Not to the aching frame alone confined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind:
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe,
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow,
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appall'd, and clings to life!
Yet less the pang when, through the tedious hour,
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given,
When love was bliss, and beauty form'd our heaven;
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As, when through clouds that pour the summer
The orb of day unveils his distant form, [storm,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain,
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays;
Still, rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought,
Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought;
My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields,
And roams romantic o'er her airy fields;
Scenes of my youth, developed, crowd to view,
To which I long have bade a last adieu!
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes;
Friends lost to me for aye, except in dreams;
Some who in marble prematurely sleep,
Whose forms I now remember but to weep;
Some who yet urge the same scholastic course
Of early science, future fame the source;
Who, still contending in the studious race,
In quick rotation fill the senior place.
These with a thousand visions now unite,

To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight.(1)
IDA! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,
How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train!
Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,
Again I mingle with thy playful quire ;

fering under severe i'lness and depression of spirits. "I was
laid," he says, " on my back when that schoolboy thing was
written, or rather dictated-expecting to rise no more, my
physician having taken his sixteenth fee." In the private vo-
lume the poem opened with the following lines: –

"Hence! thou unvarying song of varied loves,
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves ;
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote,
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note.
Tired of the dull, unceasing, copious strain,
My soul is panting to be free again.
Farewell! ye nymphs propitious to my verse,
Some other Damon will your charms rehearse,
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss,
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight,
No more entrance my senses in delight;
Those bosoms, form d of animated snow,
Alike are tasteless and unfeeling now.
These to some happier lover I resign-
The memory of those joys lone is mine,

Our tricks of mischief, every childish game,
Unchanged by time or distance, seem the same;
Through winding paths along the glade, I trace
The social smile of every welcome face;
My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe,
Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe,
Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past:-
I bless the former, and forgive the last.
Hours of my youth! when, nurtured in my breast,
To love a stranger, friendship made me blest;
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth,
When every artless bosom throbs with truth;
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign,
And check each impulse with prudential rein;
When all we feel, our honest souls disclose-
In love to friends, in open hate to foes;
No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat,
No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit.
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years,
Matured by age, the garb of prudence wears.
When now the boy is ripen'd into man,
His careful sire chalks forth some wary plan;
Instructs his son from candour's path to shrink,
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think;
Still to assent, and never to deny—

A patron's praise can well reward the lie:
And who, when Fortune's warning voice is heard,
Would lose his opening prospects for a word;
Although against that word his heart rebel,
And truth indignant all his bosom swell?

Away with themes like this! not mine the task
From flattering fiends to tear the hateful mask;
Let keener bards delight in satire's sting;
My fancy soars not on Detraction's wing:
Once, and but once, she aim'd a deadly blow,
To hurl defiance on a secret foe;

But when that foe, from feeling or from shame,
The cause unknown, yet still to me the same,
Warn'd by some friendly hint perchance, retired,
With this submission all her rage expired :
From dreaded pangs that feeble foe to save,
She hush'd her young resentment, and forgave.

Censure no more shall brand my humble name,
The child of passion and the fool of fame.
Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen.
World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast:
One sigh I give thee, but that sigh's the last,
Friends, foes, and females, now alike adieu!
Would I could add remembrance of you too!
Yet though the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The curse of memory, hovering in my dreams,
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years,
Ere yet my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears;
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
"Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought;
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought:
My soul to Fancy's," etc., etc., as at line 29.-E.
(1) The next fifty-six lines, to-

"Here first remember'd be the joyous band,"

were added in the first edition of Hours of Idleness. — E.

Of my muse a pedant's portrait drew,
POMPOSUS' (1) virtues are but known to few:
I never fear'd the young usurper's nod,

And he who wields must sometimes feel the rod.
If since on Granta's failings, known to all
Who share the converse of a college hall,
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain,
'T is past, and thus she will not sin again;
Soon must her early song for ever cease,
And all may rail when I shall rest in peace.

