It is in _The Waltz_ that Byron for the first time manifests the ability to deal with political questions in a lighter vein, in a manner something like that of Moore. He alludes, for instance, to the Regent’s well-known preference for ladies of a mature age: “And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will It is to love the lovely beldames still.” This topic Moore touched upon frequently, particularly in _Intercepted Letters_, II, from Major M’Mahon, the Regent’s parasite and pander, and in _The Fudge Family in Paris_, Letter X, in which Biddy Fudge says, “The Regent loves none but old women you know.” A note to line 162 of _The Waltz_ has a joking reference to the Regent’s whiskers, an adornment which had excited Moore’s merriment, especially in his “rejected drama,” _The Book_, appended to Letter VII of _Intercepted Letters_. The fact that the dance is an importation from Germany allows Byron to sum up ironically what England owes to that country: “A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen--and Waltz.” The body of the satire is occupied with a description of the dance itself, given in lines which are too often more prurient and suggestive than the waltz could possibly have been. Byron is here surely not at his best, and his coarseness is not extenuated by his alleged moral purpose. Weiser’s judgment that _The Waltz_ is the ripest of Byron’s youthful poems will, to most critics, seem unwarranted. There is barely a line of the satire which is either witty or epigrammatic; the style is low and the language is cheap in tone; the versification is lifeless and dull. The one thing for which it is to be noted is the spirit of mockery sometimes displayed, and the tendency to jest rather than to inveigh. The competition for a suitable dedicatory address for the reopening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812,[167] memorable as the occasion for the skilful parodies contained in the _Rejected Addresses_[168] of James and Horace Smith, led Byron also to compose a rather extraordinary satire. The genuine address of Dr. Busby (1755–1838) had been rejected, along with those of the other competitors; but on October 14th, two or three evenings after the formal opening of the theatre, Busby’s son endeavored to recite his father’s poem from one of the boxes, and nearly started a riot. Byron thereupon wrote a _Parenthetical Address, by Dr. Plagiary_, which was printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ for October 23, 1812. This satire, which Byron called “a parody of a peculiar kind,” is noteworthy only in that it selects lines and phrases from Busby’s address, and connecting them by satiric comments, manages to make the original seem ridiculous.