(5) LINES (’Morning Post’, February 11, 1814).

Suggested by perusing Lord Byron’s small Poem, at the end of his “Corsair” addressed to a Lady weeping, beginning: 

  “Weep, Daughter of a Royal Line.”

“To LORD BYRON.

  “Were he the man thy verse would paint,
    ‘A Sire’s disgrace, a realm’s decay;’
  Art thou the meek, the pious saint,
    That prates of feeling night and day?

  “Stern as the Pirate’s [1] heart is thine,
    Without one ray to cheer its gloom;
  And shall that Daughter once repine,
  Because thy rude, unhallow’d line,
    Would on her virtuous cause presume?

  “Hide, BYRON! in the shades of night—­
    Hide in thy own congenial cell
  The mind that would a fiend affright,
    And shock the dunnest realms of hell!

  “No; she will never weep the tears
    Which thou would’st Virtue’s deign to call;
  Nor will they, in remoter years,
    Molest her Father’s heart at all.

  “Dark-vision’d man! thy moody vein
  Tends only to thy mental pain,
  And cloud the talents Heav’n had meant
  To prove the source of true content;
  Much better were it for thy soul,
    Both here and in the realms of bliss,
  To check the glooms that now controul
  Those talents, which might still repay
  The wrongs of many a luckless day,
    In such a cheerless[2] clime as this.

  “But never strive to lure the heart
    From one to which ’tis ever nearest,
  Lest from its duty it depart,
    And shun the Pow’r which should be dearest: 
  For heav’n may sting thy heart in turn,
    And rob thee of thy sweetest treasure
  But, BYRON! thou hast yet to learn,
    That Virtue is the source of pleasure!”

TYRTÆUS.

G—­n-street, Feb. 9, 1814.

[Footnote 1:  ’The Corsair’.]

[Footnote 2:  In allusion to the general melancholy character of his Lordship’s poetical doctrines.]

(6) To LORD BYRON (’Morning Post’, February 15, 1814).

Occasioned by reading his Poem, at the end of ‘The Corsair’, beginning: 

  “Weep, Daughter of a Royal Line.”

  Shame on the verse that dares intrude
    On Virtue’s uncorrupted way—­
  That smiles upon Ingratitude,
    And charms us only to betray!

  For this does BYRON’S muse employ
    The calm unbroken hours of night? 
  And wou’d she basely thus destroy
    The source of all that’s just-upright?

  Traitor to every moral law! 
    Think what thy own cold heart wou’d feel,
  If some insidious mind should draw
    Thy daughter [1] from her filial zeal.

  And dost thou bid the offspring shun
    Its father’s fond, incessant care? 
  Why, every sister, sire, and son,
    Must loathe thee as the poison’d air!

  BYRON! thy dark, unhallow’d mind,
    Stor’d as it is with Atheist writ,
  Will surely, never, never find,
    One convert to admire its wit!

  Thou art a planet boding woe,
    Attractive for thy novel mien—­
  A calm, but yet a deadly foe,
    Most baneful when thou’rt most serene!

  Tho’ fortune on thy course may shine,
    Strive not to lead the mind astray,
  Nor let one impious verse of thine,
    The unsuspecting heart betray!

  But rather let thy talents aim
    To lead incautious youth aright;
  Thus shall thy works acquire that fame,
    Which ought to be thy chief delight.

  “The verse, however smooth it flow,
     Must be abhorr’d, abjur’d, despis’d,
   When Virtue feels a secret blow,
     And order finds her course surpris’d.”

HORATIO.

Fitzroy-square, Feb. 13.

[Footnote 1:  Supposing LORD BYRON to have a daughter.]

(7) To LORD BYRON (’Morning Post’, February 16, 1814).

  “Bard of the pallid front, and curling hair,
    To London taste, and northern critics dear,
   Friend of the dog, companion of the bear,
    APOLLO drest in trimmest Turkish gear.

  “’Tis thine to eulogize the fell Corsair,
     Scorning all laws that God or man can frame;
   And yet so form’d to please the gentle fair,
     That reading misses wish their Loves the same.

  “Thou prov’st that laws are made to aid the strong,
     That murderers and thieves alone are brave,
   That all religion is an idle song,
     Which troubles life, and leaves us at the grave.

  “That men and dogs have equal claims on Heav’n,
     Though dogs but bark, and men more wisely prate,
   That to thyself one friend alone was giv’n,
     That Friend a Dog, now snatch’d away by Fate.

  “And last can tell how daughters best may shew
     Their love and duty to their fathers dear,
   By reckoning up what stream of filial woe
     Will give to every crime a cleansing tear.

  “Long may’st thou please this wonder-seeking age,
     By MURRAY purchas’d, and by MOORE admir’d;
   May fashion never quit thy classic page,
     Nor e’er be with thy Turkomania tir’d.”

UNUS MULTORUM.

(8) VERSES ADDRESSED TO LORD BYRON (’Morning Post’, February 16, 1814).

