vering his father's late successful Drury Lane Address), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the public; whom, nevertheless, I heartily depise, as well as the critics.

I am, Sir, yours, etc. etc.
HORACE HORNEM.

THE WALTZ

MUSE of the many-twinkling feet! (1) whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore!-too long misdeem'd a maid-
Reproachful term-bestow'd but to upbraid-
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a vestal of the virgin Nine.

Far be from thee and thine the name of prude;
Mock'd, yet triumphant ; sneer'd at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high;
Thy breast-if bare enough-requires no shield;
Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field,
And own-impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully-begotten "Waltz."

Hail, nimble nymph! to whom the young hussar,
The whisker'd votary of waltz and war,
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;
A sight unmatch'd since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail spirit-stirring Waltz!-beneath whose banners
A modern hero fought for modish manners;
On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley's (2) fame,
Cock'd-fired-and miss'd his man-but gain'd his
aim;

Hail, moving Muse! to whom the fair one's breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,
The latter's loyalty, the former's wits,

(1) "Glance their many-twinkling feet."—Gray. (3) To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, as the reader pleases: the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day, "by Shrewsbury clock," without gaining any thing in that country but the title of "the Great Lord," and "the Lord;" which savours of profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being to whom “Te Deums” for carnage are e rankest blasphemy.-It is to be presumed the General will one day return to his Sabine farm; there

"To tame the genius of the stubborn plain,

Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain!"

The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more-we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the "great Lord's" Cincinnatiun progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Tope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be | “ploughing with dogs.”

Py the by-one of this illustrious person's new titles is for

To "energise the object I pursue," (3)
And give both Belial and his dance their due!

Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee;
In some few qualities alike-for hock
Improves our cellar-thou our living stock.
The head to hock belongs-thy subtler art
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,
And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs.

Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France's,
And only left us thy d-d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,

We bless thee still-for George the Third is left!
Of kings the best-and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and highnesses serene,

Who owe us millions-don't we owe the queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for vulgar with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:
Who sent us-so be pardon'd all her faults-
A dozen dukes, some kings, a queen—and Waltz.

But peace to her-her emperor and diet,
Though now transferr'd to Buonaparte's "fiat!"
Back to my theme-O Muse of motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

Borne on the breath of hyperborean gales, From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails),

Ere yet unlucky Fame-compell'd to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chill'd to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;

gotten-it is, however, worth remembering-"Salvador del
mundo!" credite posteri! If this be the appellation annexed
by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man who
has not yet saved them-query-are they worth saving, even in
this world? for, according to the mildest modifications of any
Christian creed, those three words make the odds much against
them in the next.-"Saviour of the world," quotha !—it were to
be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it—his
country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near
connection between superstition and impiety, so far has its use,
that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics
(inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation
on a Protestant. I suppose next year he will be entitled the
"Virgin Mary:" if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have
nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon.
(3) Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee
was one by Dr. Busby, which began by asking-

"When energising objects men pursue,
What are the prodigies they cannot do?"-E.

While unburnt Moscow (1) yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery exist to a friend,

She came-Waltz came-and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match;
And-almost crush'd beneath the glorious news-
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's;
One envoy's letters, six composers' airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs;
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind ;
Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and to back it,
Of Heyne, such as should not sink the packet.

Fraught with this cargo-and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate,
The welcome vessel reach'd the genial strand,
And round her flock'd the daughters of the land
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand pas-seul excited some remark ;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight's fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another's head;
Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck,
Display'd so much of leg, or more of neck,
Than thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

To you, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you of nine years less, who only bear The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear, With added ornaments around them roll'd Of native brass, or law-awarded gold; To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch To mar a son's, or make a daughter's, match; To you, ye children of whom chance accordsAlways the ladies, and sometimes their lords; To you, ye single gentlemen, who seek Torments for life, or pleasures for a week; As love or Hymen your endeavours guide, To gain your own, or snatch another's bride;

|

To one and all the lovely stranger came,
And every bail-room echoes with her name.

Endearing Waltz!-to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and country-dance, forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz-Waltz alone-both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne'er before-but-pray "put out the light."
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
Shines much too far-or I am much too near;

And true, though strange-Waltz whispers this remark,

'My slippery steps are safest in the dark!" But here the Muse with due decorum halts, And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz.

Observant travellers of every time!
Ye quartos publish'd upon every clime!
O say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round,
Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound;
Can Egypt's Almas (2)-tantalizing group-
| Columbia's caperers to the warlike whoop—
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne ?
Ah, no! from Morier's pages down to Galt's,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for Waltz.

Shades of those belles whose reign began of yore,
With George the Third's—and ended long before!—
Though in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive,
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host:
Fools' Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids conjecture quake;
No stiff-starch'd stays make meddling fingers ache;
(Transferr❜d to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, (3) women in their shape ;)
No damsel faints when rather closely press'd,
But more caressing seems when most caress'd;
Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts,
Both banish'd by the sovereign cordial Waltz.

touched Ukraine has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for a day's meal to our suffering manufacturers.

mind and whiskers may or may not go together: but certainly the different occurrences, since the growth of the last mentioned, go further in behalf of whiskers than the anathema o.

