The shame is yours, the gain is his,
In case you should not know 'em :
He has ten thousand pounds a year—
I do not mean to vally-

His songs at sixpence would be dear,
So give them gratis, Gally!

3.

And if this statement should seem queer,

Or set down in a hurry,

Go, ask (if he will be sincere)

His bookseller-John Murray.
Come, say, how many have been sold,
And don't stand shilly-shally,
Of bound and lettered, red and gold,
Well printed works of Gally.

4.

For Astley's circus Upton' writes,
And also for the Surry; (sic)
Fitzgerald weekly still recites,
Though grinning Critics worry :
Miss Holford's Peg, and Sotheby's Saul,
In fame exactly tally;

From Stationer's Hall to Grocer's Stall
They go-and so does Gally.

1. [William Upton was the author of Poems on Several Occasions, 1788, and of the Words of the most Favourite Songs, Duets, etc., sung at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. In the dedication to Mrs. Astley he speaks of himself as the author of the Black Castle, Fair Rosamond, etc. He has also been credited with the words of James Hook's famous song, A Lass of Richmond Hill, but this has been disputed. (See Notes and Queries, 1878, Series V. vol. ix. p. 495.)]

5.

He rode upon a Camel's hump
Through Araby the sandy,

1

Which surely must have hurt the rump
Of this poetic dandy.

His rhymes are of the costive kind,
And barren as each valley

In deserts which he left behind

Has been the Muse of Gally.

6.

He has a Seat in Parliament,
Is fat and passing healthy;
And surely he should be content
With these and being wealthy:
But Great Ambition will misrule
Men at all risks to sally,—
Now makes a poet-now a fool,
And we know which-of Gally.

7.

Some in the playhouse like to row,
Some with the Watch to battle,
Exchanging many a midnight blow
To Music of the Rattle.

Some folks like rowing on the Thames,

Some rowing in an Alley,

But all the Row my fancy claims

Is rowing of my Gally.

1. [Compare

"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow,

April 11, 1818.*

Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray."

Alashtar (by H. G. Knight), 1817, Canto I. stanza viii. lines 5, 6.]

2. [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,

ANOTHER SIMPLE BALLAT.

I.

MRS. WILMOT sate scribbling a play,

Mr. Sotheby sate sweating behind her;
But what are all these to the Lay
Of Gally i.o. the Grinder?
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

2.

I bought me some books tother day,
And sent them down stairs to the binder;
But the Pastry Cook carried away

My Gally i.o. the Grinder.

Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

3.

I wanted to kindle my taper,

And called to the Maid to remind her;
And what should she bring me for paper
But Gally i.o. the Grinder

Gally i.o. i.o.

4.

Among my researches for EASE

I went where one 's certain to find her:
The first thing by her throne that one sees
Is Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o.

now for the first time printed. For stanzas 2 (lines 5-8), 3, 4, 6, 7, see Letters, 1900, iv. 219, 220. For stanzas 1, 2, 3 of "Another Simple Ballat. To the tune of Tally i.o. the Grinder" (probably a variant of Dibdin's song, "The Grinders, or more Grist to the Mill"), vide ibid., pp. 220, 221.]

5.

Away with old Homer the blind

I'll show you a poet that 's blinder:
You may see him whene'er you 've a mind
In Gally i.o. the Grinder.

Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

6.

Blindfold he runs groping for fame,

And hardly knows where he will find her:
She don't seem to take to the name

Of Gally i.o. the Grinder.

Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

7.

Yet the Critics have been very kind,

And Mamma and his friends have been kinder; But the greatest of Glory 's behind

For Gally i.o. the Grinder.

Gally i.o. i.o.

April 11, 1818.

[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,

now for the first time printed.]

on

EPIGRAM.

FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIÈRES.1

IF for silver, or for gold,

You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,

1. ["Would you like an epigram-a translation? It was written some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe."-Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 346.

Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1718-1791), historian, poet, and epigrammatist, was the author of Anecdotes sur la révolution de Russie en l'année 1762, Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne (1807), etc. His

Then your face we might behold,
Looking, doubtless, much more snugly,
Yet even then 'twould be damned ugly.

August 12, 1819. [First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 235.]

EPILOGUE.1

I.

THERE's something in a stupid ass,
And something in a heavy dunce;
But never since I went to school

I heard or saw so damned a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once.

2.

And now I 've seen so great a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once;
I really wish that Peter Bell

And he who wrote it were in hell,

For writing nonsense for the nonce.

epigrams are included in "Poésies Diverses," which are appended to Les jeux de Mains, a poem in three cantos, published in 1808, and were collected in his Euvres Posthumes, 1819; but there is no trace of the original of Byron's translation. Perhaps it is after de Rulhière, who more than once epigrammatizes "Une Vieille Femme."]

1. [The MS. of the "Epilogue" is inscribed on the margin of a copy of Wordsworth's Peter Bell, inserted in a set of Byron's Works presented by George W. Childs to the Drexel Institute. (From information kindly supplied by Mr. John H. Bewley, of Buffalo, New York.)

The first edition of Peter Bell appeared early in 1819, and a second edition followed in May, 1819. In Byron's Dedication of Marino Faliero, "To Baron Goethe," dated October 20, 1820 (Poetical Works, 1891, iv. 341), the same allusions to Sir George Beaumont, to Wordsworth's "place in the Excise," and to his admission that Peter Bell had been withheld "for one and twenty years," occur in an omitted paragraph first published, Letters, 1891, So close a correspondence of an unpublished fragment with a genuine document leaves little doubt as to the composition of the "Epilogue."]

V. IOI.