Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury; what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;" but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who knew me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears, literary or personal: those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas! “the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days.

There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subaudi esquire ), a sizer of Emaruel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in "The Satirist" for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name, till coupled with "The Satirist." He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of "The Satirist," who, it seems, is a gentleman-God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr. Jerningham is about to take up the cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, "pour on, I will endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers, and, in the words of Scott, I wish

"To all and each a fair good night,

And rosy dreams and slumbers light."

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

immolat et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."

Eneid, lib. Ail

INTRODUCTION TO THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

MR. HOBHOUSE relates that, during a ten weeks' residence at Athens, Lord Byron and himself devoted a portion of every day to the contemplation of the relies of Grecian art. Full of classical enthusiasm, and feeling how much the locality and the monuments exalted one another, the poet was indignant at the spoliation of the Parthenon. In this mood he gave vent at Athens, in March, 1811, to the fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, which he prepared to publish on his return to England, and suppressed upon the remonstrance of the friends of his victim. He often asserted that he was free from malice, and that his satires were the product of a momentary spleen, but he also believed that they had greater spirit than all the rest of his writings, and his opinion of their vigour induced him to print them when the animosity was gone. It was easy on these occasions to turn him from his purpose, and the success of the two first cantos of "Childe Harold" removed much of the temptation to do to Lord Elgin as Lord Elgin had done to the Parthenon. The poet had stumbled upon another road to fame, and could afford to be generous, or more correctly, to be just. The marvels of sculpture which Lord Elgin brought from Athens were wrested, not from classic Greece, but from barbarism and decay. They were purchased by our Government in 1816 for thirty-five thousand pounds, and placed in the British Museum, where they will prolong the evidence of Grecian genius. The first authentic edition of "The Curse of Minerva was published in 1828, but in a letter of Lord Byron's, written in March, 1816, he speaks of a miserable and stolen copy, as having been printed in a Magazine. The opening paragraphs, which were considered by some of his friends the finest verses he composed during his absence from England, he intended to append, under the title of a Descriptive Fragment," to a future edition of "Childe Harold." He changed his purpose, and a little later made them the commencement of the third canto of "The Corsair." These splendid lines are pronounced by travellers a perfect picture of the scene, and they far transcend any other portion of "The Curse of Minerva," which contains, however, many vigorous couplets. Next in excellence to the brilliant beginning is the concluding paragraph, which depicts with poetic energy the possible consequences of a French invasion of our shores. The perverse pleasure he took in startling the public with anti-patriotic ebullitions, could alone have suggested the wild assertion that we deserved to be swept by the whirlwind we had raised. The strife, which he pretends originated with England, was kindled by the guilty ambition of France, and it is not we who were answerable for the miseries of wars which we waged in defence of ourselves and our allies.

66

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

ATHENS CAPUCHIN CONVENT, March 17, 1811.
SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Ægina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last.
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,

That closed their murder'd sage's' latest day!

Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.

Not yet not yet-Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before;
But ere he sunk below Citheron's head,
The cup of woe was quaff'd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The queen of night asserts her silent reign;*
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,

Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form.
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret :
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,'
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.

Again the Egean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,

Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

2 The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

[The Temple of Theseus is the most perfect ancient edifice in the world. In this fabric, the most enduring stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship. - HOBHOUSE.]