"I have been thinking that it might be as well to publish no more of the Ode separately, but incorporate it with any of the other things, and include the smaller poem too (in that case)--which I must previously correct, nevertheless. I can't, for the head of me, add a line worth scribbling; my 'vein' is quite gone, and my present occupations are of the gymnastic order--boxing and fencing--and my principal conversation is with my macaw and Bayle. I want my Moreri, and I want Athenaeus. "P.S. I hope you sent back that poetical packet to the address which I forwarded to you on Sunday: if not, pray do; or I shall have the author screaming after his Epic." * * * * * LETTER 179. TO MR. MURRAY. "April 26. 1814. "I have no guess at your author,--but it is a noble poem[27], and worth a thousand odes of anybody's. I suppose I may keep this copy;--after reading it, I really regret having written my own. I say this very sincerely, albeit unused to think humbly of myself. "I don't like the additional stanzas at _all_, and they had better be left out. The fact is, I can't do any thing I am asked to do, however gladly I _would_; and at the end of a week my interest in a composition goes off. This will account to you for my doing no better for your 'Stamp Duty' postscript. "The S.R. is very civil--but what do they mean by Childe Harold resembling Marmion? and the next two, Giaour and Bride, _not_ resembling Scott? I certainly never intended to copy him; but, if there be any copyism, it must be in the two poems, where the same versification is adopted. However, they exempt The Corsair from all resemblance to any thing, though I rather wonder at his escape. "If ever I did any thing original, it was in Childe Harold, which _I_ prefer to the other things always, after the first week. Yesterday I re-read English Bards;--bating the _malice_, it is the _best_. "Ever," &c. [Footnote 27: A Poem by Mr. Stratford Canning, full of spirit and power, entitled "Buonaparte." In a subsequent note to Mr. Murray, Lord Byron says,--"I do not think less highly of 'Buonaparte' for knowing the author. I was aware that he was a man of talent, but did not suspect him of possessing _all_ the _family_ talents in such perfection."] * * * * *