Though every error stamps me for her own, 'T is not enough, with other sons of power, Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display. ; 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; The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, 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.] Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, No more, as once, in social hours rejoice, To veil those feelings which perchance it ought, If these, but let me cease the lengthen'd strain, - 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, Now no more, the hours beguiling, 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 This night my trembling form he'd lift Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls Then would I view each rival wight, 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! "The first, indeed, may not demur ;,, Fellows are sage reflecting men," &c.] |