Vain as their honours, heavy as their ale, To friendship dead, though not untaught to feel 1806. TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER. SWEET girl! though only once we met, of under-graduates, take up a poker to them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times I saw him went. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents; as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot: and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication. -1818.] (1) Since this was written, Lord Henry Petty has lost his place, and subsequently (I had almost said consequently) the honour of representing the University. A fact so glaring requires no comment. [Lord Henry Petty is now Marquess of Lansdowne. — - E.] I would not say, "I love," but still My senses struggle with my will: In vain, to drive thee from my breast, What though we never silence broke, And hush the mandates of the heart; repress, No spirit, from within, reproved us, Thy form appears through night, through day: In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams; And bids me curse Aurora's ray For breaking slumbers of delight Which make me wish for endless night. Alas! again no more we meet, 66 May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker, That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her, THE CORNELIAN. (2) No specious splendour of this stone Endears it to my memory ever; (1) These verses were written at Harrowgate, in August 1806.-E. (2) The cornelian of these verses was given to Lord Byron by the Cambridge chorister, Eddlestone, whose musical talents first introduced him to With lustre only once it shone, And blushes modest as the giver. (1) Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, For I am sure the giver loved me. He offer'd it with downcast look, the young poet's acquaintance, and for whom he appears to have entertained, subsequently, a sentiment of the most romantic friendship.-E. (1) In a letter to Miss Pigot, of Southwell, written in June, 1807, Lord Byron thus describes Eddlestone:-" He is exactly to an hour two years younger than myself, nearly my height, very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. My opinion of his mind you already know; I hope I shall never have occasion to change it." Eddlestone, on leaving his choir, entered into a mercantile house in the metropolis, and died of a consumption, in 1811. Lord Byron, on hearing of his death, thus writes to the mother of his fair correspondent:—“I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember a cornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss Pigot, indeed gave to her, and now I am about to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, is dead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss Pigot should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him who formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last, of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one,-making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August.". The cornelian heart was returned accordingly; and, indeed, Miss Pigot reminded Lord Byron that he had left it with her as a deposit, not a gift. It is now in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh. — E. I told him when the gift I took, This pledge attentively I view'd, And sparkling as I held it near, Methought one drop the stone bedew'd, And ever since I've loved a tear. Still, to adorn his humble youth, Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield; But he who seeks the flowers of truth, Must quit the garden for the field. "Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth, Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume; The flowers which yield the most of both In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. Had Fortune aided Nature's care, But had the goddess clearly seen, His form had fix'd her fickle breast; Her countless hoards would his have been, And none remain'd to give the rest. |