LYCUS! on me thy claims are justly great: Thy milder virtues could my Muse relate, 1[The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, who died December 8, 1812, at Hall's Place, Kent, aged twenty-three.] 2 [The "factious strife" was brought on by the breaking up of school, and the dismissal of some volunteers from drill, both happening at the same hour. The butt-end of a musket was aimed at Byron's head, and would have felled him to the ground, but for the interposition of Tattersall. Life, p. 25.] [John Fitzgibbon, second Earl of Clare (1792-1851), afterwards Governor of Bombay, of whom Byron said, in 1822, "I have always loved him better than any male thing in the world.” — “I never," was his language in 1821, Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, A Spartan firmness, with Athenian wit: Though yet, in embryo, these perfections shine, LYCUS! thy father's fame will soon be thine. Where Learning nurtures the superior mind, What may we hope, from genius thus refin'd; When time, at length, matures thy growing years, How wilt thou tower above thy fellow peers! Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free, With Honour's soul, united beam in thee. 300 To minds of ruder texture, these be given Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven. |