Here first remember'd be the joyous band,
Who hail'd me chief, (2) obedient to command;
Who join'd whith me in every boyish sport-
Their first adviser, and their last resort;
Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant's frown,
Or all the sable glories of his gown;
Who, thus transplanted from his father's school-
Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule-
Succeeded him whom all unite to praise,
The dear preceptor of my early days;

PROBUS (3), the pride of science, and the boast,
TO IDA now, alas! for ever lost.

With him, for years, we search'd the classic page,
And fear'd the master, though we loved the sage;
Retired at last, his small yet peaceful seat
From learning's labour is the blest retreat.
POMPOSUS fills his magisterial chair;
POMPOSUS governs,—but, my muse! forbear: (4)
Contempt, in silence, be the pedant's lot;
His name and precepts be alike forgot;

No more his mention shall my verse degrade,

To him my tribute is already paid.

To her awhile resigns her youthful train,
Who move in joy, and dance along the plain;
In scatter'd groups each favour'd haunt pursue;
Repeat old pastimes, and discover new;
Flush'd with his rays, beneath the noontide sun,
In rival bands, between the wickets run,
Drive o'er the sward the ball with active force,
Or chase with nimble feet its rapid course.
But these with slower steps direct their way,
Where Brent's cool waves in limpid currents stray;
While yonder few search out some green retreat,
And arbours shade them from the summer heat :
Others, again, a pert and lively crew,
Some rough and thoughtless stranger placed in view,
With frolic quaint their antic jests expose,
And tease the grumbling rustic as he goes;
Nor rest with this, but many a passing fray
Tradition treasures for a future day :- [fought,
"Twas here the gather'd swains for vengeance
And here we earn'd the conquest dearly bought;
Here have we fled before superior might,
And here renew'd the wild tumultuous fight."
While thus our souls with early passions swell,
In lingering tones resounds the distant bell;
The allotted hour of daily sport is o'er,
And Learning beckons from her temple's door.
No splendid tablets grace her simple hall,
But ruder records fill the dusky wall;
There, deeply carved, behold! each tyro's name
Secures its owner's academic fame;

Here, mingling, view the names of sire and son-
The one long graved, the other just begun :
These shall survive alike when son and sire

High, through those elms, with hoary branches Beneath one common stroke of fate expire: (5)

crown'd,

"If once my muse a harsher portrait drew,

Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true, By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,With noble minds a fault confess'd atones."-E. (2) When Dr. Drury retired, in 1805, three candidates presented themselves for the vacant chair, Messrs. Drury, Evans, and Butler. "On the first movement to which this contest gave rise in the school, young Wildman," says Moore," was at the head of the party for Mark Drury, while Byron held himself aloof from any. Anxious, however, to have him as an ally, one of the Drury faction said to Wildman- Byron, I know, will not join, because he does not choose to act second to any one, but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may at once secure him.'" This Wildman accordingly did, and Byron took the command.-E.

(3) Dr. Drury. This most able and excellent man retired from his situation in March, 1805, after having resided thirtyfive years at Harrow; the last twenty as head-master; an office he held with equal honour to himself and advantage to the very extensive school over which he presided. Panegyric would here be

Perhaps their last memorial these alone,
Denied in death a monumental stone,
Whilst to the gale in mournful cadence wave
The sighing weeds that hide their nameless grave.

superfluous it would be useless to enumerate qualifications
which were never doubted. A considerable contest took place
between three rival candidates for his vacant chair: of this I can
only say,

Si mea cum vestris valuissent vota, Pelasgi!
Non foret ambiguus tanti certaminis hæres.

