lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of New stead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. (1)

(1) The Monthly Reviewers, in those days the next in circulation to the Edinburgh, gave a much more favourable notice of the "Hours of Idleness." "These compositions (said they) are generally of a plaintive or an amatory cast, with an occasional mixture of satire; and they display both ease and strength-both pathos and fire. It will be expected that marks of juvenility and of haste should be discovered in these productions; and we seriously advise our young bard to fulfil with submissive perseverance the duties of revision and correction. We discern, in Lord Byron, a degree of mental power, and a turn of mental disposition, which render us solicitous that both should be well cultivated and wisely directed, in his career of life. He has received talents, and is accountable for the use of them. We trust that he will render them beneficial to man, and a source of real gratification to himself in declining age. Then may he properly exclaim with the Roman orator, Non lubet mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi, et ii docti, sæpe fecerunt; neque me vixisse pœnitet: quoniam ita vixi, ut non frustra me natum existimem."" - Lord Byron repaid the Edinburgh Critique with a Satire — and became himself a Monthly Reviewer.-E.

OCCASIONAL PIECES.

WRITTEN IN 1807-8.

VOL. VII.

195

THE ADIEU.

WRITTEN UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE AUTHOR WOULD

SOON DIE.

ADIEU, thou Hill! (1) where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;

Where Science seeks each loitering boy
With knowledge to endow.

Adieu my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;

No more through Ida's paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
Unconscious of the day.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,
Ye spires of Granta's vale,
Where Learning robed in sable reigns,

And Melancholy pale.

Ye comrades of the jovial hour,
Ye tenants of the classic bower,

On Cama's verdant margin placed,
Adieu! while memory still is mine,
For, offerings on Oblivion's shrine,
These scenes must be effaced.

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime
Where grew my youthful years;

Where Loch na Garr in snows sublime
His giant summit rears.

(1) Harrow.

Why did my childhood wander forth
From you, ye regions of the North,
With sons of pride to roam?
Why did I quit my Highland cave,

Marr's dusky heath, and Dee's clear wave,
To seek a Sotheron home?

Hall of Sires! a long farewell

my

Yet why to thee adieu?

Thy vaults will echo back my knell,
Thy towers my tomb will view:
The faltering tongue which sung thy fall,
And former glories of thy Hall (1)
Forgets its wonted simple note
But yet the Lyre retains the strings,
And sometimes, on Æolian wings,
In dying strains may float.

Fields, which surround yon

While yet I linger here,

rustic cot,

Adieu! you are not now forgot,
To retrospection dear.

Streamlet! (2) along whose rippling surge,
My youthful limbs were wont to urge
At noontide heat their pliant course;
Plunging with ardour from the shore,
Thy springs will lave these limbs no more,
Deprived of active force.

(1) See ante, pp. 15. 118.

(2) The river Grete, at Southwell — E