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Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream?

My foolish heart! be still, or break.
November 2, 1808. (1)

INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A
NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. (2)

WHEN some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,

The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below;
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been :
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
O man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

(1) Lord Byron wrote to his mother on this same 2d November, announcing his intention of sailing for India in March 1809.-L. E.

(2) This monument is still a conspicuous ornament in the garden of Newstead. The following is the inscription by which the verses are preceded :—

"Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery If inscribed over human ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a Dog,

Who was born in Newfoundland, May, 1803;
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808."

Lord Byron thus announced the death of his favourite to Mr. Hodgson:-"Boatswain is dead!-he expired in a state of madness, on the 18th, after suffering much, yet retaining all the gentleness of his nature to the last; never attempting to do the least injury to any one near him. have now lost every thing except old Murray." By the will, which he executed in 1811, he directed that his own body should be buried in a vault in the garden, near his faithful dog.-L. E.

"Of this favourite," says Moore, "some traits are told indicative not only of intelligence, but of a generosity of spirit, which might well win for him the affections of such a master as Byron." It seems that a deadly feud having long existed between Boatswain and a fox-terrier called Gilpin, belonging to Mrs. Byron, that lady prudently sent her favourite out of the way of his more powerful antagonist. One morning the servant, to whose guardianship Boatswain was confided, was much alarmed by the disappearance of his charge, and throughout the whole of the day no tidings could be heard of him. "At last, towards evening, the stray dog arrived, accompanied by Gilpin, whom he led immediately to the kitchen fire, licking him, and lavishing upon him every possible demonstration of joy. The fact was, he had been all the way to New. stead to fetch him, and having now established his former foe under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of other dogs,-a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier rendered no sinecure."

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on-it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,-and here he lies. (3)

TO A LADY,

ON BEING ASKED MY REASON FOR QUITTING
ENGLAND IN THE SPRING.

WHEN man, expell'd from Eden's bowers
A moment linger'd near the gate,
Each scene recall'd the vanish'd hours,

And bade him curse his future fate.

But, wandering on through distant climes,
He learn'd to bear his load of grief;
Just gave a sigh to other times,

And found in busier scenes relief.
Thus, lady! (4) will it be with me,

And I must view thy charms no more;
For, while I linger near to thee,

I sigh for all I knew before.

In flight I shall be surely wise,

Escaping from temptation's snare;
I cannot view my paradise

Without the wish of dwelling there. (5)
December 2, 1808.

It is worthy of remark that the poet Pope, when ahent the same age as Lord Byron, passed a similar eulogy on it dog, at the expense of human nature, adding that "His tories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs tha of friends." He had also at one time, as appears from t anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying fa dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, s the inscription, "O rare Bounce."

In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic tablishment, Hume says: "She (Thérèse) governs him t absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, bis dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that crea ture is beyond all expression of conception." Private Curre spondence.

In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that

of man:

“Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:

A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him
Than Mailie dead."

In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau," nor will pr terity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida." See Moore's Life of Byron.—P. E. (3) In Mr. Hobhouse's Miscellany, in which the epitaph was first published, the last line ran thus:

"I knew but one unchanged-and here he lies." The reader will not fail to observe, that this inscription was written at a time when the poet's early feelings with respect to the lady of Annesley had been painfully revived.

-L. E.

(4) In the first copy, "Thus, Mary!"-(Mrs. Masters. The reader will find a portrait of this lady in Finden's Illustrations of Lord Byron's Works, No. iii.-L. E

(5) In Mr. Hobhouse's volume, the line stood,- Without a wish to enter there." The following is an extract fre an unpublished letter of Lord Byron, written in 1823, oni three days previous to his leaving Italy for Greece:-"Miss Chaworth was two years older than myself. She married a man of an ancient and respectable family, but her mar riage was not a happier one than my own. Her conduct, however, was irreproachable; but there was not sympathy between their characters. I had not seen her for many years, when an occasion offered. I was upon the port, with her consent, of paying her a visit; when my sister, whe

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To think of every early scene,

Of what we are, and what we've been,
Would whelm some softer hearts with woe-
But mine, alas! has stood the blow;
Yet still beats on as it begun,
And never truly loves but one.

And who that dear loved one may be
Is not for vulgar eyes to see,
And why that early love was cross'd,
Thou know'st the best, I feel the most;
But few that dwell beneath the sun
Have loved so long, and loved but one.

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WRITTEN ON BOARD THE LISBON PACKET.

HUZZA! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
Favourable breezes blowing

Bend the canvass o'er the mast.
From aloft the signal's streaming,
Hark! the farewell gun is fired;
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time's expired.
Here's a rascal

Come to task all,
Prying from the custom-house;
Trunks unpacking,

Cases cracking;

Not a corner for a mouse

'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket, Ere we sail on board the Packet.

