[109] The picture is taken from an original, preserved in Drake, in which William and his barons are thus represented. He is shown in the act of presenting his nephew Alain with the forfeited lands of Earl Edwin.
[110] Waltham is, literally, the Ham in the Wold.
[111] For this epitaph, see Speed.
ST JOHN IN PATMOS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
This poem was first published under the name of "One of the Living Poets of Great Britain." I have thought it best to revise and publish it in my own name, and as it is the last written by me, and the last I may ever live to write, I have added, from volumes long out of print, some selected verses of my earliest days of song.[112]
Since these were written, I have lived to hear the sounds of other harps, whose masters have struck far more sublime chords, and died. I have lived to see among them females[113] of the highest poetical rank, and many illustrious masters of the lyre, whose names I need not specify, crowned with younger and more verdant laurels, which they yet gracefully wear. Some who now rank high in the poet's art have acknowledged that their feelings were first excited by these youthful strains, which I have now, with melancholy feelings, revised for the last time.
It is a consolation that, from youth to age, I have found no line I wished to blot, or departed a moment from the severer taste which I imbibed from the simplest and purest models of classical composition.
Time—Four days.
Characters.—St John—Mysterious Stranger—Præfect of the Roman Guard—Robber of Mount Carmel, converted—Grecian Girl and Dying Libertine—Elders of Ephesus—Visions.