[59] "The Genuine Rejected Addresses, presented to the Committee of Management for Drury Lane Theatre: preceded by that written by Lord Byron and adopted by the Committee:"—published by B. M'Millan.
[60] In the Ode entitled "The Parthenon," Minerva thus speaks:—
"All who behold my mutilated pile
Shall brand its ravager with classic rage;
And soon a titled bard from Britain's isle
Thy country's praise and suffrage shall engage,
And fire with Athens' wrongs an angry age!"
HORACE IN LONDON.
"Tis said that persons living on annuities
Are longer lived than others,—God knows why,
Unless to plague the grantors,—yet so true it is,
That some, I really think, do never die.
Of any creditors, the worst a Jew it is;
And that's their mode of furnishing supply:
In my young days they lent me cash that way,
Which I found very troublesome to pay."
DON JUAN, Canto II
[62] Lady Charlotte Harley, to whom, under the name of Ianthe, the introductory lines to Childe Harold were afterwards addressed.
[63] The following are the lines in their present shape, and it will be seen that there is not a single alteration in which the music of the verse has not been improved as well as the thought:—
"Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.
There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That wakes and wafts the odours there!"
[64] Mr. Jeffrey.
[65] In Dallaway's Constantinople, a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies's History of Greece, which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius:—"The present state of Greece compared to the ancient is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life."