From Canning, the tall wit,

To Wilmot,' the small wit,

Ward's creeping Companion and Louse,

II.

Who's so damnably bit

With fashion and Wit,

That he crawls on the surface like Vermin,
But an Insect in both,-

By his Intellect's growth,

Of what size you may quickly determine."

Venice, January 8, 1818. [First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 156, 157; stanzas 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, first published, Letters, 1900, iv. 191-193.]

ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN WILLIAM RIZZO HOPPNER.S

His father's sense, his mother's grace,
In him, I hope, will always fit so;
With still to keep him in good case→→→
The health and appetite of Rizzo.

February 20, 1818.

[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 134.]

1. [Probably Sir Robert John Wilmot (1784–1841) (afterwards Wilmot Horton), Byron's first cousin, who took a prominent part in the destruction of the "Memoirs," May 17, 1824. (For Lady Wilmot Horton, the original of "She walks in beauty," see Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 381, note 1.)]

2. [Stanzas 12, 13, 14 cannot be published.]

3. [Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872), second son of John Hoppner, R.A., was appointed English Consul at Venice, October, 1814. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 83, note 1.) The quatrain was translated (see the following poem) into eleven different languagesGreek, Latin, Italian (also the Venetian dialect), German, French,

[E NIHILO NIHIL;

OR

AN EPIGRAM BEWITCHED.]

1

Or rhymes I printed seven volumes—
The list concludes John Murray's columns:
Of these there have been few translations*
For Gallic or Italian nations;

And one or two perhaps in German-
But in this last I can't determine.

But then I only sung of passions

That do not suit with modern fashions;
Of Incest and such like diversions
Permitted only to the Persians,

Or Greeks to bring upon their stages-
But that was in the earlier ages

Besides my style is the romantic,

Which some call fine, and some call frantic;
While others are or would seem as sick
Of repetitions nicknamed Classic.
For my part all men must allow

Whatever I was, I 'm classic now.

Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan, and printed "in a small neat volume in the seminary of Padua." For nine of these translations see Works, 1832, xi. pp. 324–326, and 1891, p. 571. Rizzo was a Venetian surname. See W. Stewart Rose's verses to Byron, "Grinanis, Mocenijas, Baltis, Rizzi, Compassionate our cruel case," etc., Letters, iv. 212.]

1. [Byron must have added the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold to the complete edition of the Poetical Works in six volumes. See Murray's list, dated "Albemarle Street, London, January, 1818." The seventh volume of the Collected Works was not issued till 1819.] 2. [A French translation of the Bride of Abydos appeared in 1816, an Italian translation of the Lament of Tasso in 1817. Goethe (see Letters, 1901, v. 503-521) translated fragments of Manfred in 1817, 1818, but the earliest German translation of the entire text of Manfred was issued in 1819.]

I saw and left my fault in time,
And chose a topic all sublime-
Wondrous as antient war or hero-

Then played and sung away like Nero,
Who sang of Rome, and I of Rizzo :
The subject has improved my wit so,
The first four lines the poet sees
Start forth in fourteen languages!
Though of seven volumes none before
Could ever reach the fame of four,
Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory

To the Rinaldo of my Story :

I've sung his health and appetite

(The last word 's not translated right-
He's turned it, God knows how, to vigour)'
I'll sing them in a book that 's bigger.
Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension!
And generous Rizzo! thou my pension.

February, 1818.

[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

TO MR. MURRAY.

I.

STRAHAN, Tonson, Lintot of the times,"
Patron and publisher of rhymes,

For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,

My Murray.

1. [See the last line of the Italian translation of the quatrain.] 2. [William Strahan (1715-1785) published Johnson's Dictionary, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Cook's Voyages, etc. He was greatgrandfather of the mathematician William Spottiswoode (18251883).

2.

To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all—and sellest some-
My Murray.

3.

Upon thy table's baize so green
The last new Quarterly is seen,—
But where is thy new Magazine,1

My Murray ?

4.

Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine-
The Art of Cookery, and mine,

5.

My Murray.

Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist;
And then thou hast the Navy List,
My Murray.

Jacob Tonson (1656?-1736) published for Otway, Dryden, Addison, etc. He was secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, 1700. He was the publisher (1712, etc.) of the Spectator.

Barnaby Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was at one time (1718) in partnership with Tonson. He published Pope's Iliad in 1715, and the Odyssey, 1725-26.]

1. [See note 2, p. 51.]

2. [Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, published in 1806, was one of Murray's most successful books. In 1822 he purchased the copyright from Mrs. Rundell for £2000 (see Letters, 1898, ii. 375; and Memoir of John Murray, 1891, ii. 124).]

6.

And Heaven forbid I should conclude,
Without "the Board of Longitude," "
Although this narrow paper would,

My Murray.

Venice, April 11, 18:8.

[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 171.]

BALLAD.

66

TO THE TUNE OF SALLEY IN OUR ALLEY."

I.

Or all the twice ten thousand bards
That ever penned a canto,
Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards

For lining a portmanteau;

Of all the poets ever known,

From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,
The Muse may boast-the World must own
There's none like pretty Gally! 3

2.

He writes as well as any Miss,

Has published many a poem ;

1. [The sixth edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1813) was "printed by T. Davison, Whitefriars, for John Murray, Bookseller to the Admiralty, and the Board of Longitude." Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 259) attributes to Byron a statement that Murray had to choose between continuing to be his publisher and printing the "Navy Lists," and "that there was no hesitation which way he should decide: the Admiralty carried the day." In his "Notes" to the Conversations (November 2, 1824) Murray characterized "the passage about the Admiralty" as “unfounded in fact, and no otherwise deserving of notice than to mark its absurdity."]

2. [For Fop's Alley, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 410, note 2.] 3. [H. Gally Knight (1786-1846) was at Cambridge with Byron.]