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If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betrays her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,
And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints, [smiles-
While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers with
A thread of candour with a web of wiles;
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment--and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale--
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)—
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:
Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged-
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade-
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.

Oh! wretch without a tear-without a thought,
Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought-
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
May the strong curse of crush'd affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee, in thy leprosy of mind,
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black-as thy will for others would create:
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,-
The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread!
Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with
Look on thine earthly victims-aud despair!
Down to the dust!-and, as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear-
Thy name-t
-thy human name-to every eye
The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorr'd compeers-
And festering (1) in the infamy of years.

[prayer,

March 29, 1816.

(1) In first draught-weltering.”—“I doubt about 'weltering.' We say weltering in blood;' but do not they also use weltering in the wind,' weltering on a gibbet?' i have no dictionary, so look. In the mean time, I have put festering;' which, perhaps, in any case is the best word of the two. Shakspeare has it often, and I do not think it too strong for the figure in this thing. Quick! quick! quick! quick!" Lord B. to Mr. M. April 2.—I.. E.

ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPA-
RATION, IN THE APRIL OF 1816.(2)

A YEAR ago you swore, fond she!
"To love, to honour," and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what 'tis worth.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.(3)
WHEN all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray-
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When, dreading to be deem'd too kind,
The weak despair-the cold depart;
When fortune changed-and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose and set not to the last.
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then parer spread its gentle flame,

And dash'd the darkness all away.

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,

And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine

Than in the world's defied rebuke.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,
That still unbroke, though gently beut,
Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

The winds might rend-the skies might pour,
But there thou wert-and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;

For Heaven in sunshine will requite

The kind-and thee the most of all.

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STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.(1)

THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined, (2)
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd

To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me'Tis of thee that I think-uot of them.(3) Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 't was not to defame me, Nor, mute, that the world might belie.(4) Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with oneIf my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, Thus much I at least may recall,

April 16th, he says, "My sister is now with me, and leaves town to-morrow: we shall not meet again for some time at all events, -if ever! and, under these circumstances, I trust to stand excused to you and Mr. Sheridan, for being unable to wait upon him this evening." On the 25th, the poet took a last leave of his native country.-L. E.

(1) These beautiful verses, so expressive of the writer's wounded feelings at the moment, were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva, and transmitted to England for publication, with some other pieces. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas beginning, Though the day of my destiny 's,' etc., which I think well of as a composition."—L. E.

(2) In the MS.

"Though the days of my glory are over,

And the sun of my fame hath declined."-L. E.

(3) In the MS.

"There is many a pang to pursue me, And many a peril to stem:

They may torture, but shall not subdue me;

They may crush, but they shall not contemn."-L. E.

(4) In the MS.

"Though watchful, 't was but to reclaim me,
Nor, silent, to sanction a lie."-L. E.

(5) These stanzas-"than which," says the Quarterly

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

July 24, 1816.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.(5)

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same-
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,-
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
The first were nothing--had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's (6) fate of yore,-
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd
The gift, a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day
I have outlived, and yet I am not old;

Review, for January 1831, "there is, perhaps, nothing more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry"-were also written at Diodati; and sent home at the time for publication, in case Mrs. Leigh should sanction it. "There is," he says, "amongst the manuscripts an Epistle to my Sister, on which I should wish her opinion to be consulted before publication; if she objects, of course omit it." On the 5th of October he writes, "My sister has decided on the omission of the lines. Upon this point, her option will be followed. As I have no copy

of them, I request that you will preserve one for me in MS.; for I never can remember a line of that nor any other composition of mine. God help me! if I proceed in this scribbling, I shall have frittered away my mind before I am thirty; but poetry is at times a real relief to me. Tomorrow I am for Italy." The Epistle was first given to the world in 1830.-L. E.

(6) Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of "Foul-weather Jack."

"But, though it were tempest-toss'd,
Still his bark could not be lost."

He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's voyage), and subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander of a similar expedition.

And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:
Something I know not what-does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me, or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,-
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear),
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love-but noue like thee.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.
Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show;
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb.in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, (1)
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply

It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

(I) The Lake of Newstead Abbey. Thus described in Don

Juan:

"Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around the wild fowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed;
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood."-L. E.

(2) Mr. Sheridan died the 7th of July, 1816, and this monody was written at Diodati on the 17th, at the request of Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. "I did as well as I could," says Lord Byron, "but where I have not my choice, I pretend to answer for nothing." A proof sheet of the poem, with the

She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister-till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not;-for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest-even the only paths for me
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have slept;
I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do?
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make-a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue,
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over-I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.
And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings farther.-Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister! in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are-I am, even as thou art-
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined-let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT
HON. R. B. SHERIDAN. (2)

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE. (3)
WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?

words "by request of a friend" in the title-page having
reached him,-"I request you," he says, "to expunge that
same, unless you please to add, by a person of quality,' er
of wit and humour.' It is sad trash, and must have been
done to make it ridiculous."-L. E.

(3) Sheridan's own monody on Garrick was spoken from the same boards, by Mrs. Yates, in March, 1779. One day," says Lord Byron, "I saw him take it up. He lighted upon the dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, he flew into a rage and exclaimed," that it must be a forgery, as he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a d-d canting,' etc. etc.-and so he went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous." B. Diary, 1821 — L. E.

