and the only thing that surprised me was, that, character has been drawn in the highest colours as doubts had been entertained of the truth of by Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve. Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. Zoë mou, sas agapo, or Zwŋ uov, бáç ayaлw, a Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all hellenized. By Death's unequal hand alike control d. [p. 661. The hand of Death is said to be unjust, ar unequal, as Virgil was considerably older than Tibullus, at his decease. To lead the band where god-like Falkland fell. Lucius Cary, Lord Viscount Falkland, the most accomplished man of his age, was killed at the battle of Newbury, charging in the ranks of Lord Byron's regiment of cavalry. To flee away and be at rest. [p. 671. had wings like a dove, then would I fly away Psalm 55, Verse 6.-"And I said, Oh!" that I and be at rest." This verse also constitutes à part of the most beautiful anthem in our language. By all the token-flowers that tell. [p. 633. In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mer- EXTRACT FROM THE EDINBURGHcury-an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;' a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declareswhat nothing else can. REVIEW, No. 22, FOR JNAUARY 1808. Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byrsa, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807. Blessing him they served so well. [p. 644. "At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other, and throwing it up in the class which neither gods nor men are said to The poesy of this young Lord belongs to the air, exclaimed to his comrades, "Vive l'Empereur jusqu'à la mort." There were many other in-permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen stances of the like: this you may, however, depend on as true." A private Letter from Brussels. Turning rivers into blood. [p. 645. See Rev. chap. VIII, verse 7-11. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp; and it fell upon a third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." Whose realm refused thee even a tomb. [p. 645. Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt a quantity of verse with so few deviations in plea available only to the defendant; se to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen-BEL alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from bearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all secur rences; that it happens in the life of nine mra in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byr a His other plea of privilege, our author rather brings forward in order to waive it. He cervain Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, To what unknown region borne, But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. However, be this as it may, we fear his trans Hy, however, does allude frequently to his family Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made and ancestors-sometimes in notes; and while for translating, during his non-age, Adrian's giving up his claim on the score of rank, he Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded so akes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's say-indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, ing, that when a nobleman appears as an author, however, are of another opinion, they may his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. look at it. In truth, it is this consideration only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our Review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, al-lations and imitations are great favourites with though (which does not always happen) those' feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately, upon the fingers,-it is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it. Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting New courage, he'll think upon glory and you. Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret: Far distant he goes, with the same emulation; The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish, He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; your own. Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant-bard," ("The artless Helicon I boast is youth;")-should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family-seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, Lord Byron should also have a care of at-"he certainly had no intention of inserting it, tempting what the greatest poets have done be- but really "the particular request of some It concludes with five stanzas on fore him, for comparisons (as he must have had friends," etc. occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." -Gray's Ode on Eton College should really There is a good deal also about his maternal have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "On a ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a moundistant view of the village and school of Harrow. tain were he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemmore than duet means a fiddle. blance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied. In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers "On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following: Mild Charity's glow, Where this virtue is felt, And its dew is diffused in a Tear. As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas: There, in apartments small and damp, Who reads false quantities in Sele, Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations, Which bring together the imprudent. We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college-psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas. Our choir would scarcely be excused, To such a set of croaking sinners. If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended: In furious mood he would have tore 'em! But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let s take what we get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this Lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we may, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. NOTE TO THE LETTER OF BOWLES' | replied Sheridan, "I remember little, except that STRICTURES ON POPE. Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood drawn up like a seedsman's catalogue. [p. 690. I will submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler. In the lines to Mary, Thy needles, once a shining store, My Mary, contain a simple, household, "indoor," artificial, and ordinary image. I refer Mr. Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "needles" are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection of images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The trash of trees reminds me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the "Rejected Address" 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," there was a phenix in it." A phœnix!! 