"And since not ev'n our Rogers' praise To common sense his thoughts could raise-- Why _would_ they let him print his lays? 3. * * * * 4. * * * * 5. "To me, divine Apollo, grant--O! Hermilda's first and second canto, I'm fitting up a new portmanteau; 6. "And thus to furnish decent lining, My own and others' bays I'm twining-- So gentle T * *, throw me thine in." [Footnote 63: The following are the lines in their present shape, and it will be seen that there is not a single alteration in which the music of the verse has not been improved as well as the thought:-- "Fair clime! where every season smiles Benignant o'er those blessed isles, Which, seen from far Colonna's height, Make glad the heart that hails the sight, And lend to loneliness delight. There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek Reflects the tints of many a peak Caught by the laughing tides that lave These Edens of the eastern wave: And if at times a transient breeze Break the blue crystal of the seas, Or sweep one blossom from the trees, How welcome is each gentle air That wakes and wafts the odours there!" ] [Footnote 64: Mr. Jeffrey.] [Footnote 65: In Dallaway's Constantinople, a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies's History of Greece, which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius:--"The present state of Greece compared to the ancient is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life."] [Footnote 66: Among the recorded instances of such happy after-thoughts in poetry may be mentioned, as one of the most memorable, Denham's four lines, "Oh could I flow like thee," &c., which were added in the second edition of his poem.] [Footnote 67: Letters on the Character and Poetical Genius of Lord Byron, by Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart.] [Footnote 68: "Continuus aspectus minus verendos magnos homines facit."] [Footnote 69: The only peculiarity that struck me on those occasions was the uneasy restlessness which he seemed to feel in wearing a hat,--an article of dress which, from his constant use of a carriage while in England, he was almost wholly unaccustomed to, and which, after that year, I do not remember to have ever seen upon him again. Abroad, he always wore a kind of foraging cap.] [Footnote 70: He here alludes to a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, of which I have elsewhere given the following account:--