SCROPE DAVIES'S PUNS.

Baillie (commonly called long Baillie, a very clever man, but odd) complained to our friend Scrope B. Davies, in riding, that he had a stitch in his side. "I don't wonder at it," said Serope, "for you ride like a tailor." Whoever had seen Baillie on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of the repartee.

When Brummel was obliged (by that affair of poor Meyler, who thence acquired the name of "Dick the Dandy-killer "—it was about money, and debt, and all that) to retire to France, he knew no French, and having obtained a grammar for the purpose of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummel had made in French; he responded, "that Brummel had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the Elements."

I have put this pun into Beppo, which is a fair exchange and no robbery; for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself) by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the morning.*

DALLAS'S FARCE.

You don't know Dallas, do you? He had a farce ready for the stage before I left England, and asked me for a prologue, which I promised, but sailed in such a

* Byron occasionally said what are called good things, but never studied for them. They came naturally and easily, and mixed with the comic or the serious as it happened. A professed wit is of all earthly companions the most intolerable. He is like a schoolboy with his pockets stuffed with crackers.-Walter Scott.

MR. O'HIGGINS AND HIS TRAGEDY.

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hurry I never penned a couplet. I remember this farce from a curious circumstance. When Drury Lane was burnt to the ground, by which accident Sheridan and his son lost the few remaining shillings they were worth, what doth my friend Dallas do? Why, before the fire was out, he writes a note to Tom Sheridan, the manager of this combustible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic ?—the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor

distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth 300,000l., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, and all that—in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce!!-To Mr. Hodgson, Oct. 3, 1810.

MR. O'HIGGINS AND HIS TRAGEDY.

There is a play before me from a personage who signs himself" Hibernicus." The hero is Malachi, the Irishman and king; and the villain and usurper, Turgesius, the Dane. The conclusion is fine. Turgesius is chained by the leg (vide stage direction) to a pillar on the stage; and King Malachi makes him a speech, not unlike Lord Castlereagh's about the balance of power and the lawfulness of legitimacy, which puts Turgesius into a frenzy as Castlereagh's would, if his audience was chained by the leg. He draws a dagger and rushes at

This farce was entitled, "Not at Home," and was acted, though with moderate success, at the Lyceum, by the Drury Lane Company, in November 1809.

the orator; but, finding himself at the end of his tether, he sticks it into his own carcass, and dies, saying he has fulfilled a prophecy.

Now, this is serious, downright matter of fact, and the gravest part of a tragedy which is not intended for burlesque. I tell it you for the honour of Ireland. The writer hopes it will be represented: but what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of Truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. I am not sure that I have not said this last superfine reflection before. But never mind; it will do for the tragedy of "Turgesius," to which I can append it.

The author was a wild man, of a salvage appearance, and the difficulty of not laughing at him was only to be got over by reflecting upon the probable consequences of such cachinnation.-To Mr. Moore, Oct. 28, 1815.

LORD BYRON AND THE COMMITTEE FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF DRURY LANE THEATRE.

All my new function consists in listening to the despair of Cavendish Bradshaw, the hopes of Kinnaird, the wishes of Lord Essex, the complaints of Whitbread and the calculations of Peter Moore-all of which, and whom, seem totally at variance. C. Bradshaw wants to light the theatre with gas, which may, perhaps (if the vulgar be believed), poison half the audience, and all the dramatis persona. Essex has endeavoured to persuade Kean not to get drunk; the consequence of which is, that he has never been sober since. Kinnaird, with equal success, would have convinced Raymond that he, the said Raymond, had too much salary.

LORD BYRON'S OPINION OF ACTORS.

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Whitbread wants us to assess the pit another sixpence, —an insidious proposition-which will end in an O. P, combustion. To crown all, Robins, the auctioneer, has the impudence to be displeased because he has no dividend. The villain is a proprietor of shares, and a long-lunged orator in the meetings. I hear he has prophesied our incapacity,—“a foregone conclusion," whereof I hope to give him signal proofs before we are done.-To Mr. Moore, June 12, 1815.

LORD BYRON'S OPINION OF ACTORS.

Of actors, Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two. But Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together.-Detached Thoughts.

Just returned from seeing Kean in Richard. By Jove, he is a soul! Life-nature-truth without exaggeration or diminution. Kemble's Hamlet is perfect; but Hamlet is not Nature. Richard is a man ; and Kean is Richard.-Diary, Feb. 19, 1814.

I do not know how far I may be able to reply to your letter, for I am not very well to-day. Last night I went to the representation of Alfieri's "Mirra," the two last acts of which threw me into convulsions. I do not mean by that word a lady's hysterics, but the agony of reluctant tears, and the choking shudder, which I do not often undergo for fiction. This is but the second time for anything under reality; the first was on seeing Kean's Sir Giles Overreach. The worst was, that the "Dama" in whose box I was, went off in the same way, I really believe more from fright than any other sympathy—at least with the players: but she has been ill, and I have been ill, and we are all languid

and pathetic this morning, with great expenditure of sal volatile. Bologna, Aug. 12, 1819.

LORD BYRON'S EARLY ATTACHMENTS.

I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. And the effect! My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, "Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Miss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart, Mary Duff, is married to a Mr. Cockburn." And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much, that after I grew better, she generally avoided the subject to me-and contented herself with telling it to all her acquaintance. Now, what could this be? I had and have been attached fifty times since that period; yet I recollect all we said to each other, all our caresses, her features, my restlessness, sleeplessness, my tormenting my mother's maid to write for me to her, which she at last did, to quiet me. Poor Nancy thought I was wild, and, as I could not write for myself, became my secretary. I remember, too, our walks, and the happiness of sitting by Mary, in the children's apartment, at their house not far from the Plain-stones, at Aberdeen, while her lesser sister Helen played with the doll, and we sat gravely making love, in our way..

How did all this occur so early ?-where could it