With brakes entangled, scarce a path between, The boughs and winding turns his steps mislead; Or die with him for whom he wish'd to live? Or crimson poppy, sinking with the shower, But fiery Nisus stems the battle's tide, Celestial pair! if aught my verse can claim, No future day shall see your names expire, TRANSLATION FROM THE MEDEA OF [ Ερωτὲς ὑπὲρ μὲν ἄγαν, κ. τ. Which rolls the tide of human woe? Can rouse the tortured breast no more; The wild desire, the guilty flame, Absorbs each wish it felt before. But if affection gently thrills The soul by purer dreams possest, The pleasing balm of mortal ills In love can soothe the aching breast: If thus thou comest in disguise, Fair Venus! from thy native heaven, What heart unfeeling would despise The sweetest boon the gods have given? But never from thy golden bow May I beneath the shaft expire! May no distracting thoughts destroy May I with some fond lover sigh, My native soil! beloved before, Now dearer as my peaceful home, Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore, A hapless banish'd wretch to roam! This very day, this very hour, May I resign this fleeting breath! Nor quit my silent humble bower; A doom to me far worse than death. Have I not heard the exile's sigh, And seen the exile's silent tear, Through distant climes condemn'd to fly, A pensive weary wanderer here? Ah! hapless dame! (1) no sire bewails, No friend thy wretched fate deplores, No kindred voice with rapture hails Thy steps within a stranger's doors. Perish the fiend whose iron heart, To fair affection's truth unknown, Bids her he fondly loved depart, Unpitied, helpless, and alone; Who ne'er unlocks with silver key (2) The milder treasures of his soul,May such a friend be far from me, And ocean's storms between us roll! THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE HIGH in the midst, surrounded by his peers, Happy the youth in Euclid's axioms tried, (1) Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, was deserted by him for the daughter of Creon, king of that city. The chorus from which this is taken here addresses Medea; though a considerable liberty is taken with the original, by expanding the idea, as also in some other parts of the translation. (2) The original is Καθαρὰν ἀνοίξαντι κλῇδα φρενών, literally "disclosing the bright key of the mind." (3) No reflection is here intended against the person mentioned under the name of Magnus. He is merely represented as performing an unavoidable function of his office. Indeed, such an attempt could only recoil upon myself; as that gentleman is now as much distinguished by his eloquence, and the dignified propriety with which he fills his situation, as he was in his younger days for wit and conviviality. [Dr. William Lort Mansel was. in 1798, appointed to the head-ship of Trinity College, by Mr. Pitt. He was indebted to the influence of his fellow collegian, the late Mr. Perceval, for his subsequent promotion to the see of Bristol. He is supposed to have materially assisted in the Pursuits of Laterature. His Lordship died at Trinity Lodge, in June, 1820. —L. E.] His Lordship's name appears to have afforded occasion for a somewhat profane pun; and, to Byron's gay and thought. Though marvelling at the name of Magna Charta, Such is the youth whose scientific pate Class-honours, medals, fellowships, await; Or even, perhaps, the declamation prize, If to such glorious height he lifts his eyes. But lo! no common orator can hope The envied silver cup within his scope. Not that our heads much eloquence require, The ATHENIAN'S (4) glowing style, or Tully's fire. A manner clear or warm is useless, since We do not try by speaking to convince. Be other orators of pleasing proud, We speak to please ourselves, not move the crowd: A proper mixture of the squeak and groan: The man who hopes to obtain the promised cup Must in one posture stand, and ne'er look up; Nor stop, but rattle over every wordNo matter what, so it can not be heard. Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest: Who speaks the fastest 's sure to speak the best; Who utters most within the shortest space May safely hope to win the wordy race. The sons of science these, who, thus repaid, Yet prizing Bentley's, Brunck's, or Porson's (6) note, less intimates at Cambridge, the opportunity was too tempting to be resisted. Some of them were wont to rouse the Doctor from his slumbers, in the lodge of Trinity, and when he appeared at the window, foaming with wrath, and crying out, "I know you, gentlemen, I know you!" he was immediately greeted with the response of-" We beseech thee to hear us, good Lort!-Good Lort deliver us!"-P. B. (4) Demosthenes. (5) In most colleges, the Fellow who superintends the chapel service is called Dean.-L. E. (6) The present Greek professor at Trinity College, Cambridge; a man whose powers of mind and writings may, perhaps, justify their preference. [Lord Byron, in a letter written in 1818, says: "I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties; and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both. I mean in an evening; for, in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour; but I have seen him, in a private party of under-graduates, take up a poker to them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable. Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times I saw To friendship dead, though not untaught to feel TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER: What though we never silence broke? Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise. him went. " 1806. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents; as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot: and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a gross. er exhibition than this man's intoxication." 1818.-L. E.] (I) Since this was written, Lord Henry Petty has lost his place, and subsequently (I had almost said consequently) the honour of representing the University. A fact so glaring requires no comment. [Lord Henry Petty is now Marquess of Lansdowne.-L. E.] 2 These verses were written at Harrowgate, in August 186.-L. E. 3 The cornelian of these verses was given to Lord ByIron by the Cambridge chorister, Eddlestone, whose musical talents first introduced him to the young poet's acquaintance, and for whom he appears to have entertained, subsequently, a sentiment of the most romantic friendship.-L. E. Moore mentions another instance of a similar sentiment, entertained by the noble bard during the period of his stay in Greece, for an individual of far inferior rank to his own. The object of this warm and enthusiastic feeling was a Greek youth, named Nicolo Giraud, the son of a widow lady, in whose house the artist Lusieri lodged. In this young man he appears to have taken the most lively and even brotherly interest; so much so, as not only to have presented to him, on their parting at Malta, a considerable sum of money, but to have subsequently designed for him a still more munificent, as well as permanent, provision. In the rough dranght of his intended will, transmitted by him to his solicitor,he bequeaths to Nicolo Girand the sum of £7000, to be paid on his attaining the age of twenty-one years.