Seductive Waltz!-though on thy native shore
Even Werter's self proclaim'd thee half a whore;
Werter to decent vice though much inclined,
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind-
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
Thee fashion hails-from countesses to queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes:
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns-if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of Waltz!
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her début;
The court, the Regent, like herself were new ; (1)
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;
New ornaments for black and royal guards;
New laws to hang the rogues that roar'd for bread;
New coins (most new) (2) to follow those that fled;
New victories-nor can we prize them less,
Though Jenky wonders at his own success;
New wars, because the old succeed so well,
That most survivors envy those who fell;
New mistresses-no, old-and yet 't is true,
Though they be old, the thing is something new;
Each new, quite new (except some ancient
tricks), (3)

New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new
With vests or ribands-deck'd alike in hue, [sticks!
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:
So saith the Muse: my――(4), what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and minuets, virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder-all have had their days.

Anselme did against long hair in the reign of Henry I.-Formerly red was a favourite colour. See Lodowick Barrey's comedy of Ram Alley, 1661; Act I. Scene I.

"Taffeta. Now for a wager-What coloured beard comes next by the window?

"Adriana. A black man's, I think.

"Taffeta. I think not so: I think a red, for that is most in

fashion."

There is "nothing new under the sun;" but red, then a favourite, has now subsided into a favourite's colour.

(1) An anachronism-Waltz and the battle of Austerlitz are before said to have opened the ball together: the bard means (if he means anything), Waltz was not so much in vogue till the Regent attained the acme of his popularity. Waltz, the comet, whiskers, and the new government, illuminated heaven and earth, in all their glory, much about the same time: of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three continue to astonish us still.-Printer's Devil.

(2) Among others a new ninepence-a creditable coin now forthcoming, worth a pound, in papor, at the fairest calculation. |(3) "Oh that right should thus overcome might!" Who does not remember the "delicate investigation" in the Merry Wives of Windsor?

"Ford. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause,

The ball begins-the honours of the house First duly done by daughter or by spouse, Some potentate-or royal or serene

With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Gloster's m'en,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,
That spot where hearts (5) were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced;
The lady's in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip,
One hand reposing on the royal hip;
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand,
The Earl of Asterisk—and Lady Blank;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
Sir Such-a-one-with those of fashion's host,
For whose blest surnames-vide Morning Post,
(Or if for that impartial print too late, [date)-
Search Doctors' Commons six months from my
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;

Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If "nothing follows all this palming work ?" (6)
Something does follow, at a filter time;
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme-
Something does follow, at a filter time;
The breast thus publicly resign'd to man,
In private may resist him--if it can.

O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, (7) and many more!
And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and will
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou ghost of Queensberry! whose judging sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,

why then make sport of me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you this?

"Mrs. Ford. What have you to do whither they bear it?—you were best meddle with buck-washing."

(4) The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as he pleases-there are several dissyllabic names at his service (being already in the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes:-a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing

ones.

(5) "We have changed all that," says the Mock Doctor- 't is all gone-Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by forceand when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous.

(6) In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous, question-literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier on seeing a waltz in Pera.-Vide Morier's Travels. (7) "I once heard Sheridan repeat, in a ball-room, some verses,

Pronounce if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame.
With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame,
For prurient nature still will storm the breast-
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

But ye-who never felt a single thought
For what our morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say-would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once love's most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so press'd by none but thine;

which he had lately written on waltzing; and of which I remember the following:

With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance
Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance.

In such sweet posture our first parents moved,
While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved
Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false,

Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz,

To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another's ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough-if not to touch-to taint;
If such thou lovest-love her then no more,
Or give-like her—caresses to a score;
Her mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore, forgive!—at every ball
My wife now waltzes-and my daughters shall;
My son-(or stop-'t is needless to inquire-
These little accidents should ne'er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree

Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends,
Grandsons for me-in heirs to all his friends.

One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip:
For so the law's laid down by Baron Trip.

This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal authority on the subject of waltzing, was, at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles."-Moore.

Moore.

London, May 1813.

BYRON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

mon in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better fortune,

(1) The Giaour published in May 1813, and abundantly sustained the impression created by the two first cantos of Childe Harold. It is obvious that in this, the first of his romantic narratives, Lord Byron's versification reflects the admiration he always avowed for Mr. Coleridge's Christabel,-the irregular rhythm of which had already been adopted in the Lay of the Last

Minstrel. The fragmentary style of the composition was suggested by the then new and popular Columbus of Mr. Rogers. As to the subject, it was not merely by recent travel that the author had familiarized himself with Turkish history. "Old Knolles," he said at Missolonghi, a few weeks before his death, "was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe