XLIX.

I've done with my tirade. The world was gone;
The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made,
Were vanish'd to be what they call alone—
That is, with thirty servants for parade,
As many guests, or more; before whom groan
As many covers, duly, daily laid.

Let none accuse old England's hospitality—
Its quantity is but condensed to quality.

L.

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline

Departed like the rest of their compeers,
The peerage, to a mansion very fine;

The Gothic Babel of a thousand years.
None than themselves could boast a longer line,

Where time through heroes and through beauties

And oaks as olden as their pedigree

Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree.

[steers;

LI.

A paragraph in every paper told

Of their departure: such is modern fame: 'Tis pity that it takes no farther hold

Than an advertisement, or much the same;
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.
The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim –
"Departure, for his country seat, to-day,
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.

LII.

"We understand the splendid host intends To entertain, this autumn, a select

And numerous party of his noble friends; [correct, Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite The Duke of D- the shooting season spends, With many more by rank and fashion deck'd; Also a foreigner of high condition,

The envoy of the secret Russian mission."

-

LIII.

And thus we see who doubts the Morning Post? (Whose articles are like the " Thirty-nine,"

Which those most swear to who believe them most)

Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordain'd to shine, Deck'd by the rays reflected from his host,

With those who, Pope says, "greatly daring

'Tis odd, but true,-last war the News abounded More with these dinners than the kill'd or wounded;

LIV.

As thus: "On Thursday there was a grand dinner; Present, Lords A. B. C."-Earls, dukes, by name Announced with no less pomp than victory's winner:

Then underneath, and in the very same [here Column: date, "Falmouth. There has lately been The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame; Whose loss in the late action we regret: The vacancies are fill'd up- see Gazette."

LV.

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,—
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion, (1) — of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal:(2) it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind. (3)

1 LVI.

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley,

Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak Stood like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunderstroke;

And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters-as day awoke,

(1) [Byron was too good by nature for what he wished to be- he could not drain the blood of the cavaliers out of his veins - he could not cover the coronet all over with the red night-cap:-hence that self-reproaching melancholy which was eternally crossing and unnerving him, -hence the dark heaving of soul with which he must have written, in his Italian villeggiatura, this glorious description of his own lost ancestral seat. — LOCKHART, 1824.]

(2) ["The front of Newstead Abbey has a most noble and majestic ap pearance; being built in the form of the west end of a cathedral, adorned with rich carvings and lofty pinnacles."— Art. Newstead, in Beauties of England, vol. xii.]

(3) ["How sweetly in front looked the transparent water, and the light of religious remains (equalled by no architecture scarcely in the kingdom, except that of York cathedral), backed by the most splendid field beauties, diversified by the swells of the earth on which they were rooted!"THOROTON's Nottinghamshire.]

The branching stag swept down with all his herd, To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird. (1)

LVII.

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, (2)
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 wildfowl 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.

LVIII.

Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding,
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet-sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay'd,

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw.

(1) ["The beautiful park of Newstede which once was richly ornamented with two thousand seven hundred head of deer, and numberless fine-spreading oaks, is now divided and subdivided into farms."-THORO TON'S Nottinghamshire.]

(2) [See antè, Vol. X. p. 204.

"I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

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." —
Epistle to Augusta.]

LIX.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile

(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. These last had disappear'd- a loss to art:

The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil,

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart, Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's In gazing on that venerable arch.

LX.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,

[march,

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone ; But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from his When each house was a fortalice-as tell [throne, The annals of full many a line undone,

The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign. (1)

LXI.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,

The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child, (2) With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round, Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd; She made the earth below seem holy ground. This may be superstition, weak or wild, But even the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.

(1) [See antè, Vol. I. p. 5. and Vol. VII. p. 17.]

(2) ["In the bow.window of the Hall there are yet the arms of Newstede Priory, viz England, with a chief azure, in the middle whereof is the Virgin Mary with Babe or."-THOROTON.]