 1817.]

[The "Missionary" was written by Mr. Bowles; "Ilderim" by Mr. Gally Knight; and " Margaret of Anjou" by Miss Holford.]

6 [For some particulars relating to Dr. Polidori see Moore's "Notices." "I never," says Lord Byron, "was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of this young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment. Therefore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improvYou want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it."-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 21, 1817.]

able.

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 every body 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

All persons in the dress of gent.,
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.

A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men, who make their way:
Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey,
Are all partakers of my pantry.
They 're at this moment in discussion
On poor De Staël's late dissolution.
Her book, they say, was in advance —
Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!

[The fourth canto of " Childe Harold."]

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

GREEK.

δὲν πυκνὴ Πατρὸς καὶ Μητέρος ἀγλαὸν εἶδος Αρτιτάκου κόσμοι νοῦν τε, δέμας το βρέφους"

Ορα δὲ παντὶ βίω η όλβιος, αἱὲν ἐξαννού
Σχείη ταῖς 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 1 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 strahlet
Seines Vaters hoher Sinn,
Und der Mutter Schönheit malet
Sich in Wange, Mund, und Kinn.
Glücklich Kleiner wirst du seyn,
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 á 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 for ever; 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 inseparable 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 young
Live 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.]

["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 wingHe'll stay for ever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage, when past the Spring

3 [A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ra venna when he wrote these Stanzas, says," They were composed, like many others, with no iew of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moineat of suffering. He peared to make it necessary that he should immediately qu had been painfully excited by some circmstances which apItaly; and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song

was labouring under an access of fever."]

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

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

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