Compliments to Boswell

In a copy of Boswell’s “Tour to the Hebrides,” Horace Walpole wrote the following stinging lines:

“When Boozy Bozzy belched out Johnson’s Sayings,

And half the volume filled with his own Brayings,

Scotland beheld again before her pass

A Brutal Bulldog coupled with an Ass.”

Forbidden Fruit

Among the poems attributed to Lord Byron is one commencing with—

“What! the girl I adore by another embraced!”

Reference to the sentiments expressed in his poem “The Waltz” makes it probable that the lines came from his pen. The subject of waltzing serves as a reminder of an impromptu addressed by an indignant lover to his betrothed and her partner: