In his satire on “the first gentleman of Europe,” Byron was both less prolific and more savage than Moore. His satiric spirit, as usual, was stimulated by particular incidents which offered an opportunity for timely comment. It had been ascertained accidentally that Charles I had been buried in the vault with Henry VIII; and on April 1, 1813, the Regent was present at the opening of the coffins containing the ashes of the two sovereigns. This episode Byron made the theme of two short satires: _Windsor Poetics_, circulated in manuscript among his friends, but not printed until 1819; and the lines _On a Royal Visit to the Vaults_, published first in 1904. The point in both poems is the same--that George combines the vices of his two predecessors: “Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,-- In him the double tyrant starts to life.” In mentioning _Windsor Poetics_, the better of the two poems, to Moore, Byron confessed, with some discernment: “It is too _farouche_; but, truth to say, my satires are not very playful.”[159] The vindictive seriousness of Byron’s satire, as contrasted with Moore’s playfulness, is nowhere better shown than in the _Condolatory Address to Sarah, Countess of Jersey_, printed without his permission in the _Champion_, July 31, 1814, after it had been sent to the lady herself in a letter of May 29. Once a favorite of the Regent’s, Lady Jersey had incurred his dislike by her kindness to the deserted Princess of Wales, with the result that the Prince returned to Mrs. Mee, the painter, a miniature of the Countess, and announced his intention of ignoring her. Byron, who had been more than once the guest of Lady Jersey, saw a chance to strike a blow in her defense by assailing the Regent, and his lines on that ruler are scathing: “If he, that Vain Old Man, whom truth admits Heir of his father’s crown, and of his wits, If his corrupted eye and withered heart, Could with thy gentle image bear to part; That tasteless shame be _his_, and ours the grief To gaze on Beauty’s band without its chief.” In satire of this sort there is nothing sportive or delicate; it is sheer invective of the kind which Byron had used on Clarke and was to employ against Castlereagh. Byron never became reconciled to the Regent, not even when, as George IV, the latter ascended the throne. Indeed what is probably the poet’s most bitter estimate of his sovereign was sent in a letter to Moore on September 17, 1821--the lines now entitled _The Irish Avatar_. Queen Caroline had died on August 7, 1821, shortly after the failure of her husband to secure a divorce, and not over a week later, the king was feasted with regal pomp at Dublin by the servile Irish office-holders. The combination of circumstances was fit material for satire, and Byron spoke out in stanzas that ring with rage and contempt:--