INTRODUCTION TO BEPPO.

BEPPO was written in the autumn (September 6-October 12, Letters, 1900, iv. 172) of 1817, whilst Byron was still engaged on the additional stanzas of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. His new poem, as he admitted from the first, was "after the excellent manner" of John Hookham Frere's jeu d'esprit, known as Whistlecraft (Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, London, 18181), which must have ["I've often wish'd that I could write a book,

I.

Such as all English people might peruse;

I never shall regret the pains it took,

That's just the sort of fame that I should choose :

To sail about the world like Captain Cook,

I'd sling a cot up for my favourite Muse,

And we'd take verses out to Demerara,
To New South Wales, and up to Niagara.

"Poets consume exciseable commodities,

They raise the nation's spirit when victorious,
They drive an export trade in whims and oddities,
Making our commerce and revenue glorious;
As an industrious and pains-taking body 'tis
That Poets should be reckoned meritorious:
And therefore I submissively propose

To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose.

"Princes protecting Sciences and Art

I've often seen in copper-plate and print;
I never saw them elsewhere, for my part,
And therefore I conclude there's nothing in't:
But every body knows the Regent's heart;

I trust he won't reject a well-meant hint;
Each Board to have twelve members, with a seat
To bring them in per ann. five hundred neat :---

"From Princes I descend to the Nobility:

In former times all persons of high stations,
Lords, Baronets, and Persons of gentility,
Paid twenty guineas for the dedications;