The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art ment. CCXVI. My days of love are over; me no more (1) The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow, Can make the fool of which they made before, In short, I must not lead the life I did do; (1) "Me nec femina, nec puer Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero; Nec vincire novis tempora floribus." "For me, alas! these joys are o'er; For me the vernal garland blooms no more; No more the feats of wine I prove, HOR. Nor the delusive hopes of mutual love."— FRANCIS. (2) [His constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, show how newfangled, as well as how far from serious, was his adoption of the "good oldgentlemanly vice." That his parsimony, however, was very far from being of that kind which Bacon condemns as "withholding men from works of liberality," is apparent from all that is known of his munificence at this very period. MOORE. "Charity-purchased a shilling's worth of salvation. If that was to be bought, I have given more to my fellow-creatures in this life-sometimes for vice, but, if not more often, at least more considerably, for virtue — than I now possess. I never in my life gave a mistress so much as I have sometimes given a poor man in honest distress. But, no matter! The scoundrels who have all along persecuted me will triumph- and when justice is done to me, it will be when this hand that writes is as cold as the hearts which have stung it."-B. Diary, 1821.] CCXVII. Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, "Time is, Time was, Time's past:"(1)—a chymic treasure Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes— My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes. (') CCXVIII. What is the end of Fame ? (2) 'tis but to fill Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour; (3) (1) [The old legend of Friar Bacon says, that the brazen head which he formed capable of speech, after uttering successively, "Tirae is""Time was " and "Time is past," the opportunity of catechising it having been neglected, tumbled itself from the stand, and was shattered into a thousand pieces. — E.] (2) ["Out of spirits-read the papers-thought what Fame was, on reading, in a case of murder, that Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge, sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to some gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully), a book, the Life of Pamela, which he was tearing for waste paper, &c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c., and a leaf of Pamela wrapt 'round the bacon!' What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of living authors (i. e. while alive) -he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature), and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets) - what would he have said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French princes' toilets (see Boswell's Johnson), to the grocer's counter, and the gipsy-murderer's bacon!!!"- B. Diary, 1821.] (3) ["Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar," &c.— BEATTIE.] For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight To have, when the original is dust, [taper," A name, a wretched picture, (1) and worse bust. (2) CCXIX. What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King Cheops erected the first pyramid And largest, thinking it was just the thing Burglariously broke his coffin's lid: Let not a monument give you or me hopes, CCXX. But I being fond of true philosophy, Say very often to myself, "Alas! All things that have been born were born to die, And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass; (1) ["It is impossible not to regret that Lord Byron, being the contemporary of Lawrence and Chantrey, never sat to either of those unrivalled artists, whose canvass and marble have fixed, with such magical felicity, the very air and gestures of the other illustrious men of this age-our Wellingtons, our Cannings, our Scotts, and Southeys."- Quart. Rev. vol. xliv. p. 221.] (2) [MS." A book- a damn'd bad picture and worse bust."] (3) [This stanza appears to have been suggested by the following passage in the Quarterly Review, vol. xix. p. 203. :—“It was the opinion of the Egyptians, that the soul never deserted the body while the latter continued in a perfect state. To secure this opinion, King Cheops is said, by Herodotus, to have employed three hundred and sixty thousand of his subjects for twenty years in raising over the ' angusta domus' destined to hold his remains, a pile of stone equal in weight to six millions of tons, which is just three times that of the vast Breakwater thrown across Plymouth Sound; and, to render this precious dust still more secure, the narrow chamber was made You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly, And if you had it o'er again-'t would passSo thank your stars that matters are no worse, And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse." CCXXI. But for the present, gentle reader! and Still gentler purchaser! the bard—that's I— Must, with permission, shake you by the hand, (1) And so your humble servant, and good-b'ye! We meet again, if we should understand Each other; and if not, I shall not try Your patience further than by this short sample'T were well if others follow'd my example. CCXXII. "Go, little book, from this my solitude! I cast thee on the waters go thy ways! And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, The world will find thee after many days." (2) When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood, I can't help putting in my claim to praise— The four first rhymes are Southey's every line: For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine. accessible only by small, intricate passages, obstructed by stones of an enormous weight, and so carefully closed externally as not to be perceptible. Yet, how vain are all the precautions of man! Not a bone was left of Cheops, either in the stone coffin, or in the vault, when Shaw entered the gloomy chamber."] (1) [MS." Must bid you both farewell in accents bland. "] (2) [See Southey's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, sub fine.] |