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 single feather." And just such as this poulterer detail of a wood, with all its petty minatie of account of a phenix, is Cowper's a stick pickers this, that, and the other. One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its superiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done ;-the bust of Antinous! Is there any thing in nature like this marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in that wonderful crearian of perfect beauty? But the poetry of this bust is in no respect derived from nature, nor from any association of moral exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not natural, but super-natural, or rather superartificial, for nature has never done so much. Away, then, with this cant about nature and "invariable principles of poetry!" A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his toes." SIR, TO THE PUBLISHER. I AM a country-gentleman of a midland-county. I might have been a Parliament-man for a certain borough, having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election (in 1812). But I was all for domestic happiness; as fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged Maid of Honour. We lived happily at Hornem - Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery - sait inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, of which, by the bye, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs. H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H.'s dancing (she was famous for birth - night - minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country-dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d-d see-saw up and down sort of tune, that reminded me of the "Black Joke," only more "affettuoso, till it inade me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By and bye they stopped a bit, and I thought they would sit or fall down :-but, no; with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder "quam familiariter" (as Terence said when I was at school), they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child not older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swappenbach), said "Lord, Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing, or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs. H.; though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid in practising the preliminary steps in a morning. Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election-ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of W. F., Esq., and a few hints from Dr. B. (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master B.'s manner of delivering his father's late successful D. L. Address), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the Public, whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise as well as the Critics. I am, SIR, yours, HORACE HORNEM. MUSE of the many twinkling feet! whose charms Are now extended up from legs to arms; Far be from thee and thine the name of prude; And own-impregnable to most assaults, Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar, A modern hero fought for modish manners; his aim. Hail moving Muse! to whom the fair one's breast And give both Belial and his dance their due !— This poem has been attributed to Lord Byron: the question of its authenticity remaining undecided, it is here given by way of appendix. Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine (Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine), Long be thine import from all duty free, And Hock itself be less esteem'd than thee; In some few qualities alike-for Hock Improves our cellar-thou our living stock. The head to Hock belongs-thy subtler art Intoxicates alone the heedless heart: Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims, And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs. Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe, We bless thee still-for George the Third is left! Waltz. But peace to her-her Emperor and Diet, Though now transferr'd to Bonaparte's "fiat;" Back to my theme-0! Muse of motion say, How first to ALBION found thy Waltz her way? Borne on the breath of hyperborean gales, From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails), Ere yet unlucky Fame-compell'd to creep To you-ye husbands of ten years! whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you, of nine years less-who only bear The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear, With added ornaments around them roll'd, Of native brass, or law-awarded gold; To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match; To you, ye children of whom chance accords Always the ladies, and sometimes their lords; To you-ye single gentlemen! who seek Torments for life, or pleasures for a week, Endearing Waltz-to thy more melting tune Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon; Scotch reels avaunt! and country-dance forego Your future claims to each fantastic toe; Waltz-Waltz-alone both legs and arms deando, Liberal of feet, and lavish of her bands; Hands which may freely range in public sight Where ne'er before-but-pray "put out the light." Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier Shines much too far or I am much too near; And true, though strange-Waltz whispers this remark, "My slippery steps are safest in the dark!" But here the Muse with due decorum halte, And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz. Observant travellers! of every time; Ye quartos! publish'd upon every clime; O say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; Can Egypt's Almas-tantalizing groupColumbia's caperers to the warlike whoopCan aught from cold Kamtschatka to Cape Hora With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be bornel Ah, no! from Morier's pages down to Galt's, Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz."* Shades of those belles, whose reign began of yore, With George the Third's-and ended long beforeThough in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive, Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive! Blest was the time Waltz chose for her debut. The Court, the Regent, like herself were new. New face for friends, for foes some new rewards. New ornaments for black and royal guards; New laws to hang the rogues that roar'd for bread, New coins (most new) to follow those that And, New victories-nor can we prize them less, Though Jenky wonders at his own success: New wars, because the old succeed so well, That most survivors envy those who fell; New mistresses-no-old-yet 'tis trae, Though they be old, the thing is something new. Each new, quite new-(except some ancient tricks, New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! |
