Page 121. On the Arrival in England of Lord Byron's Remains.
From a MS. book of William Ayrton's. In The New Times, October 24, 1825, the verses followed the "Ode to the Treadmill." The epigram, which was unsigned, then ran thus:—
THE POETICAL CASK
With change of climate manners alter not:
Transport a drunkard—he'll return a sot.
So lordly Juan, d——d to endless fame,
Went out a pickle—and comes back the same.
Lord Byron's body had been brought home from Greece, for burial at Hucknall Torkard, in 1824, and the cause of the epigram was a paragraph in The New Times of October 19, 1825, stating that the tub in which Byron's remains came home was exhibited by the captain of the Rodney for 2s. 6d. a head; afterwards sold to a cooper in Whitechapel; resold to a museum; and finally sold again to a cooper in Middle New Street, who was at that time using it as an advertisement.
The third line recalls Pope's line—
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame.
Essay on Man, IV., 284.
Page 121. Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross.
First printed in the Englishman's Magazine, September, 1831. Lamb sent the epigram to Barton in a letter in November, 1827. The body of Caroline of Brunswick, the rejected wife of George IV., was conveyed through London only by force—involving a fatal affray between the people and the Life Guards at Hyde Park corner—on its way to burial at Brunswick.