[Such was Byron's parting eulogy on Dr. Drury. It may be in-
teresting to see by the side of it the Doctor's own account of his
pupil, when first committed to his care: "I took," says the
Doctor," my young disciple into my study, and endeavoured to
bring him forward by inquiries as to his former amusements, em-
ployments, and associates, but with little or no effect; and I soon
found that a wild mountain colt had been submitted to my ma-
nagement. But there was mind in his eye. His manner and temper
soon convinced me, that he might be led by a silken string to a
point, rather than by a cable;-and on that principle I acted."—E.]
(4) To this passage, had Lord Byron published another edition
of Hours of Idleness, it was his intention to give the following

turn.

"Another fills his magisterial chair;

Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;

Oh! may like honours crown his future name :
If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."- E.

(5) During a rebellion at Harrow, the poet prevented the school

And here my name, and many an early friend's,
Along the wall in lengthen'd line extends.
Though still our deeds amuse the youthful race,
Who tread our steps, and fill our former place,
Who young obey'd their lords in silent awe;
Whose nod commanded, and whose voice was law;
And now, in turn, possess the reins of power,
To rule, the little tyrants of an hour;—
Though sometimes, with the tales of ancient day,
They pass the dreary winter's eve away :-
"And thus our former rulers stemm'd the tide,
And thus they dealt the combat side by side;
Just in this place the mouldering walls they scaled,
Nor bolts nor bars against their strength avail'd; (1)
Here PROBUS came, the rising fray to quell,
And here he falter'd forth his last farewell;
And here one night abroad they dared to roam,
While bold POMPOSUS bravely staid at home!",
While thus they speak, the hour must soon arrive,
When names of these, like ours, alone survive :
Yet a few years, one general wreck will whelm
The faint remembrance of our fairy realm.

Dear honest race! though now we meet no more,
One last long look on what we were before-
Our first kind greetings, and our last adieu-—
Drew tears from eyes unused to weep with you.
Through splendid circles, fashion's gaudy world,
Where folly's glaring standard waves unfurl'd,
I plunged to drown in noise my fond regret,
And all I sought or hoped was to forget.

Vain wish! if chance some well-remember'd face,
Some old companion of my early race,

Advanced to claim his friend with honest joy,
My eyes, my heart, proclaim'd me still a boy;
The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around,
Were quite forgotten when my friend was found:
The smiles of beauty-(for, alas! I've known
What 'tis to bend before Love's mighty throne)-
The smiles of beauty, though those smiles were dear,
Could hardly charm me, when that friend was near:
My thoughts bewilder'd in the fond surprise,
The woods of IDA danced before my eyes :
I saw the sprightly wanderers pour along,
I saw and join'd again the joyous throng;
Panting, again I traced her lofty grove,
And friendship's feelings triumph'd over love. (2)
Yet, why should I alone with such delight
Retrace the circuit of my former flight?
Is there no cause beyond the common claim
Endear'd to all in childhood's very name?
Ah! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,
Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear
To one who thus for kindred hearts must roam,
And seek abroad the love denied at home.
Those hearts, dear IDA, have I found in thee-
A home, a world, a paradise to me.
Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to share
The tender guidance of a father's (3) care.
Can rank, or e'en a guardian's name, supply
The love which glistens in a father's eye?
For this can wealth or title's sound atone,
Made, by a parent's early loss, my own?
What brother springs a brother's love to seek ?
What sister's gentle kiss has prest my cheek?

room from being burnt down, by pointing out to the boys the reprobation, for which the ascertained facts of his history afford names of their fathers and grandfathers on the walls.-E.

(1) Lord Byron elsewhere thus describes his usual course of life while at Harrow: "Always cricketing, rebelling, rowing, and in all manner of mischiefs." One day, in a fit of defiance, he tore down all the gratings from the window of the hall ; and when called upon by Dr. Butler to say why he had committed this violence, answered, with stern coolness, "because they darkened the room."-E. (2) This description of what the young poet felt in 1806, on encountering in the world any of his former schoolfellows, falls far shot of the page in which he records an accidental meeting with Lord Clare, on the road between Imola and Bologna, in 1821. "This meeting," he says, "annihilated for a moment all the years between the present time and the days of Harrow. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like rising from the grave, to me. Clare, too, was much agitated — more in appearance than was myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his finger's ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. We were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against them." We may also quote the following interesting sentences of Madame Guiccioli:-" In 1822 (says she), a few days before leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo Lanfranchi. At this moment a servant announced Mr. Hobbouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it almost deprived him of strength. A fearful paleness came over his cheeks, and his eyes were filled with tears as he embraced his friend : his emotion was so great that he was forced to sit down."- E.