-P. E. Though what they utter'd I repress, In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams; (4) In a letter to Miss Pigot, of Southwell, written in June, 1807, Lord Byron thus describes Eddlestone:-"He is exactly to an hour two years younger than myself, nearly my height, very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. My opinion of his mind you already know; 1 hope I shall never have occasion to change it." Eddlestone, on leaving his choir, entered into a mercantile house in the metropolis, and died of a consumption, in 1811. Lord Byron, on hearing of his death, thus writes to the mother of his fair correspondent:-"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember a cornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss Pigot, indeed gave to her, and now I am about to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, is dead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much in. terested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss Pigot should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him who formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last, of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one,-making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August."-The cornelian heart was returned accordingly; and, indeed, Miss Pigot reminded Lord Byron that he had left it with her as a deposit, not a gift. It is now in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh.-I.. E. Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, My only fear should be to lose it. And sparkling as I held it near, Methought one drop the stone bedew'd, And ever since I've loved a tear. Still, to adorn his humble youth, Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield; But he who seeks the flowers of truth Must quit the garden for the field. "Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume; The flowers which yield the most of both In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. Had Fortune aided Nature's care, For once forgetting to be blind, But had the goddess clearly seen, His form had fix'd her fickle breast; Her countless hoards would his have been, And none remain'd to give the rest. AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE, DELIVERED PREVIOUS TO THE PERFORMANCE OF "THE (1) "When I was a youth, I was reckoned a good actor. Besides Harrow speeches, in which I shone, I enacted Penruddock, in The Wheel of Fortune, and Tristram Fickle, in the farce of The Weathercock, for three nights, in some private theatricals at Southwell, in 1806, with great applause. The occasional prologue for our volunteer play was also of my composition. The other performers were young ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood; and the whole went off with great effect upon our good-natured audience." Diary, 1821.-L. E. (2) This prologue was written by the young poet, between stages, on his way from Harrowgate. On getting into the carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion, "Now, Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play;" and before they reached Mansfield he had completed his task,-interrupting, only once, his rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronunciation of the French word "debut," and, on being answered (not, it would seem, very correctly), exclaiming, "Ay, that will do for rhyme to new."" The epilogue, which was from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Becher, was delivered by Lord Byron.-L. E. "In order to afford to his Lordship an opportunity of displaying his powers of mimicry, this composition consisted of good-humoured portraits of all the persons concerned in the No Cooke, no Kemble, can salute you here, Who hopes, yet almost dreads, to meet your praise; In foud suspense, this crisis of their fate. ON THE DEATH OF MR. FOX, "OUR nation's foes lament on Fox's death, TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE PIECES SENT THE Оn factious viper! whose envenom'd tooth representation. Some intimation of this design having got All Years have roll'd on, Lach na Garr, since I left you, Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain. TO ROMANCE. PARENT of golden dreams, Romance! Thy votive train of girls and boys; But leave thy realms for those of Truth. Which haunt the unsuspicious soul, And even woman's smiles are true. A Pylades (2) in every friend? And friends have feeling for-themselves? No more on fancied pinions soar. And think that eye to truth was dear; And melt beneath a wanton's tear! (1) In The Island, a poem written a year or two before Lord Byron's death, we have these lines: He who first met the Highland's swelling blue Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue, Hail in each erag a friend's familiar face, And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace. Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine, Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine, Revered Pernassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep: But it was not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall; The infant rapture still survived he boy, And Loets na Garr with Ida look'd o'er Troy, Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount, And Highland linas with Castalie's clear fount." "When very young," (he adds in a note) "about eight years of age, after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed. by medical advice, into the Highlands, and from this period I date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few years afterwards, in England, of the only thing I had long seen, even in minia| ature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation which I cannot describe."-L. E. Whose silly tears can never flow For any pangs excepting thine; Who turns aside from real woe, To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine. Now join with sable Sympathy, With cypress crown'd, array'd in weeds, Who heaves with thee her simple sigh, Whose breast for every bosom bleeds; And call thy sylvan female choir, To mourn a swain for ever gone, But bends not now before thy throne. With faucied flames and frenzy glow; The hour of fate is hovering nigh; ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES SENT BY A FRIEND TO THE AUTHOR, COMPLAINING THAT ONE OF HIS DESCRIPTIONS WAS RATHER TOO WARMLY DRAWN. "But if any old lady, knight, priest, or physician, CANDOUR Compels me, BECHER! (3) to commend I sue for pardon,-must I sue in vain? In "The Adieu" (published among his occasional pieces), Lord Byron again mentions Lachin y Gair, or Loch-na-Garr, in a manner that marks the impressions made upon his feelings by the scenes of his boyhood: "Adieu, ye mountains of the clime, Where Loch-na-Garr, in snows sublime, (2) It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes, and a partner in one of those friendships which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus. Nisus and Euryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity as remarkable instances of attachments which, in all probability, never existed beyond the imagination of the poet, or the page of an historian, or modern novelist. (3) The Rev. John Becher, prebendary of Southwell, the well-known author of several philanthropic plans for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. In this gentleman the youthful poet found not only an honest and judi cious critic, but a sincere friend. To his care the superintendence of the second edition of Hours of Idleness, during its progress through a country press, was intrusted, and at his suggestion several corrections and omissions were made. |