And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun the public ear-at least with prose.

Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career,
Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear:
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to own-
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown:
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavow'd;
And now at once I tear the veil away :-
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay,
Unscared by all the din of Melbourne house,
By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse,
By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage,
Edina's brawny sons, and brimstone page.
Our men in buckram shall have blows enough,
And feel they too "are penetrable stuff:"
And though hope not hence unscathed to go,
Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe.

The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall;
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise

The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes:
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth;
Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me;
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss:
Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown,
I too can hunt a poetaster down;

And arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marauder, and to southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay
Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let others say
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

H

POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION OF

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so with their ungodly ribaldry:—

"Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ."

I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek saith, "An I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him- ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia.

My northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary anthropophagus, Jeffrey; but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking ?" I have adduced facts already well known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury;-what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;" but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears. literary or personal; those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days. There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subandi esquire), a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the "Satirist," for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name till coupled with the "Satirist." He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the Satirist," who, it seems, is a gentleman! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr Jerningham is about to take up the cudgels for his Mecenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, pour on, I will endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers; and, in the words of Scott, I wish

"To all and each a fair good night,

And rosy dreams and slumbers light."--R

THE GIAOUR;

A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE

'One fatal remembrance-one sorrow that throws

Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes

To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring,
For which joy hath no balm-and affliction no sting."-MOOBE

ΤΟ

SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

AB A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS,

RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP

THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED

BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,

London, May 1818.

BYRON

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better forture, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful

THE GIAOUR.*

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tombt which, gleaming e'er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such hero live again?

*

*

*

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.

There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak,
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,‡

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,

Pronounced Djour.

A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre

of Themistocles.-B.

If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one of his appellations.-R. The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable