"LORD BYRON.

"6 WRITTEN WHILST LIVING.

"Altho' thy youthful and luxuriant wreath,
Of splendid and most glorious hues, was woven
From all the fairest, sweetest flowers of spring,
Yet some strange blossoms and some poisonous weeds
Were mingled with the jasmine and the rose,
And the sweet orange flower; and thy dark locks
In curling ringlets seem'd a Sybarite's,

Well fitted for the odours strong and strange,
And for the colours varying, where the bay
Was mingled with the dark anemone;

And where the birch and deadly night-shade mix'd
Their leaves incongruous with the lily pale,
And humble violet, that tranquil hangs
Its dewy head in shade. But not in vain
Has time upon thy godlike countenance
Diffused its chasten'd and more tranquil tints;
And not in vain has given thy raven locks
Some hues of wisdom in their silver light,
Such as full well may suit and harmonize
Not with the fragrant unguents of the south,
Nor the rich roses, or the leafy myrtle,
Which pleasure's sons upon their brows assume,
But rather with the darker laurel crown,
In which some purple amaranths are twined,
The flowers and leaves of immortality,

Which may prepare thee for immortal palms
And Christian songs of triumph!"

"ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON.

COMPOSED AT WESTHILL IN THE GREAT STORM, 1824.*

"Gone is the bard, who, like a powerful spirit,

A beautiful and fallen child of light,
Of fiery seraph the aspiring peer,
Seemed fitted by his nature to inherit
A wilder state than in the genial strife
Of mighty elements is given our sphere,
Fix'd in a stated round its course to run,
A chained slave, around the master sun!

« 1823.

* It was during a storm that he expired. Mr. Gordon, in his admirable History of the Greek Revolution, records it. "At six o'clock in the afternoon of Easter Monday (April 19.), at the instant of an awful thunderstorm, Byron expired."

"Of some great comet he might well have been
The habitant, that thro' the mighty space
Of kindling ether rolls; now visiting

Our glorious sun, by wondering myriads seen
Of planetary beings; then in race

Vying with light in swiftness, like a king
Of void and chaos, rising up on high
Above the stars in awful majesty.

"Now passing near those high and bless'd abodes,
Where beings of a nobler nature move

In fields of purest light, where brightest rays
Of glory shine in power allied to gods,
Whose minds in hope and in fruition prove
That unconsuming and etherial blaze
Flowing from, returning to, Eternal Love.

"And such may be his fate! And if to bring
His memory back, an earthly type were given,
And I possess'd the artist's powerful hand,
A genius with an eagle's powerful wing

Should press the earth recumbent, looking on heaven
With wistful eye; a broken lamp should stand
Beside him, on the ground its naphtha flowing
In the bright flame, o'er earthly ashes glowing."

I shall close this chapter with a copy of verses written in the beginning of this year, when on a visit to a noble family, on whom praise might be lavished, free from adulation, and whose kind attentions were almost the last he received, and warmly felt, towards the close of his career:

"ASHBURNHAM PLACE.

"Is this a time for minstrelsy,

When nature rests in deathlike sleep,
And roots, and buds, and herbage lie
Embalm'd in icy cerements deep?

"When scarce a stream is heard to flow,
And scarce the distant woods appear,
So widely spreads the drifted snow,
The mantle of the newborn year?

"January 22. 1823.

"When the wild songsters of the grove
Shivering around the mansion fly,
Without a single note of love,—
Is this a time for minstrelsy?

"It is a time for minstrelsy!

For still the laurel blooms around,
And bay; and Fancy's dreaming eye

Can see through mists the fairy ground.

"And hill, and dale, and woodlands green, And lakes, which pastoral meads surround, The distant ocean, and a scene

At home where blossoms rise around.

"And nature gains from art new powers,
Charms that in happy union meet,
Where wild and cultivated flowers
Together blend their odours sweet.

"It is a time for minstrelsy!

For round these walls what magic forms Appear in grace and harmony!

The pencil of the artist warms

"The coldest scenes, and powers sublime,
Awakening moral forms of things,
And new creations, steal from Time
His scythe, and close his wings.

"It is an hour for minstrelsy!

For social converse wakes the mind
To pure and happy sympathy;
And elegance and taste refined

"Call to the hospitable board

The force of reason and the flow
Of memory, with wisdom stored,
Which might awake a grateful glow

"In Fancy e'en, tho' check'd by age; Make sunshine in the darkest day,

And kindle in the coldest sage

Some strain of vocal minstrelsy."

CHAPTER V.

VERSES WRITTEN

AT

RESEARCHES ON THE CORROSION OF THE COPPER SHEATHING OF SHIPS,
66
AND ON ITS PREVENTION. HIS LAST BAKERIAN LECTURE ON THE
RELATION OF ELECTRICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES.”—JOURNAL OF
AN EXCURSION TO NORWAY AND SWEDEN.
COPENHAGEN.NOTICES OF BERZELIUS, OERSTED, GAUSS, SCHUMACHER.
-VERSES WRITTEN AT ULSWATER. LETTER TO HIS SISTER.-PARA-
LYTIC ATTACK. -NOTICES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE INTO
ITALY. VERSES WRITTEN AT RAVENNA.

We are now approaching the last term of my brother's scientific labours, in which he was occupied, with little interruption, from the latter end of 1823 till the summer of 1826. During the short period of about two years and a half, he communicated to the Royal Society the four following papers:

"On the Corrosion of Copper Sheeting by Sea Water, and on the Methods of preventing this Effect; and on their Application to Ships of War and other Ships."

"Additional Experiments and Observations on the Application of Electrical Combinations to the Preservation of Copper Sheathing of Ships, and to other Purposes."

"Further Researches on the Preservation of Metals by Electro-Chemical Means."

The Bakerian Lecture for 1826" On the Relation of Electrical and Chemical Changes."

These papers, like those on fire-damp, offer a happy instance of an inquiry instituted in quest of a remedy

for a practical evil, after having accomplished the specific object for which it was commenced, leading to other collateral researches, extending the boundaries of physical science, and, applied to the arts, conferring additional and unexpected benefits.

My brother's attention was called to the corrosion of copper sheeting in sea water by the Commissioners of the Navy, to whom, on account of the vast loss in consequence of it resulting to the country, it had become a matter of serious consideration.

Without loss of time he entered on the experimental investigation of the problem.

He first ascertained that there is no constant relation between the impurity of copper and the facility of being acted on or corroded by sea water, which was at that time, and is indeed still, a popular notion; the contrary rather appeared to be the case: in some instances the purest specimens suffered more than those containing alloy.

He next examined into the minute circumstances of the action of sea water on copper. He ascertained that the corrosion of the metal is owing to the joint action of air in the water, and of its saline ingre dients; oxide of copper being first formed, and that becoming an insoluble submuriate, and magnesia being at the same time precipitated.

Reasoning on these changes, and the elements concerned in them, in quest of remedial means, he had recourse to electro-chemical science, and the principles which he himself had established of the apparent identity of electrical and chemical attraction, and the power of controuling the one by the other. It occurred to him, that as copper is only feebly positive in the electro-chemical scale, and that as, according