The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
English poetry
[The following "Note on Spain and Portugal," part of the original draft
of Note 3 (p. 86), was suppressed at the instance of Dallas: "We have
heard wonders of the Portuguese lately, and their gallantry. Pray Heaven
it continue; yet 'would it were bed-time, Hal, and all were well!' They
must fight a great many hours, by 'Shrewsbury clock,' before the number
of their slain equals that of our countrymen butchered by these kind
creatures, now metamorphosed into 'Caçadores,' and what not. I merely
state a fact, not confined to Portugal; for in Sicily and Malta we are
knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or
Maltese is ever punished! The neglect of protection is disgraceful to
our government and governors; for the murders are as notorious as the
moon that shines upon them, and the apathy that overlooks them. The
Portuguese, it is to be hoped, are complimented with the 'Forlorn
Hope,'--if the cowards are become brave (like the rest of their kind, in
a corner), pray let them display it. But there is a subscription for
these θρασύδειλοι [thrasy/deiloi][110] (they need not be ashamed of the
epithet once applied to the Spartans); and all the charitable
patronymics, from ostentatious A. to diffident Z., and £1 1s. 0d. from
'An Admirer of Valour,' are in requisition for the lists at Lloyd's, and
the honour of British benevolence. Well! we have fought, and subscribed,
and bestowed peerages, and buried the killed by our friends and foes;
and, lo! all this is to be done over again! Like Lien Chi (in
Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_), as we 'grow older, we grow never
the better.' It would be pleasant to learn who will subscribe for us, in
or about the year 1815, and what nation will send fifty thousand men,
first to be decimated in the capital, and then decimated again (in the
Irish fashion, _nine_ out of _ten_), in the 'bed of honour;' which, as
Serjeant Kite says [in Farquhar's _Recruiting Officer_, act i. sc. 1],
is considerably larger and more commodious than 'the bed of Ware.' Then
they must have a poet to write the 'Vision of Don Perceval,'[111] and
generously bestow the profits of the well and widely printed quarto, to
rebuild the 'Backwynd' and the 'Canongate,' or furnish new kilts for the
half-roasted Highlanders. Lord Wellington, however, has enacted marvels;
and so did his Oriental brother, whom I saw charioteering over the
French flag, and heard clipping bad Spanish, after listening to the
speech of a patriotic cobler of Cadiz, on the event of his own entry
into that city, and the exit of some five thousand bold Britons out of
this 'best of all possible worlds' [Pangloss, in _Candide_]. Sorely were
we puzzled how to dispose of that same victory of Talavera; and a
victory it surely was somewhere, for everybody claimed it. The Spanish
despatch and mob called it Cuesta's, and made no great mention of the
Viscount; the French called it _theirs_[1] (to my great
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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