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Though every error stamps me for her own,
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone;
Though my proud heart no precept now can tame,
I love the virtues which I cannot claim.

'T is not enough, with other sons of power,
To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour;
To swell some peerage page in feeble pride,
With long-drawn names that grace no page beside
Then share with titled crowds the common lot
In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot;
While nought divides thee from the vulgar dead,
Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head,
The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll,
That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll,
Where lords, unhonour'd, in the tomb may find
One spot, to leave a worthless name behind.
There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults
That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults,
A race, with old armorial lists o'erspread,
In records destined never to be read.
Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes,
Exalted more among the good and wise,
A glorious and a long career pursue,
As first in rank, the first in talent too:
Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun;
Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest son.
Turn to the annals of a former day;

Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display.
One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth,
And call'd, proud boast! the British drama forth.

;

1 ["Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was born in 1527. While a student of the Inner Temple, he wrote his tragedy of Gorbuduc, which was played before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, in 1561. This tragedy, and his contribution of the Induc

Another view, not less renown'd for wit;
Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit;
Bold in the field, and favour'd by the Nine;
In every splendid part ordain'd to shine;
Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng,
The pride of princes, and the boast of song.1
Such were thy fathers; thus preserve their name;
Not heir to titles only, but to fame.

The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close,
To me, this little scene of joys and woes;
Each knell of Time now warns me to resign [mine:
Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were
Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue,
And gild their pinions as the moments flew ;
Peace, that reflection never frown'd away,
By dreams of ill to cloud some future day;
Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell;
Alas! they love not long, who love so well.
To these adieu! nor let me linger o'er
Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore,
Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep,
Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot weep.

tion and legend of the Duke of Buckingham to the Mirror for Magistrates,' compose the poetical history of Sackville. The rest of it was political. In 1604, he was created Earl of Dorset by James I. He died suddenly at the council table, in consequence of a dropsy on the brain."- CAMPBELL.]

1 [Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, was born in 1637, and died in 1706. He was esteemed the most accomplished man of his day, and alike distinguished in the voluptuous court of Charles II. and the gloomy one of William III. He behaved with considerable gallantry in the sea-fight with the Dutch in 1665; on the day previous to which he is said to have composed his celebrated song, To all you Ladies now at Land.' His character has been drawn in the highest colours by Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve.]

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Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part
Of sad remembrance in so young a heart;
The coming morrow from thy youthful mind
Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind.
And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year,

Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere,
Since the same senate, nay, the same debate,
May one day claim our suffrage for the state,
We hence may meet, and pass each other by
With faint regard, or cold and distant eye.
For me, in future, neither friend nor foe,
A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe,
With thee no more again I hope to trace
The recollection of our early race;

No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,
Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice.
Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught

To veil those feelings which perchance it ought,

If these,

but let me cease the lengthen'd strain, -
Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain,
The guardian seraph who directs thy fate
Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.1

1805.

1["I have just been, or rather ought to be, very much shocked by the death of the Duke of Dorset. We were at school together, and there I was passionately attached to him. Since, we have never met, but once, I think, since 1805-and it would be a paltry affectation to pretend that I had any feeling for him worth the name. But there was a time in my life when this event would have broken my heart; and all I can say for it now is, that-it is not worth breaking. The recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not, set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands. — Byron Letters, 1815. (The verses referred to were those melancholy ones, beginning,

"There's not a joy the world can give, like those it takes away.")

FRAGMENT.

WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF MISS CHAWORTH.

HILLS of Annesley, bleak and barren,
Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,
How the northern tempests, warring,
Howl above thy tufted shade!

Now no more, the hours beguiling,
Former favourite haunts I see;
Now no more my Mary smiling
Makes ye seem a heaven to me. 1

1805.

[The circumstances which lent so peculiar an interest to Lord Byron's introduction to the family of Chaworth are explained in the "Notices of his Life," vol. i. p. 84. "The young lady herself combined," says Mr. Moore, "with the many worldly advantages that encircled her, much personal beauty, and a disposition the most amiable and attaching. Though already fully alive to her charms, it was as this period (1804) that the young poet seems to have drunk deepest of that fascination whose effects were to be so lasting six short weeks which he passed in her company being sufficient to lay the foundation of a feeling for all life. With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell of her on that hill near Annesley, which, in his poem of The Dream,' he describes so happily as crowned with à peculiar diadem."" In August, 1805, she was married to John Musters, Esq.; and died at Wiverton Hall, in February, 1832, in consequence, it is believed, of the alarm and danger to which she had been exposed during the sack of Colwick Hall by a party of rioters from Nottingham. The unfortunate lady had been in a feeble state of health for several years, and she and her daughter were obliged to take shelter from the violence of the mob in a shrubbery, where, partly from cold, partly from terror, her constitution sustained a shock which it wanted vigour to resist.]

GRANTA. A MEDLEY.

66 • Αργυρέαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα Κρατήσαις ; "

OH! Could Le Sage's 1 demon's gift
Be realised at my desire,

This night my trembling form he'd lift
To place it on St. Mary's spire

Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls
Pedantic inmates full display;
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls,
The price of venal votes to pay.

Then would I view each rival wight,
Petty and Palmerston survey;
Who canvass there with all their might,
Against the next elective day. 2

Lo! candidates and voters lie 3

All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number:

A race renown'd for piety,

Whose conscience won't disturb their slumber.

1 The Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for inspection.

2 [On the death of Mr. Pitt, in January, 1806, Lord Henry Petty and Lord Palmerston were candidates to represent the University of Cambridge in parliament.]

3 [In the private volume the fourth and fifth stanzas ran thus:

"One on his power and place depends,

The other on the Lord knows what!
Each to some eloquence pretends,
Though neither will convince by that.

"The first, indeed, may not demur

;,,

Fellows are sage reflecting men," &c.]

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