(1) Thus corrected by himself, in his mother's copy of Mr. Hobhouse's Miscellany; the two last lines being originally

"Though wheresoe'er my bark may run,

I love but thee, I love but one."-L. E.

(2) Moore, in his Life, mentions a strange story which this officer related to Lord Byron on the passage. He stated that "being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his band forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that, on that night, his brother had been drowned in

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Fletcher! Murray! Bob! (3) where are you?
Stretch'd along the deck like logs-
Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you!

Here's a rope's-end for the dogs.
Hobhouse, muttering fearful curses
As the hatchway down he rolls,
Now his breakfast, now his verses,
Vomits forth-and damns our souls.
"Here's a stanza
On Braganza-

Help!"-"A couplet?"-"No, a cup
Of warm water"-

"What's the matter?"

"Zounds! my liver's coming up;

the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.”—P. E.

(3) Lord Byron's three servants.-L. E.

Of the veteran Joe Murray's attachment to his master, Moore in his Life makes frequent and honourable mention. The following anecdote is characteristic:-" In 1810, there had been an execution on Newstead for a debt of 15002. To the faithful old servant, jealous of the ancient honour of the Byrons, the sight of the notice of sale, pasted up on the Abbey door, could not be otherwise than an unsightly and intolerable nuisance. Having enough, however, of the fear of the law before his eyes, not to tear the writ ing down, he was at last forced, as his only consolatory expedient, to paste a large piece of brown paper over it." -In proof of the kindly feeling which Lord Byron ever entertained towards "Old Joe Murray," Moore also states that a constant visiter at Newstead has often "seen Lord Byron, at the dinner-table, fill out a tumbler of madeira and hand it over his shoulder to Joe Murray, who stood behind his chair, saying, with a cordiality that brightened his whole countenance, 'Here, my old fellow.'"-P. E.

I shall not survive the racket Of this brutal Lisbon Packet."

Now at length we're off for Turkey,

Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky
May unship us in a crack.
But, since life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on-as I do now.
Laugh at all things,

Great and small things,
Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we're quaffing,

Let's have laughing

Who the devil cares for more?
Some good wine! and who would lack it,
Even on board the Lisbon Packet? (1)

Falmouth Roads, June 30, 1809.

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA.
As o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!

And when by thee that name is read,
Perchance in some succeeding year,

Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried here.
September 14, 1809.

TO FLORENCE. (2)

On Lady! when I left the shore,
The distant shore which gave me birth,
I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth:

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting Nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.

Though far from Albin's craggy shore,

Divided by the dark-blue main;

(1) In the letter in which these lively verses were enclosed, Lord Byron says:-"I leave England without regret-I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation; but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab; and thus ends my first chapter."-L. E.

(2) These lines were written at Malta. The lady to whom they were addressed, and whom he afterwards apostrophises in the stanzas on the thunder-storm of Zitza, and in Childe Harold, is thus mentioned in a letter to his mother:-"This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary lady, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked; and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear im. probable. She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Bonaparte, by taking a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet five-and-twenty. She is here on her way to England to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my ar.

A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again;
But wheresoe'er I now may roam,

Through scorching clime, and varied sea,
Though Time restore me to my home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee: On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whom but to see is to admire,

And, oh! forgive the word-to love. Forgive the word, in one who ne'er With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend. And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wanderer, and be less? Nor be, what man should ever be,

The friend of Beauty in distress? Ah! who would think that form had pass'd Through Danger's most destructive path, Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast, And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath? Lady! when I shall view the walls

Where free Byzantium once arose,
And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;
Though mightiest, in the lists of fame,
That glorious city still shall be;
On me 't will hold a dearer claim,
As spot of thy nativity:

And, though I bid thee now farewell,
When I behold that wondrous scene,
Since where thou art I may not dwell,
"T will soothe to be where thou hast been.

STANZAS

September, 1809

COMPOSED DURING A THUNDER-STORM. (3) CHILL and mirk is the nightly blast,

Where Pindus' mountains rise, And angry clouds are pouring fast The vengeance of the skies.

rival here I have had scarcely any other companion. I have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. Bonaparte is even now so incensed against ber that her life would be in danger if she were taken prisoner a second time."-L. E.

(3) This thunder-storm occurred during the night of the 11th October 1809, when Lord Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. Mr. Hobhouse, who had rode on before the rest of party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening set in, describes the thunder as roaring without intermis sion, the echoes of one peal not ceasing to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills appeared in a perpetual blaze." "The tempest," he says, "was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. My friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hat till three in the morning. I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, and that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had stopped at last sear some Turkish tomb-stones and a torrent, which they saw the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza.”—L. E.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,
And lightnings, as they play,

But show where rocks our path have cross'd,
Or gild the torrent's spray.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?

