• Thus corrected by himself in a copy of the Miscellany-the two last lines THE modest bard, like many a bard unknown,

TO THOMAS MOORE.

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE.

lines, the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigor and imagination, it is for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and conden sation of those clever verses of Mr. Coleridge which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson. There are, however, some of the stanzas of "The Devil's Drive" well worth preserving.]-Moore.

WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS VISIT, IN COM-[Of this strange, wild poem, which extends to about two hundred and fifty
PANY WITH LORD BYRON, TO MR. LEIGH HUNT
IN HORSEMONGER-LANE JAIL, MAY 19, 1813.
On 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 'tis 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.

FRAGMENT OF AN EPISTLE TO
THOMAS MOORE.

WHAT say I?"-not a syllable further in prose; I'm your man "of all measures," dear Tom,-so here goes!

Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time,
On those buoyant supporters, the bladders of rhyme.
If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in
the flood,

We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud,
Where the Divers of Bathos lie drown'd in a heap,
And Southey's last Pæan has pillow'd his sleep;―
That "Felo de se," who, half drunk with his
malmsey,

Walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea,
Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and span stanza,
The like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never

THE Devil return'd to hell by two,

And he staid at home till five;

When he dined on some homicides done in ragout,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew,
And 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 favorites thrive.

To look upon Leipsic plain;
And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

That he perch'd on a mountain of slain;
And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,
Nor his work done half as well:

For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,

That it blushed like the waves of hell! Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he; "Methinks they have here little need of me!'

The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and But the softest note that soothed his ear

brisker,

But then he is sadly deficient in whisker;

And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey-mere breeches whisk'd round, in a waltz with the

Jersey,

Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted
With majesty's presence as those she invited.

June, 1814.

Was the sound of a widow sighing:
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying-
As round her fell her long fair hair;

And she look'd to heaven with that frenzied air,
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there!
And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut,
With his hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,