][126]
LADY, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff:
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!
LADY, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff:
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!
Byron
]
FOOTNOTES:
[123] [Horace Walpole's _Memoirs of the Last Nine Years of the Reign of
George II. _ ]
[124] [_Memoirs_ by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when
Prince of Wales. ]
[125] ["Can't accept your courteous offer [_i. e. _ ? 2000 for three cantos
of _Don Juan, Sardanapalus_, and _The Two Foscari_. ] These matters must
be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of
honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you
might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season'--'flat
public'--'don't go off'--'lordship writes too much'--'won't take
advice'--'declining popularity'--'deductions for the trade'--'make very
little'--'generally lose by him'--'pirated edition'--'foreign
edition'--'severe criticisms,' etc. , with other hints and howls for an
oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer. "--Letter to
Murray, August 23, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 348. ]
[NAPOLEON'S SNUFF-BOX.
][126]
LADY, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff:
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!
1821.
[First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, p. 235. ]
FOOTNOTES:
[126] [Napoleon bequeathed to Lady Holland a snuff-box which had been
given to him by the Pope for his clemency in sparing Rome. Lord Carlisle
wrote eight (not seven) stanzas, urging her, as Byron told Medwin, to
decline the gift, "for fear that horror and murder should jump out of
the lid every time it is opened. "--_Conversations_, 1824, p. 362. The
first stanza of Lord Carlyle's verses, which _teste_ Medwin, Byron
parodied, runs thus--
"Lady, reject the gift! 'tis tinged with gore!
Those crimson spots a dreadful tale relate;
It has been grasp'd by an infernal Power;
And by that hand which seal'd young Enghien's fate. "
The snuff-box is now in the jewel-room in the British Museum. ]
THE NEW VICAR OF BRAY.
1.
DO you know Doctor Nott? [127]
With "a crook in his lot,"
Who seven years since tried to dish up
A neat Codi_cil_
To the Princess's Will,[128]
Which made Dr.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] [Horace Walpole's _Memoirs of the Last Nine Years of the Reign of
George II. _ ]
[124] [_Memoirs_ by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when
Prince of Wales. ]
[125] ["Can't accept your courteous offer [_i. e. _ ? 2000 for three cantos
of _Don Juan, Sardanapalus_, and _The Two Foscari_. ] These matters must
be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of
honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you
might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season'--'flat
public'--'don't go off'--'lordship writes too much'--'won't take
advice'--'declining popularity'--'deductions for the trade'--'make very
little'--'generally lose by him'--'pirated edition'--'foreign
edition'--'severe criticisms,' etc. , with other hints and howls for an
oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer. "--Letter to
Murray, August 23, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 348. ]
[NAPOLEON'S SNUFF-BOX.
][126]
LADY, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff:
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent your Ladyship from taking snuff!
1821.
[First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, p. 235. ]
FOOTNOTES:
[126] [Napoleon bequeathed to Lady Holland a snuff-box which had been
given to him by the Pope for his clemency in sparing Rome. Lord Carlisle
wrote eight (not seven) stanzas, urging her, as Byron told Medwin, to
decline the gift, "for fear that horror and murder should jump out of
the lid every time it is opened. "--_Conversations_, 1824, p. 362. The
first stanza of Lord Carlyle's verses, which _teste_ Medwin, Byron
parodied, runs thus--
"Lady, reject the gift! 'tis tinged with gore!
Those crimson spots a dreadful tale relate;
It has been grasp'd by an infernal Power;
And by that hand which seal'd young Enghien's fate. "
The snuff-box is now in the jewel-room in the British Museum. ]
THE NEW VICAR OF BRAY.
1.
DO you know Doctor Nott? [127]
With "a crook in his lot,"
Who seven years since tried to dish up
A neat Codi_cil_
To the Princess's Will,[128]
Which made Dr.
