MARTIAL, LIB. I. EPIG. I. Hic est, quem legis, ille, quem requiris, He unto whom thou art so partial, NEW DUET. To the tune of "Why, how now, saucy jade?" WHY, how now, saucy Tom? If you thus must ramble, Remarks on Mister Campbell. ANSWER. Why, how now, Parson Bowles? Sure the priest is maudlin! (To the public) How can you, d-n your souls, Listen to his twaddling? EPIGRAMS. OH, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now; So Castlereagh has cut his throat! - The worst Of this is, that his own was not the first. - So He has cut his throat at last!-He! Who? The man who cut his country's long ago. EPITAPH. POSTERITY will ne'er survey A nobler grave than this: THE CONQUEST. [This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's papers, after his departure from Genoa for Greece.] I. March 8-9. 1823. THE Son of Love and Lord of War I sing; Him who bade England bow to Normandy, And left the name of conqueror more than king To his unconquerable dynasty. Not fann'd alone by Victory's fleeting wing, He rear'd his bold and brilliant throne on high: The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast, And Britain's bravest victor was the last. [Since Vol. XV. was printed off, the concluding page of Lord Byron's "Observations upon an Article in Blackwood's Magazine" has been received.] .... And, in return for Mr. Wilson's invective, I shall content myself with asking one question; Did he never compose, recite, or sing any parody or parodies upon the Psalms (of what nature this deponent saith not), in certain jovial meetings of the youth of Edinburgh? (1) It is not that I think any great harm if he did; because it seems to me that all depends upon the intention of such a parody. If it be meant to throw ridicule on the sacred original, it is a sin; if it be intended to burlesque the profane subject, or to inculcate a moral truth, it is none. If it were, the unbelievers' Creed, the many political parodies of various parts of the Scriptures and liturgy, particularly a celebrated one of the Lord's Prayer, and the beautiful moral parable in favour of toleration by Franklin, which has often been taken for a real extract from Genesis, would all be sins of a damning nature. But I wish to know if Mr. Wilson ever has done this, and if he has, why he should be so very angry with similar portions of Don Juan? - Did no "parody profane" appear (1) [The allusion here is to some now forgotten calumnies which had been circulated by the radical press, at the time when Mr. Wilson was a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.-E.] in any of the earlier numbers of Blackwood's Magazine ? I will now conclude this long answer to a short article, repenting of having said so much in my own defence, and so little on the "crying, left-hand fallings off and national defections" of the poetry of the present day. Having said this, I can hardly be expected to defend Don Juan, or any other living" poetry, and shall not make the attempt. And although I do not think that Mr. John Wilson has in this instance treated me with candour or consideration, I trust that the tone I have used in speaking of him personally will prove that I bear him as little malice as I really believe at the bottom of his heart he bears towards me; but the duties of an editor, like those of a tax-gatherer, are paramount and peremptory. I have done. BYRON. |