(3) In all the lives of Lord Byron hitherto published, the character of the poet's father has been alluded to in terms of unmitigated

but a slender pretext. He had, like his son, the misfortune of being brought up by a mother alone-Admiral Byron, his father, being kept at a distance from his family by professional duties. His education was completed at a foreign military academy, not, in those days at least, a very favourable school; and from this, on receiving a commission in the Coldstream Guards, he was plunged, while yet a boy, into all the temptations to which a person of singular beauty, and manners of the most captivating grace, can expose the heir of a noble name in our luxurious metropolis. The unfortunate intrigue, which has been gravely talked of as marking his character with something like horror, occurred when he was hardly of age. At all events, as Captain Byron, who died in his thirty-fifth year, could have had no influence in determining the course of his son's education or pursuits, it is difficult to understand on what grounds his personal qualities have been made the theme of discussion, to say nothing of angry vituperation, either in Memoirs of Lord B. or Reviews of those Memoirs.

Some unworthy reflections on the subject were hazarded in a biographical sketch of the noble Poet, prefixed to a French translation of one of his works, which appeared very shortly before ho left Genoa for Greece; and the remarks which these drew from the son at the time will probably go far to soften the general impression respecting the father. As the letter which Lord Byron addressed to the gentleman who had forwarded the offensive tract from Paris has not hitherto been printed, and was probably the last he wrote before quitting Italy, we make no apology for the length of the following extract :

"Genoa, 10 th July, 1823.

"As to the Essay, etc., I have nothing to object to it, with regard to what concerns myself personally, though naturally there

For me how dull the vacant moments rise,
To no fond bosom link'd by kindred ties!
Oft, in the progress of some fleeting dream,
Fraternal smiles collected round me seem;
While still the visions to my heart are prest,
The voice of love will murmur in my rest :
I hear I wake-and in the sound rejoice;
I hear again, but, ah! no brother's voice.
A hermit, 'midst of crowds, I fain must stray
Alone, though thousand pilgrims fill the way;
While these a thousand kindred wreaths entwine,
I cannot call one single blossom mine:
What then remains? in solitude to groan,
To mix in friendship, or to sigh alone.(1)
Thus must I cling to some endearing hand,
And none more dear than IDA'S social band.
ALONZO! (2) best and dearest of my friends,
Thy name ennobles him who thus commends:

From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise;
The praise is his who now that tribute pays.
Oh! in the promise of thy early youth,
If hope anticipate the words of truth,
Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name,
To build his own upon thy deathless fame.
Friend of my heart! and foremost of the list
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest,
Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore;
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more.
Yet,when confinement's lingering hour was done,(3)
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one :
Together we impell'd the flying ball;
Together waited in our tutor's hall;
Together join'd in cricket's manly toil,
Or shared the produce of the river's spoil;
Or, plunging from the green declining shore,
Our pliant limbs the buojant billows bore;

evil pleases him; but I desire that he should speak of my relations only as they deserve. If you could find an occasion of making him rectify the facts relative to my father, and publish them, you would do me a great service; for I cannot bear to have him unjustly spokon of.

"P.S.-The 11th or 12th of this month I shall embark for Greece. Should I return, I shall pass through Paris, and shall be much flattered in meeting you and your friends. Should I not return, give me as affectionate a place in your remembrance as possible."-E.

