(pp. 127, 128) occurs the following passage, from which, if Dallas's grammar is to be trusted, it seems that the famous epitaph on Blacket was not Byron's composition. Dallas

'"was persuaded by Mr. Pratt's warmth to see some sparkling of genius in the effusions of this young man (Blacket). It was upon this that Lord Byron and a young friend of his were sometimes playful in conversation, and in writing to me.
I see,' says the latter, 'that Blacket the Son of Crispin and Apollo is dead.' Looking into Boswell's Life of Johnson the other day, I saw, 'We were talking about the famous Mr. Wordsworth, the poetical Shoemaker.' Now, I never before heard that there had been a Mr. Wordsworth a Poet, a Shoemaker, or a famous man; and I dare say you have never heard of him. Thus it will be with Bloomfield and Blackett — their names two years after their death will be found neither on the rolls of Curriers' Hall nor of Parnassus. Who would think that anybody would be such a blockhead as to sin against an express proverb, Ne sutor ultra crepidam?

'But spare him, ye Critics, his follies are past,
For the Cobler is come, as he ought, to his last.'

Which two lines, with a scratch under last, to show where the joke lies, I beg that you will prevail on Miss Milbanke to have inserted on the tomb of her departed Blacket."

'But spare him, ye Critics, his follies are past,
For the Cobler is come, as he ought, to his last.'

It should be added that the shoemaking poet was not Wordsworth, but Woodhouse.

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[Footnote 3:]

Dallas called on Byron at Reddish's Hotel, St. James's Street, July 15, 1811, and received from him the MS. of

Hints from Horace

. Byron finished the work March 12, 1811, at the Franciscan Convent at Athens, where he found a copy of the

De Arte Poeticâ