'Tis the shout of delight, 'tis the millions that swear * His sceptre shall rule them alone. Reverses shall brighten their zeal, Misfortune shall hallow his name, Next for some gracious service unexprest, And the world that pursues him shall mournfully feel With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd, How quenchless the spirit and flame She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd. That Frenchmen will breathe, when their hearts are Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, on fire, For the hero they love, and the chief they admire! Their hero has rush'd to the field; His laurels are cover'd with shade- In a moment desertion and guile The dastards that flourish'd and grew in his smile And the millions that swore they would perish to save The savage all wild in his glen Is nobler and better than thou; At once from thy arms would I sever; Oh, shame to thy children and thee! Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall, How wretched thy portion shall be! Derision shall strike thee forlorn, A mockery that never shall die; The curses of hate, and the hisses of scorn, Shall burthen the winds of thy sky; And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurl'd The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world! WINDSOR POETICS. Lines composed on the occasion of H. R. H. the P....e R-g-t being FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties, A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE. If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.. BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred, The genial confidante, and general spy; Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess, She taught the child to read, and taught so well, Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind, But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive; But to the theme-now laid aside too long, To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints, A lip of lics, a face form'd to conceal, WELL! thou art happy, and I feel Thy husband's blest-and 't will impart When late I saw thy favourite child, I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled, I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake. ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812. IN one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd, Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride: In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign. Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!) Through clouds of fire, the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven; Saw the long column of revolving flames Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames, While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome, Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home, As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone The skies with lightnings awful as their own, Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall; Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile, Rear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle, Know the same favour which the former knew, A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you? Yes-it shall be the magic of that name Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame; On the same spot still consecrates the scene, And bids the Drama be where she hath been: This fabric's birth attests the potent spellIndulge our honest pride, and say, How well! As soars this fane to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom That only waste their odours o'er the tomb. Such Drury claim'd and claims-nor you refuse One tribute to revive his slumbering muse; With garlands deck your own Menander's head! Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead! Dear are the days which made our annals bright, Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write. Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs, Vain of our ancestry, as they of theirs; While thus remembrance borrows Banquo's glass To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass, And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine Immortal names, emblazon'd on our line, Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn, Reflect how hard the task to rival them! Friends of the stage! to whom both players and plays Must sue alike for pardon, or for praise, Whose judging voice and And made us blush that you forbore to blame; This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. Still may we please-long, long may you preside! TO TIME. TIME! on whose arbitrary wing The varying hours must flag or fly, Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring, But drag or drive us on to dieHail thou! who on my birth bestow'd Those boons to all that know thee known; Yet better I sustain thy load, For now I bear the weight alone. I would not one fond heart should share And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare, Thy future ills shall press in vain; Retards, but never counts the hour. But could not add a night to woe; Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain, Can neither feel nor pity pain, The cold repulse, the look askance, In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine; My light of life! ah, tell me why And art thou changed, and canst thou hate: Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow: What wretch with me would barter woe! My bird relent: one note could give A charm, to bid thy lover live. My curdling blood, my maddening brain, In silent anguish I sustain! And still thy heart, without partaking Pour me the poison; fear not thou! My wounded soul, my bleeding breast, That joy is harbinger of woe. ... I day in the week: but of his character» I know nothing personally; I can only speak to his manners, and these have my warmest approbation. But I never judge from manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civilest gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was Ali Pacha. Of Mr Bowles's « character» I will not do him the injustice to judge from the edition of Pope, if he prepared it heedlessly; nor the justice, should it be otherwise, because I would neither become a literary executioner, nor a personal one. Mr Bowles the individual, and Mr Bowles the editor, appear the two most opposite things imaginable. And he himself one antithesis." won't say « vile,» because it is harsh; nor « mistaken,» because it has two syllables too many; but every one must fill up the blank as he pleases. made my acquaintances at their own he unsought intervention of others. my knowledge, sought a personal me of them to this day I know and with one of those it was ence, however, of a polite a third person. stant on these circumstances, es been made a subject of bitter nave endeavoured to suppress that runk, as those who know me know, onal consequences which could be attached acation. Of its subsequent suppression, as I d the copyright, I was the best judge and the master. The circumstances which occasioned the uppression I have now stated; of the motives, each must judge according to his candour or malignity. Mr Bowles does me the honour to talk of « noble mind,» and generous magnanimity;» and all this because the circumstance would have been explained had not the book been suppressed.» I see no nobility of mind»> in an act of simple justice; and I hate the word «magnanimity, because I have sometimes seen it