or vanity, by a nephew or a sycophant. Is a new palace to be erected (at Rome) for an upstart family? the Coliseum is stripped to furnish materials. Does a foreign minister wish to adorn the bleak walls of a northern castle with antiques? the temples of Theseus or Minerva must be dismantled, and the works of Phidias or Praxiteles be torn from the shattered frieze. That a decrepid uncle, wrapped up in the religious duties of his age and station, should listen to the suggestions of an interested nephew, is natural and that an oriental despot should undervalue the masterpieces of Grecian art, is to be expected; though in both cases the consequences of such weakness are much to be lamented. But that the minister of a nation, famed for its knowledge of the language, and its veneration for the monuments of ancient Greece, should have been the prompter and the instrument of these destructions, is almost incredible. Such rapacity is a crime against all ages and MENT. Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then. all generations: it deprives the past of the tro- NOTES TO THE VISION OF JUDGphies of their genius and the title-deeds of their fame; the present, of the strongest inducements to exertion, the noblest exhibitions that curiosity can contemplate; the future, of the masterpieces of art, the models of imitation. Το guard against the repetition of such depredations is the wish of every man of genius, the duty of every man in power, and the common interest of every civilized nation." EUSTACE's Classical Tour through Italy. "This attempt to transplant the temple of Vesta from Italy to England, may perhaps do honour to the late Lord Bristol's patriotism or to his magnificence; but it cannot be considered as an indication of either taste or judgment." Ibid. "Blest paper-credit" who shall dare to sing? [p. 607. Blest paper-credit, last and best supply, That lends corruption lighter wings to fly. POPE. See "Life of Henry Kirke White." [p. 625. St. 101. Like King Alfonso! tem, said, that "had he been consulted at the King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean syscreation of the world, he would have spared the Maker some absurdities." Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang." [p. 625. St. 102. See Aubrey's account of the apparition which disappeared "with a curious perfume and a melodious twang; or see the Antiquary, vol 1. NOTES TO THE MISCELLANEOUS Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos. (p. 633. On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by-the-bye, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance from, the place whence we start ed to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain-snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt, but having ridden all the way from the Troad icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the same morning, and the water being of an the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated; entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions it having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, character has been drawn in the highest colours as doubts had been entertained of the truth of by Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve. Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. Zoë mou, sas agapo, or Zon uov, áάç àyαлw, a Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may scem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very pret tily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all hellenized. By Death's unequal hand alike control'd. [p. 661. The hand of Death is said to be unjust, ar unequal, as Virgil was considerably older than Tibullus, at his decease. To lead the band where god-like Falkland fell [p. 672 Lucius Cary, Lord Viscount Falkland, the most accomplished man of his age, was killed at the battle of Newbury, charging in the ranks of Lord Byron's regiment of cavalry. To flee away and be at rest. (p. 677. had wings like a dove, then would I fly away Psalm 55, Verse 6.-"And I said, Oh! that I and be at rest." This verse also constitutes à part of the most beautiful anthem in our language. By all the token-flowers that tell. [p. 633. In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mer- EXTRACT FROM THE EDINBURGHcury- an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declareswhat nothing else can. Blessing him they served so well. [p. 644. "At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other, and throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, "Vive l'Empereur jusqu'à la mort." There were many other instances of the like: this you may, however, depend on as true.' A private Letter from Brussels. ་་ Turning rivers into blood. [p. 645. See Rev. chap. VIII, verse 7-11. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood. And the third REVIEW, No. 22, FOR JNAUARY 1908. Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807. either direction from that exact standard. His class which neither gods nor men are said to The poesy of this young Lord belongs to the permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than if so much stagnant water. As an exthey were tenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems are connected angel sounded, and there fell a great star from with this general statement of his case, by parheaven, burning as it were a lamp; and it fell ticular dates, substantiating the age at which upon a third part of the rivers, and upon the each was written. Now the law upon the point fountains of waters. And the name of the star is of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is the defendant; no called Wormwood: and the third part of the plea available only to waters became wormwood; and many men died plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought of the waters, because they were made bitter." against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compel Whose realm refused thee even a tomb. [p. 645.ling him to put into court a certain quantity of Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minority; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the point, and, we are sorry to say, 80 will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen !”—But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron. His other plea of privilege, our author rather bringe forward in order to waive it. He certain ly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. la truth, it is this consideration only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our Review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his non-age, Adrian's Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it. Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, To what unknown region borne, But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. However, be this as it may, we fear his trans With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, al-lations and imitations are great favourites with though (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately, upon the fingers, it is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it. Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting New courage, he'll think upon glory and you. Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret: Far distant he goes, with the same emulation; The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish, Vows that he ne'er will disgrace your He renown; Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; your own. Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Of but they should "use it as not abusing it ;" and It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; particularly one who piques himself (though ininfant-bard," — (“The artless Helicon I boast is deed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an youth ;")—should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family-seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, Lord Byron should also have a care of at-"he certainly had no intention of inserting it," tempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. -Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "On a distant view of the village and school of Harrow. Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied. but really "the particular request of some friends," etc. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a moun tain were he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magníficent stanzas: There, in apartments small and damp, Who reads false quantities in Sele, Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations, Which bring together the imprudent. We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college-psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas. Our choir would scarcely be excused, To such a set of croaking sinuers. If David, when his toils were ended, them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland, he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well Had heard these blockheads sing before him, off to have got so much from a man of this Lord's To us his psalms had ne'er descended: In furious mood he would have tore 'em! But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take station, who does not live in a garret, but “has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. NOTE TO THE LETTER OF BOWLES' a Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood drawn up Thy needles, once a shining store, My Mary, contain a simple, household, “indoor," artificial, and ordinary image. I refer Mr. Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "needles" are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection of images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The trash of trees reminds me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the "Rejected Address" scene, in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner, he said, "Lord Byron, did you know that amongst the writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?" I answered by an inquiry of what sort of an address he had made. “Of that," | replied Sheridan, "I remember little, except that there was a phoenix in it." A phenix!! Well, how did he describe it?" "Like a poulterer;" and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a answered Sheridan; "it was green, and yellow, single feather." And just such as this poulterer's detail of a wood, with all its petty minutia of account of a phenix, is Cowper's a stick-picker's this, that, and the other. One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its superiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done ;-the bust of Antinous! Is there any thing in nature like this marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in that wonderful creation of perfect beauty? But the poetry of this bust is in no respect derived from nature, nor from any association of moral exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not natural, but super-natural, or rather superartificial, for nature has never done so much. Away, then, with this cant about nature and "invariable principles of poetry!" A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sow`s ear j” and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his tools.” ess TO THE PUBLISHER. I AM a country-gentleman of a midland-county. I might have been a Parliament-man for a certain borough, having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election (in | 1812). But I was all for domestic happiness; as fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged Maid of Honour. We lived happily at Hornem - Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countof Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery - suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, of which, by the bye, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs. H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside—that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H.'s dancing (she was famous for birth - night - minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country-dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d-d see-saw up and down sort of tune, that reminded me of the "Black Joke, only more 66 affettuoso, " till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By and bye they stopped a bit, and I thought they would sit or fall down:-but, no; with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder "quam familiariter" (as Terence said when I was at school), they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swappenbach), said "Lord, Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing," or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs. H.; though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid in practising the preliminary steps in a morning. Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election-ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of W. F., Esq., and a few hints from Dr. B. (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master B.'s manner of delivering his father's late successful D. L. Address), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the Public, whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise as well as the Critics. I am, SIR, yours, HORACE HORNEM. MUSE of the many twinkling feet! whose charms Arc now extended up from legs to arms; Far be from thee and thine the name of prude; And own-impregnable to most assaults, Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar, A modern hero fought for modish manners; Hail moving Muse! to whom the fair one's breast And give both Belial and his dance their due!— *) This poem has been attributed to Lord Byron: the question of its authenticity remaining undecided, it is here given by way of appendix. |