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154

MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

ble dependents and crouching vassals of the Emperor of the French, that immediately on the restoration of the ancient order of things, they should enjoy constitutions as free states. The object was no sooner obtained than the promise. was forgotten; and the grateful monarchs formed a conspiracy to over-awe the world, to restrain the progress of knowledge in general, and thus to crush, in ovo, the embryo of freeḍom, from a conviction that slavery is the only state adapted to despotic sway, and that ignorance is the surest road to slavery. Such is the true history of the Holy Alliance, the most celebrated convention that ever was hatched against the honour and happiness of the whole human race. Intoxicated by the success of the battle of Waterloo; flattered by those monarchs, of whom she had ever been, and still continues to be, the object of envy, hatred, and calumny, Great Britain, in an excess of raptures, was unfortunately deluded into a seeming sanction of the Congress, or rather conspiracy, at Laybach and Verona, by permitting one of the principal of her officers of state to be present at the conferences. The Marquis of Londonderry, with a strong mind, was possessed of none of those qualifications which are the result of a classical education; he danced with crowned heads, and crowned heads danced with the Marchioness; and what with condescension, flattery, and other irresistible ways, known

PRESENTS TO LORD CASTLEREAGH.

155

to themselves, he was easily deluded by the despots to coincide with their way of thinking, that the Crown is every thing, and the people are nothing. He pledged himself to them to support that opinion on his return to England; but finding that he could not bring his countrymen into the same train of thinking, and that he had pledged himself to more than he could perform, when the time came that he was again to meet the Congress, and to be compelled to acknowledge his error-that he had undertaken what was impossible to be performed, in England at least, his fortitude of mind forsook him.

It was thought at the time that the language which Lord Byron made use of, in one of his prefaces, respecting Lord Londonderry, was excessively harsh and reprehensible; but Lord Byron had been in the country where the conspiracy against the rights and happiness of mankind had been carried on, and had collected more correct information of what had been done there, than any one in England, even the Marquis's own colleagues, could be possibly aware of. He boldly made the charge that his country had been betrayed, and the Marquis*-peace to his manes!

* From a list laid before Parliament, on the subject of " Presents from Foreign Sovereigns to his Majesty's principal Secre tary of State," it appears that Lord Castlereagh received in two years, ending 5th January 1816, eighteen presents. The value of these presents is not stated, but as they are usually estimated

156

THE AGE OF BRONZE,

But though, by the death of Lord Londonderry, the fatal, accursed link, which bound Britain to that infernal chain, was apparently dissevered, yet that a partial leaning to that system still sways in a certain quarter is but too manifest, in our suffering France to subdue Spain; in our refusing to acknowledge the independence of the South American States, after they have long thrown off the Spanish thraldom; and by our insidiously depressing, rather than generously aiding, our Christian brethren, the brave Greeks, against their barbarian tyrants.

Lord Byron was so highly incensed that the despots who swayed the Congress at Verona, not content with insulting and trampling on the world, should interfere (by means of their satellite, the Tuscan), in their military way, with his literary pursuits, that he instantly determined on taking vengeance for the unmanly attack-in his way and this determination gave birth to the poem of" THE AGE OF BRONZE,* or Carmen Se

at £1,000 each, he received £18,000, besides expenses of special missions for two years, £40,000 more.

* The confederacy of crowned heads against the peace, dignity, and happiness of nations, also employed the pen of Mr. Thomas Moore, who, whilst on a visit to Lord Byron at Venice, composed part of his "Fables for the Holy Alliance," which he dedicated to his Lordship in the following terms:

"Dear Lord Byron,

"Though this volume should possess no other merit in your eyes, than that of recalling the short time we passed together at

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

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culare, et Annus Haud Mirabilis," a satirical work, and so wholly of a political nature, contrary to Lord Byron's usual custom, that many persons of sound judgment have doubted whether the production was really from his Lordship's pen or not; but being induced, by the circumstances before stated, to a contrary belief, and to make a proper inquiry into the truth of the case, we have authority for saying that the work is really his Lordship's own production, and as such it is now our business to give an account of it. The work commences with telling us that "the good old times are gone," Billy Pitt's good old times, and that he, too, is dust to dust. It then philosophizes on the instability of human grandeur, in the person of the new Sesostris, who harnessed kings to his chariot, the late Emperor of the French, Napoleon Buonaparte. It ascribes his fallen condition to his frantic ambition of enslaving mankind, but asserts that such a scheme will never be practicable while the memory of Franklin and Washington survives. It will not be (the poet adds); the

Venice, when some of the trifles which it contains were written, you will, I am sure, receive the dedication of it with pleasure, and believe that I am,

"My dear Lord,

"Ever faithfully yours," &c.

The Royal Smithfield Salesmen are a good standing jest for a

free press, and deservedly so.

158

THE CONGRESS AT VERONA.

spark of freedom is awakened in Spain, in America, in GREECE

"Lone, lost, abandon'd in their utmost need

By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed;
The desolated lands, the ravag'd isle,

The foster'd feud, encourag'd to beguile,

The aid evaded, and the cold delay,

Prolong'd but in the hope to make a prey;

These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can shew

The false friend worse than the infuriate foe;
But this is well; Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace."

The poet next turns his eyes towards Spain, where freedom makes advances in spite of all efforts to keep it down, and calls upon France to advance and win-not Spain-but her own freedom. He then turns to the Congress at Verona, and describes the scenes going on there. next lashes the Czar, and advises him

"Better reclaim thy desarts, turn thy swords
To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir hordes,
Redeem thy realms from slav'ry and the knout,
Than follow headlong in the fatal route,

To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure;
With thy foul legions-Spain wants no manure."

He

Louis, le Désiré, is described as an epicurean, a gourmand, who was much better placed at Hartwell, than on a throne-(perhaps he himself was much happier)—a martyr to indigestion and the

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