"of having said, in Childe Harold,' that the Greeks would have to fight their own battles, work out their own emancipation. That was your prophetic age; Voltaire and Alfieri had theirs, and even Goldsmith." Shelley, who was present, observed:"Poets are sometimes the echoes of words of which they know not the power,-the trumpet that sounds to battle, and feels not what it inspires." "In what year was it," I asked, “that you wrote that line, Will Frank or Muscovite assist you?—No!'" "Some time in 1811. The ode was writ"ten about the same time. I expressed the 66 same sentiments in one of its stanzas.* *The lines to which he alluded were- "I will tell you a plan I have in embryo. "I have formed a strong wish to join the "Greeks. Gamba is anxious to be of the party. I shall not, however, leave Italy "without proper authority and full power "from the Patriot Government. I mean to "write to them, and that will take time;"besides, the Guiccioli !*" In native swords and native ranks Don Juan, Canto III. Stanza 51. * I have heard Lord Byron reproached for leaving the Guiccioli. Her brother's accompanying him to Greece, and his remains to England, proves at least that the family acquitted him of any blame. The disturbed state of the country rendered her embarking with him out of the question; and the confiscation of her father's property made her jointure, and his advanced VOL. II. "I have received," said he, "from my "sister, a lock of Napoleon's hair, which is "of a beautiful black. If Hunt were here, should have half a dozen sonnets on it. "It is a valuable present; but, according "to my Lord Carlisle, I ought not to accept "it. I observe, in the newspapers of the 66 we 66 66 day, some lines of his Lordship's, advising Lady Holland not to have any thing to do "with the snuff-box left her by Napoleon, age her care, necessary to him.-It required all Lord Byron's interest with the British Envoy, as well as his own guarantee, to protect the Gambas at Genoa. But his own house at length ceased to be an asylum for them, and they were banished the Sardinian States a month before he sailed for Leghorn; whence, after laying in the supplies for his voyage, he directed his fatal course to the Morea. "for fear that horror and murder should "jump out of the lid every time it is opened! "It is a most ingenious idea-I give him 66 great credit for it." He then read me the first stanza, laughing in his usual suppressed way, 66 Lady, reject the gift," &c. and produced in a few minutes the following parody on it: 66 66 66 Lady, accept the box a hero wore, In spite of all this elegiac stuff: Let not seven stanzas, written by a bore, Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!" "When will my wise relation leave off verse-inditing?" said he. "I believe, of all manias, authorship is the most inveterate. "He might have learned by this time, in"deed many years ago, (but people never "learn any thing by experience,) that he "had mistaken his forte. There was an "epigram, which had some logic in it, com 66 posed on the occasion of his Lordship's doing two things in one day,-subscribing “10007. and publishing a sixpenny pam 66 phlet ! It was on the state of the theatre, "and dear enough at the money. The epi 66 gram I think I can remember: 'Carlisle subscribes a thousand pound Out of his rich domains; And for a sixpence circles round The produce of his brains. "Tis thus the difference you may hit Between his fortune and his wit.' “A man who means to be a poet should "do, and should have done all his life, "nothing else but make verses. There's |