(1) It has been reserved for our own time to produce one distinguished example of the Muse having descended upon a bard of a wounded spirit, and lent her lyre to tell, and we trust to soothe, afflictions of no ordinary description; afflictions originating probably in that singular combination of feeling which has been called the poetical temperament, and which has so often saddened the days of these on whom it has been conferred. If ever a man could lay claim to that character in all its strength and all its weakness, with its unbounded range of enjoyment, and its exquisite sensibility of pleasure and of pain, it must certainly be granted to Lord Byron. His own tale is partly told in two lines of Lara: 'Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,

are some of the facts in it discoloured, and several errors into
which the author has been led by the accounts of others. I allude
to facts, and not criticisms. But the same author has cruelly ca-
umniated my father and my grand-uncle, but more especially the
former. So far from being brutal,' he was according, to the testi-
mony of all who knew him, of an extremely amiable and joyous
character, but careless and dissipated. He had consequently the
reputation of a good officer, and showed himself such in America.
The facts themselves refute the assertion. It is not by' bruta-
lity' that a young officer of the guards seduces and carries off a
Marchioness, and marries two heiresses. It is true that he was
a very handsome man, which goes a good way. His first wife
(Lady Conyers and Marchioness of Carmarthen) did not die of
grief, but of a malady which she caught by having imprudently
insisted upon accompanying my father to a hunt, before she was
completely recovered from the accouchement which gave birth to
my sister Augusta. His second wife, my respectable mother, had,
I assure you, too proud a spirit to bear with the ill usage of any
man, no matter who he might be; and this she would have soon
proved. I should add, that he lived a long time at Paris, and was
in habits of intimacy with the old Marshal Byron, commandant of
the French guards, who, from the similarity of names, and Nor-
man origin of our family, supposed that there was some distant
relationship between us. He died some years before the age of
forty; and whatever may have been his faults, they were certainly
not those of harshness and grossness. If the notice should reach
England, I am certain that the passage relative to my father will
give much more pain to my sister even than to me. Augusta and
I have always loved the memory of our father as much as we
loved each other; and this at least forms a presumption, that the
stain of harshness was not applicable to it. If he dissipated his
fortune, that concerns us alone, for we are his heirs; and till we
reproach him with it, I know no one else who has a right to do so.
"As to the I ord Byron who killed Mr. Chaworth in a duel,
so far from retiring from the world, he made the tour of Eu-
rope, and was appointed Master of the Stag-hounds, after
that event; and did not give up society until his son had
offended him by marrying in a manner contrary to his duty.
So far from feeling any remorse for having killed Mr. Cha-
worth, who was a spadassin, and celebrated for his quarrel-
some disposition, he always kept the sword which he used
upon that occasion in his bedchamber, and there it still was
when he died. It is singular enough, that when very young,
I formed a strong attachment for the grand-niece and heiress
of Mr. Chaworth, who stood in the sa e degree of relation-
ship as myself to Lord Byron; and at one time it was thought
that a union would have taken place. This is a long letter,
and principally about my family; but it is the fault of my be-
nevolent biographer. He may say of me whatever of good or enumerated."-Moore.

Lord of himself-that heritage of woe!" Sir Walter Scott.-L.
(2) The Hon. John Wingfield, of the Coldstream Guards,
brother to Richard, fourth Viscount Powerscourt. He died of
a fever, in his twentieth year, at Coimbra, May 14th 1811.-
"Of all human beings," says Lord Byron, "I was, perhaps,
at one time the most attached to poor Wingfield. I had known
him the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine.”
On hearing of the death of his beloved schoolfel ow, he added
the following stanzas to the first canto of Childe Harold :—
And thou, my friend!-since unavailing'woe
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain-
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid ev'n Friendship to complain:
But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain,
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
While Glory crowns so many a meaner erest!
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest?

"Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,

In dreams deny me not to see thee here!" etc.- E.
(3)" There needs no better record of his mode of life as a
schoolboy, than what these fondly circumstantial effusions
supply. Thus the sports he delighted and excelled in are here