3.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.

4.

My life is not dated by years

There are moments which act as a plough,

And there is not a furrow appears

But is deep in my soul as my brow.

5.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain; For Sorrow has torn from my lyre

The string which was worthy the strain.

B.

[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635, 636.]

ARISTOMENES.1

CANTO FIRST.

I.

THE Gods of old are silent on their shore

Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar

Of the Ionian waters broke a dread Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty

Pan is dead."

How much died with him! false or true- the dream

Was beautiful which peopled every

stream

With more than finny tenants, and adorned

[Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian poet Rhianus, is the legendary hero of the second Messenian War (B.C. 685-668). Thrice he slew a hundred of the Spartan foe, and thrice he offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome. At the close of the second century of the Christian era, Pausanias made a note of Messenian maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedæmonians "From the heart of the plain he drove them, And he drove them back to the hill: To the top of the hill he drove them, As he followed them, followed them still!"]

Tra.

To speak ill?

Is that your deduction?

Ink. When speaking of Scamp ill, I certainly follow, not set an examplę. The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany. Tra. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.

[It is possible that the description of Hazlitt's Lectures of 1818 is coloured by recollections of Coleridge's Lectures of 1811-1812, which Byron attended, but the substance of the attack is probably derived from Gifford's review of Lectures on the English Poets (Quarterly Review, December, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 424-434.]

The Blue! Tra. The heiress! The angel! The devil! why, man,

Ink.

Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you

can.

You wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition:

She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician.'

Tra. I say she's an angel.
Ink.

Say rather an angle. If you and she marry, you'll certainly

wrangle.

I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.

Tra. And is that any cause for not coming together?

70

Ink. Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance

Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.

She's so learnéd in all things, and fond

of concerning

Herself in all matters connected with learning,

That

Tra.

Ink.

What?

I perhaps may as well hold my tongue;

But there's five hundred people can tell

you you're wrong.

Tra. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich

as a Jew.

Ink. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?

I ["Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella. She 18... very little spoiled. which is strange in an heiress. She is a poetessa mathematician - a metaphysician.” Journal, November 30, 1813, Letters, 1898. ii. 357-]

Tra. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you something of both.

The girl's a fine girl.

Ink. And you feel nothing loth 80 To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet

Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.

Tra. Let her live, and as long as she

likes; I demand Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.

Ink. Why, that heart's in the inkstand that hand on the pen. Tra. A propos Will you write me a song now and then? Ink. To what purpose? Tra.

You know, my dear friend, that in prose My talent is decent, as far as it goes; But in rhyme

Ink. You're a terrible stick, to be sure. Tra. I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure

90 For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two;

And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few?

Ink. In your name?
Tra.

In my name.

"I've bribed my Grandmother's Review the British."

Don Juan, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.]

To partake of a luncheon and learned conversation:

'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the days

Of his lecture, to treat him with cold tongue and praise.

140 And I own, for my own part, that 'tis not unpleasant.

Will you go? There's Miss Lilac will also be present.

No doubt

Tra. That "metal's attractive."
Ink.
to the pocket.
Tra. You should rather encourage
my passion than shock it.

But let us proceed; for I think by the hum

Ink. Very true; let us go, then, be

fore they can come,

Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levee,

On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy.

[The Journal de Trevoux, published under the title of Mémoires de Trévoux (1701-1775, 265 vols. 12°), edited by members of the Society of Jesus, was an imitation of the Journal des Savants.]

[The publication of the British Review was discontinued in 1825.]