Such are thy wishes, but if kind The Gods, and of a mortal’s mind, These sacrifices they will spare, And long preserve you what you are; And when obdurate time besprinkles Your head with grey, your face with wrinkles, When sickness and when age shall come And wither transient beauty’s bloom, Still shall the beauties of your mind, By reading and by time refin’d, Still shall thy wit and polish’d ease In spite of fickle nature please; And then th’ enchanted world shall see Rochefoucauld’s laws belied in thee, See female merit youth outlive, And loveliness thy charms survive. So when old Time’s relentless page At full threescore shall mark thy age, With equal truth but better verse Some Bard thy merits shall rehearse, And like myself be proud to pay A tribute to this happy day. Thirty-six years afterwards, on March 25, 1831, Lord Holland gave his wife another copy of verses, and the reader will probably be interested in seeing a short selection from them. I promised you, ’tis long ago, Some six and thirty years or so, Another Bard your praise should sing When you had reached your sixtieth Spring. That sixtieth spring has come--to you, My Dearest Soul, the verse is due. Nor ever thine more fit t’inspire The heart’s delight, the Poet’s fire, Than Charms, unfading Charms, like yours, Than merit which the test endures Of health and sickness, smiles and tears, And all that chequers lengthened years. Nor will you frown, tho’ my prediction In one sole point turn out a fiction, And this so late reviving lay Raised to record your natal day Prove no strange minstrel’s ode or hymn, But the unaltered vows of him, Whose earliest and whose last emotion Has been and must be warm devotion To all the Charms he sees combined In thy dear frame and lovely Mind. * * * * * I write not, I, for prize or fame, Nor bays nor triumph is my aim; To you, My Love, my strains belong, To you I dedicate my song: And all my hope and all my due Is one kind happy smile from You. Content if on this blessed day My simple rugged lines convey One truth, which be it verse or prose, From my heart’s heart sincerely flows: ‘I loved you much at twenty-four, I love you better at threescore.’ APPENDIX B The following letters from Mr. Campbell to Lord Holland, referring to the first meeting of the Cortes at Cadiz, have been considered of sufficient interest for publication. _Mr. R. Campbell to Lord Holland._ Cadiz, Sept. 26th, 1810.