ap- I plied to the grossest of impostors by the greatest of fools; but I would have « explained the circumstance,>> notwithstanding << the suppression of the book,» if Mr Bowles had expressed any desire that I should. As the gallant Galbraith» says to « Baillie Jarvie,» «Well, the devil take the mistake and all that occasioned it.» I have had as great and greater mistakes made about me personally and poetically, once a month for these last ten years, and never cared very much about correcting one or the other, at least after the first eight and forty hours had gone over them. વ What I saw of Mr Bowles increased my surprise and regret that he should ever have lent his talents to such a task. If he had been a fool, there would have been some excuse for him; if he had been a needy or a bad man, his conduct would have been intelligible: but he is the opposite of all these; and thinking and feeling as do of Pope, to me the whole thing is unaccountable. However, I must call things by their right names. I cannot call his edition of Pope a «candid» work; and I still think that there is an affectation of that quality not only in those volumes, but in the pamphlets lately published. Why yet he doth deny his prisoners. Mr Bowles says, that «he has seen passages in his letters to Martha Blount which were never published by me, and I hope never will be by others; which are so gross as to imply the grossest licentiousness.» Is this fair play? It may, or it may not be that such passages exist; and that Pope, who was not a monk, although a catholic, may have occasionally sinned in word and in deed with woman in his youth; but is this a sufficient ground for such a sweeping denunciation? Where is the unmarried Englishman of a certain rank of life, who (provided he has not taken orders) has not to reproach himself between the ages of sixteen and thirty with far more licentiousness than has ever yet been traced to Pope? Pope lived in the public eye from his youth upwards; he had all the dunces of his own time for his enemies, and, I am sorry to say, some, who have not the apology of dulness for detraction, since his death; and yet to what do all their accumulated hints and charges amount?—to an equivocal liaison with Martha Blount, which might arise as much from his infirmities as from his passions; to a hopeless flirtation with Lady Mary W. Montagu; to a story of Cibber's; and to two or three coarse passages in his works. Who could come forth clearer from an invidious inquest on a life of fiftysix years? Why are we to be officiously reminded of such passages in his letters, provided that they exist. Is Mr Bowles aware to what such rummaging among <«<letters>> and << stories» might lead? I have myself seen a collection of letters of another eminent, nay, preeminent, deceased poet, so abominably gross, and elaborately coarse, that I do not believe that they could be paralleled in our language. What is more strange, is, that some of these are couched as postscripts to his serious and sentimental letters, to which are tacked either a piece of prose, or some verses, of the most hyperbolical indecency. He himself says, that if « obscenity (using a much coarser word) be the sin against I must now, however, say a word or two about Pope, of whom you have my opinion more at large in the unpublished letter on or to (for I forget which) the editor of «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine;»—and here I doubt that Mr Bowles will not approve of my sentiments. Although I regret having published «<English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,» the part which I regret the least is that which regards Mr Bowles with reference to Pope. Whilst I was writing that publication, in 1807 and 1808, Mr Hobhouse was desirous that I should express our mutual opinion of Pope, and of Mr Bowles's edition of his works. As I had completed my outline, and felt lazy, I requested that he would do so. He did it. His fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope are in the first edition of « English Bards and Scotch Reviewers;» and are quite as severe and much more poetical than my own in the second. On reprinting the work, as I put my name to it, I omitted Mr Hobhouse's lines, and replaced them with my own, by which the work gained less than Mr Bowles. I have stated this in the preface to the second edition. It is many years since I have read that poem; but the Quarterly Review, Mr Octavius Gilchrist, and Mr Bowles himself, have been so obliging as to refresh my memory, and that of the public. I am grieved to say, that in reading over those lines, I repent of their having so far fallen short of what I meant to express upon the subject of Bowles's edition of Pope's Works. Mr Bowles says, that «Lord Byron knows he does not deserve this character.» I know no such thing. I have met Mr Bowles occasionally, in the best society in London; he appeared to me an amiable, well-informed, and extremely able man. I desire nothing better than to dine in company with such a mannered man every Quaff while thou canst-another race, Newstead Abbey, 1808. ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART. THERE is a tear for all that die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry, And triumph weeps above the brave. For them is sorrow's purest sigh O'er ocean's heaving bosom sent: In vain their bones unburied lie, All earth becomes their monument! A tomb is theirs on every page, An epitaph on every tongue. For them the voice of festal mirth Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep remembrance pours to worth The goblet's tributary round. A theme to crowds that knew them not, Who would not share their glorious lot? And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be; And early valour, glowing, find A model in thy memory. But there are breasts that bleed with thee Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherish'd name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness, While grief's full heart is fed by fame. Alas! for them, though not for thee, Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before. TO A LADY WEEPING. WEEP, daughter of a royal line, A sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; Ah, happy! if each tear of thine Could wash a father's fault away! Weep-for thy tears are virtue's tearsAuspicious to these suffering isles; And be each drop in future years Repaid thee by thy people's smiles! March, 1812. FROM THE TURKISH. THE chain I gave was fair to view, That chain was firm in every link, But not to bear a stranger's touch; Let him, who from thy neck unbound Restring the chords, renew the clasp. SONNET. TO GENEVRA. THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, And the wan lustre of thy features-caught From contemplation-where serenely wrought, Seem sorrow's softness charm'd from its despairHave thrown such speaking sadness in thine air, That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thoughtI should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. With such an aspect, by his colours blent, When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent) The Magdalen of Guido saw the mornSuch seem'st thou-but how much more excellent! With nought remorse can claim-nor virtue scorn. SONNET. TO GENEVRA. Tay cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe, INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. WHEN Some proud son of man returns to earth, |