 “Lord Byron!  Lord Byron! 
   Your heart’s made of iron,
  As hard and unfeeling as cold. 
   Half human, half bird,
   From Virgil we’ve heard,
  Were form’d the fam’d harpies of old.

  “Like those monsters you chatter,
    Friends and foes you bespatter,
  And dirty, like them, what you eat: 
    The Hollands, your muse
    Does most grossly abuse,
  Tho’ you feed on their wine and their meat.

  “Your friend, little Moore,
    You have dirtied before,
  But you know that in safety you write: 
    You’ve declared in your lines,
    That revenge he declines,
  For the poor little man will not fight.

  “At Carlisle you sneer,
    That worthy old Peer,
  Though united by every tie;
    But you act as you preach,
    And do what you teach,
  And your God and your duty defy.

  “As long as your aim
    Was alone to defame,
  The nearest relation you own;
    At your malice he smil’d,
    But he won’t see defil’d,
  By your harpy bespatt’rings, the Throne.”

(9) PATRONAGE EXTRAORDINARY (’Morning Post’, February 17, 1814).

“Procul este profani—!”

  “A friendship subsisted, no friendship was closer,
  ’Twixt the heir of a Peer and the son of a Grocer;
  ’Tis true, though so wide was their difference of station,
  For, we always find truth in a long dedication. 
  Atheistical doctrines in verse we are told,
  The former sold wholesale, was daring and bold;
  While the latter (whatever he offer’d for sale)
  Like papa, he disposed of—­of course by retail!
  First—­scraps of indecency, next disaffection,
  Disguised by the knave from his fear of detection;
  To court party favour, then, sonnets he wrote;
  Set political squibs to the harpsichord’s note. 
  One, as patron was chosen by his brother Poet,
  The Peer, to be sure, from his rank we may know it;
  Not the low and indecent composer of jigs—­
  Yes! yes! ’twas the son of the seller of Figs!! 
  Did the Peer then possess no respectable friend
  To add weight to his name, and his works recommend?! 
  Atheistical writings we well may believe,
  None of worth from the Author would deign to receive;
  So—­to cover the faults of his friend he essays,
  By daubing him thickly all over with praise. 
  But, parents, attend! if your daughters you love,
  The works of these serpents take care to remove: 
  Their infernal attacks from your mansions repel,
  Where filial affection and modesty dwell.”

VERAX.

(10) LORD BYRON (’Morning Post’, February 18, 1814).

If it was the object of Lord BYRON to stamp his character, and to bring his name forward by a single act of his life into general notoriety, it must be confessed that he has completely succeeded.  We do not recollect any former instance in which a Peer has stood forth as the libeller of his Sovereign.  If he disapproves the measures of his Ministers, the House of Parliament, in which he has an hereditary right to sit, is the place where his opinions may with propriety be uttered.  If he thinks he can avert any danger to his country by a personal conference with his Sovereign, he has a right to demand it.  The Peers are the natural advisers of the Crown, but the Constitution which has granted them such extraordinary privileges, makes it doubly criminal in them to attack the authority from which it is derived, and to insult the power which it is their peculiar province to uphold and protect.  What then must we think of the foolish vanity, or the bad taste of a titled Poet, who is the first to proclaim himself the Author of a Libel, because he is fearful it will not be sufficiently read without his avowal.  We perfectly remember having read the verses in question a year ago; but we could not then suppose them the offspring of patrician bile, nor should we now believe it without the Author’s special authority.  It seems by some late quotations from his Lordship’s works, which have been rescued from that oblivion to which they were hastening with a rapid step, by one of our co-equals, that this peerless Peer has already gone through a complete course of private ingratitude.  The inimitable Hogarth has traced the gradual workings of an unfeeling heart in his progress of cruelty.  He has shewn, that malevolence is progressive in its operation, and that a man who begins life by impaling flies, will find a delight in torturing his fellow creatures before he closes it.  We have heard that even at school these poetical propensities were strongly manifested in Lord BYRON, and that he began his satirical career against those persons to whom the formation of his mind was entrusted.  From his schoolmaster he turned the oestrum of his opening genius to his guardian and uncle, the Earl of CARLISLE.  We cannot believe that the Noble Person’s conduct has in this instance been a perfect contrast to the general tenor of his life.  We have heard, that during his guardianship he tripled the amount of his nephew’s fortune.  If the Earl of CARLISLE was satisfied with his own ‘conscia mens recti’, if he wanted no thanks, he must at least have been much surprised to find such attentions and services rewarded with a libel, in which not only his literary accomplishments, but his bodily infirmities, were made the subject of public ridicule.  The Noble Earl was certainly at liberty to treat such personal attacks with the contempt which they deserve, but since his Sovereign is become the object of a vile and unprovoked libel, he will no doubt draw the attention of his Peers to a new case of outrage to good order and government, which has been unfortunately furnished by his own nephew.