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There may be an allusion to George Sale, the Orientalist, and translator of the Koran.]
12
["In Matthews I have lost my 'guide, philosopher, and friend.'" – Letter to R. C. Dallas, September 7, 1811, Letters, 1898, ii. 25. (For Charles Skinner Matthews, see Letters, 1898, i. 150, note 3.)]
13
[Compare —
"In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe isHoratian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.'"Don Juan, Canto V. stanza xvii. lines 8, 9. The "doctrine" is Horatian, but the words occur in Ovid, Metam., lib. ii. line 137. —Poetical Works, 1902, vi. 273, note 2.]
14
[Hobhouse's Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey, 4to, was published by James Cawthorn, in 1813.]
15
["I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea [lines 1-7], of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit; – [A 'damned business'] it very nearly was to me; for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients." – Letter to Henry Drury, June 17, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 276.
Euripides, Medea, lines 1-7 —
Εἴθ' ὤφελ' Ἀργοῦς μὴ διαπτάσθαι σκάφος κ.τ.λ. ]
16
["The English Consul … forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph – take it." – Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 298.]
17
[For Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), see Letters, 1898, i. 314, note 2; see, too, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 359, note 1, and 441-443, note 2. The Epitaph is of doubtful authenticity.]
18
["On a leaf of one of his paper books I find an epigram, written at this time, which, though not perhaps particularly good, I consider myself bound to insert." – Moore, Life, p. 137, note 1. The reference is to Moore's M.P.; or, The Blue Stocking, which was played for the first time at the Lyceum Theatre, September 9, 1811. For Moore's nom de plume, "The late Thomas Little, Esq.," compare Praed's The Belle of the Ball-Room—
"If those bright lips had quoted Locke,I might have thought they murmured Little."]19
Is fame like his so brittle? – [MS.]
20
["A person observing that Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu." —Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of Lord Byron, 1825, ii. 191.]
21
["Lord Byron to Editor of the Morning Chronicle.
Sir, – I take the liberty of sending an alteration of the two last lines of stanza 2d, which I wish to run as follows: —
'Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,Shewing how commerce, how liberty thrives.'I wish you could insert it tomorrow for a particular reason; but I feel much obliged by your inserting it at all. Of course do not put my name to the thing – believe me,
Your obliged and very obedient servant,BYRON.8, St. James's Street,
Sunday, March 1, 1812."]
22
[For Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords, February 27, 1812, see Letters, 1898, ii. 424-430.]
23
[Richard Ryder (1766-1832), second son of the first Baron Harrowby, was Home Secretary, 1809-12.]
24
Lord E., on Thursday night, said the riots at Nottingham arose from a "mistake."
25
[Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules (1786-1862) married, in 1809, the Hon. George Lamb (see English Bards, etc., line 55, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 300, note 1), fourth son of the first Viscount Melbourne.]
26
[Moore's "Intercepted Letters; or, The Twopenny Post-Bag, By Thomas Brown, the Younger," was published in 1813.]
27
[James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was imprisoned February, 1813, to February, 1815, for a libel on the Prince Regent, published in the Examiner, March 12, 1812. —Letters, 1898, ii. 205-208, note 1.]
28
[For "Sotheby's Blues," see Introduction to The Blues, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 570, et ibid., 579, 580.]
29
[Katherine Sophia Manners was married in 1793 to Sir Gilbert Heathcote. See Letters, 1898, ii. 402, 406.]
30
[See Catullus, xxix. 1-4 —
"Quis hoc potest videre? quis potest pati,Nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo,Mamurram habere, quod Comata GalliaHabebat uncti et ultima Britannia?" etc.]31
[One evening, in the late spring or early summer of 1813, Byron and Moore supped on bread and cheese with Rogers. Their host had just received from Lord Thurlow [Edward Hovell Thurlow, 1781-1829] a copy of his Poems on Several Occasions (1813), and Byron lighted upon some lines to Rogers, "On the Poem of Mr. Rogers, entitled 'An Epistle to a Friend.'" The first stanza ran thus —
"When Rogers o'er this labour bent,Their purest fire the Muses lent,T' illustrate this sweet argument.""Byron," says Moore, "undertook to read it aloud; – but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words 'When Rogers' passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, – till even Mr. Rogers himself … found it impossible not to join us. A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following: – 'My dear Moore, "When Rogers" must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal.'" —Life, p. 181; Letters, 1898, ii. 211-213, note 1.]
Thurlow's poems are by no means contemptible. A sonnet, "To a Bird, that haunted the Water of Lacken, in the Winter," which Charles Lamb transcribed in one of Coleridge's note-books, should be set over against the absurd lines, "On the Poems of Mr. Rogers."
"O melancholy bird, a winter's dayThou standest by the margin of the pool;And, taught by God, dost thy whole being schoolTo Patience, which all evil can allay:God has appointed thee the fish thy prey;And giv'n thyself a lesson to the foolUnthrifty, to submit to moral rule,And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.There need not schools nor the professor's chair,Though these be good, true wisdom to impart;He, who has not enough for these to spareOf time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair,Nature is always wise in every part." Select Poems, 1821, p. 90.[See "Fragments of Criticism," Works of Charles Lamb, 1903, iii. 284.]32
[Hermilda in Palestine was published in 1812, in quarto, and twice reissued in 1813, as part of Poems on Various Occasions (8vo). The Lines upon Rogers' Epistle to a Friend appeared first in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1813, vol. 83, p. 357, and were reprinted in the second edition of Poems, etc., 1813, pp. 162, 163. The lines in italics, which precede each stanza, are taken from the last stanza of Lord Thurlow's poem.]
33
["On the same day I received from him the following additional scraps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy that provoked
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