When lightning broke the gloomHow welcome were its shade!-ah, no! "Tis but a Turkish tomb.

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,
I hear a voice exclaim-

My way-worn countryman, who calls
On distant England's name?

A shot is fired-by foe or friend?
Another 't is to tell

The mountain-peasants to descend,
And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness?

And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear

Our signal of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise
To try the dubious road,

Nor rather deem from nightly cries

That outlaws were abroad?

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More fiercely pours the storm!

Yet here one thought has still the power
To keep my bosom warm.

While wandering through each broken path,
O'er brake and craggy brow;

While elements exhaust their wrath,
Sweet Florence, where art thou?

Not on the sea, not on the sea

Thy bark hath long been gone:

Oh, may the storm that pours on me
Bow down my head alone!
Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
When last I press'd thy lip;
And long ere now, with foaming shock,
Impell'd thy gallant ship.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
Hast trod the shore of Spain;
"Twere hard if aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

And since I now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry

Which mirth and music sped;

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark blue sea;
Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endear'd by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh. (1)

(I) "These stanzas," says Mr. Moore, "have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting." -L. E.

(2) On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Eken

And when the admiring circle mark
The paleness of thy face,

A half-form'd tear, a transient spark
Of melancholy grace,

Again thou❜lt smile, and blushing shun
Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st of one,
Who ever thinks on thee.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
When sever'd hearts repine,

My spirit flies o'er mount and main,
And mourns in search of thine.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.

THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast:
And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,
The ancient world was won and lost.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;
Where stern Ambition once forsook
His wavering crown to follow woman.
Florence! whom I will love as well

As ever yet was said or sung (Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell), Whilst thou art fair and I am young; Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times, When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes: Had bards as many realms as rhymes,

Thy charms might raise new Antonies. Though Fate forbids such things to be,

Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd!

I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a world. November 14, 1809.

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS

FLOWN!

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.
THE spell is broke, the charm is flown!
Thus is it with life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan;
Delirium is our best deceiver.

Each lucid interval of thought

Recalls the woes of Nature's charter, And he that acts as wise men ought,

But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS
TO ABYDOS. (2)

IF, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)

To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

head, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by

If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, He sped to Hero, nothing loth, And thus of old thy current pour'd, Fair Venus! how I pity both! For me, degenerate modern wretch,

Though in the genial month of May, My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, And think I've done a feat to-day.

But since he cross'd the rapid tide,

According to the doubtful story,
To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

'T were hard to say who fared the best:

Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!

He lost his labour, I my jest:

For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. (1)
May 9, 1809.

LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS.

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN:

"FAIR Albion, smiling, sees her son depart To trace the birth and nursery of art: Noble his object, glorious is his aim;

He comes to Athens, and he writes his name."

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE

FOLLOWING

THE modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,

His name would bring more credit than his verse. (2)

the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten, minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before,

in April, we had made an attempt; but, having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated; entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability.

(1) "My companion," says Mr. Hobhouse, "had before made a more perilous but less celebrated passage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from Old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing."-L. E.

The exceeding pride which Byron took in the classic feat (of swimming across the Hellespont) may be cited among the instances of that boyishness of character which he carried with him so remarkably into his maturer years, and which, while it puzzled distant observers of his conduct, was not among the least amusing or attaching of his peculiarities to those who knew him intimately. eleven years from the period, when some sceptical traveller So late as ventured to question, after all, the practicability of Lean.

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der's exploit, Lord Byron, with that jealousy on the subject of his own personal prowess which he retained from boghood, entered again with fresh zeal into the discussion, and brought forward two or three other instances of his own feats in swimming to corroborate the statement originally made by him.

"In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other by-standers, sent in some boatmen with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf, and thus saved their lives."-Moore.

From the authority above cited, we learn that Lord Byron, on one occasion, swam across the Thames with Mr. H. Drury, after the Montem, to see how many time they could perform the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial (which took place st night, after supper, when both were heated with drinking Lord Byron was the conquerer.-P. E.

(2) "At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was tempted to exclaim, Whither have the Graces fled?' Little did I expect to find them here; yet here comes one of them with golden cups and coffee, and another with a book. The book is a register of names, some of which are far sounded by the voice of fame. Among them is Lord Byron's, connected with some lines which I here send you." H. W. Williams.-L. E.

(3) "I am just come from an expedition through the Bos phorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled at as great a risk as ever the Arge nauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea, of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit." Letter to Mr. Henry Drury, June 17, 1810.-P. E.

(4) "I have just escaped from a physician and a fever. The English consul forced a physician upon me. In this state I made my epitaph-take it." Letter to Mr. Hodgson, Oct. 3, 1810. Moore.-P. E.

(5) The song Acute maids, etc., was written by Riga, wha perished in the attempt to revolutionise Greece. This trans

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