[To John Murray, August 21, 1817. Murray had written to Byron: Polidori has sent me his tragedy! Do me the kindness to send by return of post a delicate declension of it, which I engage faithfully to copy.' The following is Byron's 'civil and delicate declension for the medical tragedy.']
DEAR Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one in its way,
Purges the eyes and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears, that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief
To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.
I like your moral and machinery;
Your plot, too, has such scope for Scenery;
Your dialogue is apt and smart;
The play's concoction full of art;
Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
All stab, and everybody dies.
In short, your tragedy would be
The very thing to hear and see;
And for a piece of publication,
If I decline on this occasion,
It is not that I am not sensible
To merits in themselves ostensible,
But-and I grieve to speak it plays
Are drugs- mere drugs, Sir-now-a-days.
I had a heavy loss by Manuel,
Too lucky if it prove not annual,
And Sotheby, with his damn'd Orestes
(Which, by the way, the old Bore's best is), Has lain so very long on hand
That I despair of all demand.
In short, sir, what with one and t'other,
I dare not venture on another.
I write in haste; excuse each blunder;
The Coaches through the street so thun-
der!
My Room's so full; we 've Gifford here
Reading MSS., with Hookham Frere,
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles
Of some of our forthcoming Articles.
The Quarterly - Ah, Sir, if you
Had but the Genius to review!-
A smart Critique upon St. Helena,
Or if you only would but tell in a
Short compass what but, to resume:
As I was saying, Sir, the Room
The Room's so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and
Wards
And others, neither bards nor wits: My humble tenement admits
All persons in the dress of gent., From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.
A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men, who make their way; Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey, Are all partakers of my pantry.
They 're at this moment in discussion
On poor De Staël's late dissolution.
Her book, they say, was in advance
Pray Heaven! she tell the truth of France!
'Tis said she certainly was married
To Roeca, and had twice miscarried,
No not miscarried, I opine, —
But brought to bed at forty-nine.
Some say she died a Papist; Some
Are of opinion that's a Hum;
I don't know that the fellow, Schlegel,
Was very likely to inveigle
A dying person in compunction
To try the extremity of Unction.
But peace be with her! for a woman
Her talents surely were uncommon.
Her Publisher (and Public too)
The hour of her demise may rue —
For never more within his shop he
Pray was not she interr'd at Coppet?
Thus run our time and tongues away. -
But, to return, Sir, to your play:
Sorry, Sir, but I cannot deal,
Unless 't were acted by O'Neill.
My hands are full, my head so busy,
I'm almost dead, and always dizzy;
And so, with endless truth and hurry,
Dear Doctor, I am yours,
And now still absurder
He meditates Murder
As you'll see in the trash he calls Tasso's.
But
The real men of letters
I've others his betters
Your Orators - Critics and Wits,
And I'll bet that your Journal
(Pray is it diurnal ?)
Will pay with your luckiest hits.
You can make any loss up
With 'Spence' and his gossip,
A work which must surely succeed; Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft,
With the new Fytte of Whistlecraft,'
Must make people purchase and read.
Then you 've General Gordon,
Who girded his sword on,
To serve with a Muscovite Master;
And help him to polish
A nation so owlish,
Of these there have been few translations For Gallic or Italian nations;
And one or two perhaps in German,
But in this last I can't determine.
But then I only sung of passions
That do not suit with modern fashions;
Of Incest and such like diversions
Permitted only to the Persians,
Or Greeks to bring upon their stages
But that was in the earlier ages.
Besides my style is the romantic,
Which some call fine, and some call frantic;
While others are or would seem as sick
Of repetitions nicknamed Classic.
For my part all men must allow
Whatever I was, I'm classic now.
I saw and left my fault in time,
And chose a topic all sublime -
Wondrous as antient war or hero -
Then play'd and sung away like Nero,
Who sang of Rome, and I of Rizzo:
The subject has improved my wit so,
The first four lines the poet sees
Start forth in fourteen languages!
Though of seven volumes none before
Could ever reach the fame of four,
Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory
To the Rinaldo of my Story:
I've sung his health and appetite
(The last word 's not translated right -
He's turn'd it, God knows how, to vigour);
I'll sing them in a book that's bigger.
Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension!
And generous Rizzo! thou my pension.
February, 1818.
ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN WIL-
LIAM RIZZO HOPPNER
His father's sense, his mother's grace,
In him, I hope, will always fit so;
With - still to keep him in good case —
The health and appetite of Rizzo.
February 20, 1818.
TO THE TUNE OF SALLY IN OUR ALLEY'
[First published complete in the Edition of 1904 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray. This and the two following poems are in a letter to John Murray, dated April 11, 1818.]
Of all the twice ten thousand bards
That ever penn'd a canto,
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