"the reptile. Why does a viper have a poison

"tooth, or the scorpion claws?

Some days after these remarks, on calling on him one morning, he produced The Deformed Transformed.' Handing it to Shelley, as he was in the habit of doing his daily compositions, he said:cids blyk

deifivob Lus durch vi

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Shelley, I have been writing a Faustish "kind of drama: tell me what you think "of it.

After reading it attentively, Shelley returned it.

"Well," said Lord Byron, "how do you "like it?"

"Least," replied he, "of any thing I ever saw of yours. It is a bad imitation of Faust;'

and besides, there are two entire lines of Southey's in it."

Lord Byron changed colour immediately, and asked hastily what lines? Shelley repeated,

His Lordship, without making a single observation, instantly threw the poem into the fire. He seemed to feel no chagrin at seeing it consume at least his countenance betrayed none, and his conversation became more gay and lively than usual. or respect for Shelley's opinions, which made him commit an act that I considered a sort of

Whether it was hatred of Southey,

suicide, was always doubtful to me. I was never more surprised than to see, two years afterwards, The Deformed Transformed' an

6

nounced, (supposing it to have perished at Pisa);

but it seems that he must have had another copy of the manuscript, or had re-written it perhaps, without changing a word, except omitting the Kehama' lines. His memory was remarkably retentive of his own writings. I believe he could have quoted almost every line he ever

wrote.

One day a correspondent of Lord Byron's sent him from Paris the following lines—a sort of epitaph for Southey-which he gave me leave to copy, pod om

Beneath these poppies buried deep,

The bones of Bob the Bard lie did;
Peace to his manes! and may he sleep
As soundly as his readers did!

Through every sort of verse meandering,
Bob went without a hitch or fall,
Through Epic, Sapphic, Alexandrine,
To verse that was no verse at all;

Till Fiction having done enough boligen o

To make a bard at least absurd,

And give his readers quantum suff.,

He took to praising George the Third:

And now in virtue of his crown,

Dooms us, poor Whigs, at once to slaughter; Like Donellan of bad renown, dw do i won! I

Poisoning us all with laurel water

And yet at times some awkward qualms he tol

Felt about leaving honour's track;

And though he has got a butt of Malmsey, of

It may not save him from a sack.

Death, weary of so dull a writer,

Put to his works a finis thus.
O! may the earth on him lie lighter

Than did his quartos upon us!

"Heaven and Earth' was commenced," said

he," at Ravenna, on the 9th October last. It

"occupied about fourteen days. Douglas Kin"naird tells me that he can get no bookseller to

66%

publish it. It was offered to It was offered to Murray; but he "is the most timid of God's booksellers, and "starts at the title. He has taken a dislike to "that three-syllabled word Mystery, and says, "I know not why, that it is another Cain.' P

66

suppose he does not like my making one of "Cain's daughters talk the same language as her "father's father, and has a prejudice against the "family. I could not make her so unnatural as "to speak ill of her grandfather. I was forced "to make her aristocratical, proud of her descent "from the eldest born. Murray says, that who"ever prints it will have it pirated, as Cain' "has been, that a Court of justice will not "sanction it as literary property. On what

66

plea? There is nothing objectionable in it, "that I am aware of. You have read it; what "do you think? If Cain be immoral (which "I deny), will not the Chancellor's refusal to