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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, 1 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 spell-
Indulge 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 Brinsley2 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,

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[By the bye, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent Garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection of the Thames.' Lord Byron to Lord Holland.]

[Originally, "Ere Garrick died," &c." By the bye, one of my corrections in the copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom

'When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.' Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first. Second thoughts in every thing are best; but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as fast as I can, but never suthiciently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other." -Lord Byron to Lord Holland.]

3 [The following lines were omitted by the Committee:-
Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores
That late she deign'd to crawl upon all-fours.
When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse,
If you command, the steed must come in course.

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 eye alone direct
The boundless power to cherish or reject;
If e'er frivolity has led to fame,

And made us blush that you forbore to blame;
If e'er the sinking stage could condescend
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend,
All past reproach may present scenes refute,
And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute! 3
Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;
So pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
And reason's voice be echo'd back by ours!

This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd,
The Drama's homage by her herald paid,
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises-may our stage unfold
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old!
Britons our judges, Nature for our guide,
Still may we please—long, long may you preside! 4

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS 5

BY DR. PLAGIARY,

Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master P. at the opening of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation-thus ".

"WHEN energising objects men pursue,"

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. "A modest monologue you here survey," Hiss'd from the theatre the "other day," As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse, And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse. "Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed," Knew you the rumpus which the author raised; "Nor even here your smiles would be represt," Knew you these lines-the badness of the best. "Flame! fire! and flame!!" (words borrow'd from Lucretius,)

"Dread metaphors which open wounds" like issues!

If you decree, the stage must condescend
To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend.
Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce,
And gratify you more by showing less.

The past reproach let present scenes refute,
Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute."

"Is Whitbread," said Lord Byron, "determined to castrate all my cavalry lines? I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.'"]

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["Soon after the Rejected Addresses' 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 phaniz in it. A phoenix!! Well, how did he describe it?'Like a poulterer,' answered Sheridan: it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather.'". - Byron Letters, 1821.]

5 [Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled "A Monologue," of which the above is a parody. It began as follows:

"When energising objects men pursue,
What are the prodigies they cannot do?
A magic edifice you here survey,

Shot from the ruins of the other day," &c.]

"And sleeping pangs awake-and- but away" (Confound me if I know what next to say). "Lo Hope reviving re-expands her wings," And Master G-recites what Doctor Busby sings! "If mighty things with small we may compare," (Translated from the grammar for the fair!) Dramatic" spirit drives a conquering car," And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of " tar. "This spirit Wellington has shown in Spain," To furnish melodrames for Drury Lane. "Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story," And George and I will dramatise it for yc. "In arts and sciences our isle hath shone" (This deep discovery is mine alone). "Oh British poesy, whose powers inspire" My verse or I'in a fool-and Fame's a liar, "Thee we invoke, your sister arts implore"

With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much

more.

[Cupid"

These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too! "inseparable train!" "Three who have stolen their witching airs from (You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid): "Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto, Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, "Sustains her part" in all the "upper" boxes! "Thus lifted gloriously, you'll soar along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; "Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday). "Old Drury never, never soar'd so high," So says the manager, and so say I.

"But hold, you say, this self-complacent boast; " Is this the poem which the public lost? [pride;" "True-true-that lowers at once our mounting But lo!-the papers print what you deride. "'Tis ours to look on you-you hold the prize," 'Tis twenty guineas, as they advertize!

"A double blessing your rewards impart "

I wish I had them, then, with all my heart. "Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause," Why son and I both beg for your applause. "When in your fostering beams you bid us live," My next subscription list shall say how much you give! October, 1812.

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER HOUSE AT
HALES-OWEN. 1

WHEN Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought,"
His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought,"2
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence;

Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,

Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see
These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas!
When vice and folly mark them as they pass.
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.

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REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE!

REMEMBER thee ! remember thee!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not.

Thy husband too shall think of thee: By neither shalt thou be forgot,

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me! 3

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 die-

Hail 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
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven.
To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain :
I nothing owe but years to thee.
A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.

In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to woe;

For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee-not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk, and now thou art
A blank; a thing to count and curse,
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.

One scene even thou canst not deform;
The limit of thy sloth or speed

When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed:

And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon-a nameless stone.

morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His Lordship was from home; but finding lathek' on the table, the Lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words Remember me! Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas."— MEDWIN.]

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net

Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.
In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!

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 madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain;

And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults-while mine is breaking.
Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART

FICKLE.

THOU art not false, but thou art fickle,

To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
"Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,
Too well thou lov'st-too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,

And spurns deceiver and deceit ;
But she who nota thought disguises,
Whose love is a sincere as sweet,—
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,

What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd ?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition;

As if a dream alone had charm'd? Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming, And all thy change can be but dreaming!

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN
OF LOVE."

THE "Origin of Love!"-Ah, why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou may'st read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?

And shouldst thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;
But live-until I cease to be.

REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S POWER.
REMEMBER him, whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour

When neither fell, though both were loved.
That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be bless'd:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repress'd.

Oh let me feel that all I lost

But saved thee all that conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost

To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.

Think that, whate'er to others, thou

Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even
now, in midnight solitude.

Oh, God! that we had met in time,

Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free;
When thou hadst loved without a crime,
And I been less unworthy thee!

Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last!

This heart, alas! perverted long,
Itself destroy'd might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.

Then to the things whose bliss or woe, Like mine, is wild and worthless all, That world resign-such scenes forego,

Where those who feel must surely fall. Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness, Thy soul from long seclusion pure; From what even here hath pass'd, may guess What there thy bosom must endure. Oh! pardon that imploring tear,

Since not by Virtue shed in vain, My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;

For me they shall not weep again. Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still, had I loved thee less, my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;

It felt not half so much to part,

As if its guilt had made thee mine.

1813.

And, were it lawfully thine own,
Does Rogers want it most, or thou
Keep to thyself thy wither'd bough,
Or send it back to Doctor Donne :
Were justice done to both, I trow,

He'd have but little, and thou-none.

"Then thus to form Apollo's crown.' A crown! why, twist it how you will, Thy chaplet must be foolscap still. When next you visit Delphi's town,

Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown, Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

"Let every other bring his own."
When coals to Newcastle are carried,
And owls sent to Athens, as wonders,
From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried,
Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders;
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,
When Castlereagh's wife has an heir,

Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,
And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

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TO LORD THURLOW.

"I lay my branch of laurel down,
Then thus to form Apollo's crown
Let every other bring his own."

Lord Thurlow's lines to Mr. Rogers.
"I lay my branch of laurel down."
THOυlay thy branch of laurel down!”
Why, what thou 'st stole is not enow;

["Among the many gay hours we passed together in the spring of 1813, I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, I need not add, welldeserved panegyric on himself. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, When Rogers o'er this labour bent:' and Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud ; — but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words

TO THOMAS MOORE.

WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS VISIT TO MR. LEIGH HUNT IN HORSEMONGER-LANE GAOL, MAY 19. 1813.

Он you, who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,— For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Two-penny Post Bag;

But now to my letter- to yours 't is an answer—
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir,
All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on
(According to compact) the wit in the dungeon -
Pray Phœbus at length our political malice
May not get us lodgings within the same palace!
I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some
codgers,

And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted Sam Rogers;
And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got,
Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote,
But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scurra,
And you'll be Catullus, the Regent Mamurra. ?

[First published, 1830.]

Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words When Rogers' passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh,- till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following:My dear Moore, When Rogers' must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal. MOORE.]

us.

[The reader who wishes to understand the full force of this scandalous insinuation is referred to Muretus's notes on a celebrated poem of Catullus, entitled In Cesarem; but consisting, in fact, of savagely scornful abuse of the favourite Mamurra:

"Quis hoc potest videre? quis potest pati,
Nisi impudicus et vorax et helluo?
Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia
Habebat unctum, et ultima Britannia ?" &c.

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THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow:
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes but, oh!
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy Gentleness
Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;

At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

December 17. 1813.

[These verses are said to have dropped from the Poet's pen, to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety. It was impossible to observe his interesting countenance, expressive of a dejection belonging neither to his rank, his age, nor his success, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more serious than that alluded to by Prince Arthur

-'I remember when I was in France
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness.'

But, howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord Byron's air of mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, and felt that his sphere was far above the frivolous crowd which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of colouring to a

FROM THE PORTUGUESE. "TU MI CHAMAS."

IN moments to delight devoted,
"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry;
Dear words! on which my heart had doted,
If youth could neither fade nor die.

To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change" my life!" into "my soul!"
Which, like my love, exists for ever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your life.-Oh! change the word.
Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh:
Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name,
For, like the soul, my love can never die.

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE; AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY.3 THE Devil return'd to hell by two,

And he stay'd at home till five; When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût, And a rebel or so in an Irish stew, And sausages made of a self-slain JewAnd bethought himself what next to do, "And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.

I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favourites thrive.
"And what shall I ride in ?" quoth Lucifer then-
"If I follow'd my taste, indeed,

I should mount in a waggon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnish'd again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed;

To see my manor as much as I may,

And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away.

"I have a state-coach at Carlton House,

A chariot in Seymour Place;

But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends By driving my favourite pace :

And they handle their reins with such a grace,

I have something for both at the end of their race.
"So now for the earth to take my chance."
Then up to the earth sprung he;

And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepp'd across the sea,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop's abode.

character whose tints were otherwise romantic. - SIR WALTER SCOTT.] I never

2 ["Redde some Italian, and wrote two sonnets. wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in carnest, and many years ago, as an exercise- and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly pla tonic compositions." - Byron Diary, 1813.1

3 ["I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk.'"- Byron Diary, 1812. "Of this strange, wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr. Coleridge, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson."]

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