The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. PoetryByron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
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The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
Poetry
Though your visions of lawn
Have all been withdrawn,
And you missed your bold stroke for a mitre;
In a very snug way
You may still preach and pray,
And from bishop sink into backbiter!"
[First published, _Works_ (Galignani), 1831, p. 116.]
FOOTNOTES:
[127] [George Frederick Nott (1767-1841), critic and divine, was Rector
of Harrietsham and Woodchurch, a Prebendary of Winchester and of
Salisbury. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1802, and, soon afterwards, was
appointed sub-preceptor to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. He was a
connoisseur of architecture and painting, and passed much of his time in
Italy and at Rome. When he was at Pisa he preached in a private room in
the basement story of the house in Pisa where Shelley was living, and
fell under Byron's displeasure for attacking the Satanic school, and
denouncing _Cain_ as a blasphemous production. "The parsons," he told
Moore (letter, February 20, 1820), "preached at it [_Cain_] from Kentish
Town to Pisa." Hence the apostrophe to Dr. Nott. (See _Records of
Shelley, Byron, and the Author_, by E.T. Trelawny, 1887, pp. 302, 303.)]
[128] [According to Lady Anne Hamilton (_Secret History of the Court of
England_, 1832, i. 198-207), the Princess Charlotte incurred the
suspicion and displeasure of her uncles and her grandmother, the Queen,
by displaying an ardent and undue interest in her sub-preceptor. On
being reproved by the Queen for "condescending to favour persons in low
life with confidence or particular respect, persons likely to take
advantage of your simplicity and innocence," and having learnt that
"persons" meant Mr. Nott, she replied by threatening to sign a will in
favour of her sub-preceptor, and by actually making over to him by a
deed her library, jewels, and all other private property. Lady Anne
Hamilton is not an accurate or trustworthy authority, but her extremely
circumstantial narrative was, no doubt, an expansion of the contemporary
scandal to which Byron's lampoon gave currency.]
LUCIETTA. A FRAGMENT.
LUCIETTA, my deary,
That fairest of faces!
Is made up of kisses;
But, in love, oft the case is
Even stranger than this is--
There's another, that's slyer,
Who touches me nigher,--
A Witch, an intriguer,
Whose manner and figure
Now piques me, excites me,
Torments and delights me--
_Cætera desunt_.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,
now for the first time printed.]
EPIGRAMS.
OH, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so did'st thou:
He perished rather than see Rome enslaved,
Thou cut'st thy throat that Britain may be saved!
* * * * *
So Castlereagh has cut his throat!--The worst
Of this is,--that his own was not the first.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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