With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,
A holy concord-and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness-but full and clear,
A sweet dejection- a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame-and secret without pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When Summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes,
When all of Genius which can perish dies.
A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd-no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit-the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song, the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind:
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised-the proud-who made his praise their
[pride.

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan (1)
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,
His was the thunder-his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God!

(1) See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr. Sheridan's speech on the charges exhibited against Mr. Hastings in the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, to give time for a calmer consideration of the question than could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration." Before my departure from England," says Gibbon, "I was present at the angust spectacle of Mr. Hastings' trial in Westminster Hall. It is not my province to absolve or condemn the governor of India; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence demanded my applause; nor could I hear without emotion the personal compliment which he paid me in the presence of the British nation. This display of genius blazed four successive days," etc. On being asked by a brother Whig, at the conclusion of the speech, how he came to compliment Gibbon with the epithet "luminous," Sheridan answered, in a half whisper, "I said 'voluminous. L. E.

(2) "I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly; but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit. He is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length." B. Diary, 1821.-L. E.

(3) “Once I saw Sheridan cry, after a splendid dinner. I had the honour of sitting next him. The occasion of his tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the Whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles. Sheridan turned round :-'Sir, it is easy for my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or Lord H., with thousands upon thousands a-year, some of it either presently derived, or inherited in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and

Which shook the nations through his lips-and blazed
Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised. (2)
And here, oh! here where yet, all young and warm,
The gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.

But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause-ah! little do they know
That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Woe. (3)
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe-the fool-the jealousand the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the Pyramid of Calumny!
These are his portion-but if join'd to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease,
If the high Spirit must forget to soar,
And stoop to strive with Misery at the door, (4)
To soothe Indignity-and face to face
Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Disgrace,
To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness:-

keep aloof from temptation: but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' And in saying this he wept. I have more than once heard him say, that he never had a shilling of his own.' To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's. In 1815, I found him at my lawyer's. After mutual greetings, he retired. Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. 'Oh,' replied the attorney, the usual thing! to stave off an action.'-Well,' said I, and what do you mean to do?'-'Nothing at all for the present,' said he: would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over Sheridan's good gifts of conversation. Such was Sheridan he could soften an attorney! There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus." B. Diary, 1821.-L. E.

(4) This was not fiction. Only a few days before his death, Sheridan wrote thus to Mr. Rogers:-"I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and take me : 1507. will remove all difficulty. For God's sake let me see you!" Mr. Moore was the immediate bearer of the required sum. This was written on the 15th of May. On the 14th of July, Sheridan's remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey,- his pall-bearers being the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, the Lord Bishop of London, Lord Holland, and Earl Spencer.-L. E.

If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given
Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the louring atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch-and
[burst. (1)

But far from us and from our mimic scene
Such things should be-if such have ever been;
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task,
To give the tribute Glory need not ask,

To mourn the anish'd beam-and add our mite
Of praise in payment of a long delight.
Ye orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! (2)
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence! (3)
He was your brother-bear his ashes hence!
While powers of mind almost of boundless range, (4)
Complete in kind-as various in their change,
While Eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth,
That humbler harmonist of care on earth,
Survive within our souls-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness--long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

THE DREAM.(5)

OUR life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their developement have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become

(1) In the MS.

"Abandon'd by the skies, whose beams have nurst Their very thunders lighten-scorch-and burst."-L. E. (2) Fox-Pitt- Burke. "When Fox was asked, which he thought the best speech he had ever heard, he replied, Sheridan's on the impeachment of Hastings, in the House of Commons.' When he made it, Fox advised him to speak it over again in Westminster Hall on the trial, as nothing better could be made of the subject; but Sheridan made his new speech as different as possible, and, according to the best judges, very inferior, notwithstanding the panegyric of Burke, who exclaimed during the delivery of some passages of it-There! that is the true style-something between poetry and prose, and better than either.'" B. Diary, from Lord Holland,) 1821.-L. E.

(3) "In society I have met Sheridan frequently. He was superb! I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others of good fame and ability. I have met him at all places and parties at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of Tavistock's, at Robins's the auctioneer's, at Sir Humphry Davy's, at Sam. Rogers's-in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him convivial and delightful." B. Diary, 1821.— L. E.

(4) "Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions upon him and other

A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;

They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creations of the mind?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight, (6)
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,

hommes marquants, and mine was this:-Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been par excellence always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far beyond that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggars' Opera), the best farce (the Critic-it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and, on hearing it, he burst into tears! Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or made his own celebrated philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine." B. Diary, Dec. 17, 1813.—L. E.

(5) In the first draught of this poem, Lord Byron had entitled it "The Destiny." Mr. Moore says, “it cost him many a tear in writing," and justly characterises it as "the most mournful, as well as picturesque story of a wandering life' that ever came from the pen and heart of man.” It was composed at Diodati, in July 1816.-L. E. (6) In the MS

"she was his sight,

For never did he turn his glance until

Her own had led by gazing on an object.”—L. E.

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