]
[125] ["Can't accept your courteous offer [_i.
[125] ["Can't accept your courteous offer [_i.
Byron
MURRAY.
1.
FOR Orford[123] and for Waldegrave[124]
You give much more than me you _gave_;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray!
2.
Because if a live dog, 't is said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth _two_ dead,
My Murray!
3.
And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose,--
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray!
4.
But now this sheet is nearly crammed,
So, if _you will_, _I_ shan't be shammed,
And if you _won't_,--_you_ may be damned,
My Murray! [125]
_August 23, 1821. _
[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 517. ]
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.
1.
FOR Orford[123] and for Waldegrave[124]
You give much more than me you _gave_;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray!
2.
Because if a live dog, 't is said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth _two_ dead,
My Murray!
3.
And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose,--
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray!
4.
But now this sheet is nearly crammed,
So, if _you will_, _I_ shan't be shammed,
And if you _won't_,--_you_ may be damned,
My Murray! [125]
_August 23, 1821. _
[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 517. ]
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.
