"be too highly finished. The great art is effect, no matter "how produced. 66 " I will shew you an ode you have never seen, that I consider little inferior to the best which the present pro"lific age has brought forth." With this he left the table, almost before the cloth was removed, and returned with a magazine, from which he read the following lines on Sir John Moore's burial, which perhaps require no apology for finding a place here: "Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, "O'er the grave where our hero we buried. "We buried him darkly at dead of night, By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, "No useless coffin confined his breast, "Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him "Few and short were the prayers we said, "And we spoke not a word of sorrow; "But we stedfastly gazed on the face of the dead, "And we bitterly thought of the morrow. "We thought, as we heap'd his narrow bed, "And smooth'd down his lonely pillow, "That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, "And we far away on the billow! 66 Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, "And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; "But nothing he 'll reck, if they let him sleep on "In the grave where a Briton has laid him. "But half of our heavy task was done, "And we heard by the distant and random gun, "That the foe was suddenly firing. "From the field of his fame fresh and gory; "We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, "But we left him alone with his glory." Р The feeling with which he recited these admirable stanzas, I shall never forget. After he had come to an end, he repeated the third, and said it was perfect, particularly the lines "But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, "I should have taken," said Shelley," the whole for a rough sketch of Campbell's.' 66 66 No," replied Lord Byron: "Campbell would have claimed it, if it had been his." I afterwards had reason to think that the ode was Lord Byron's;* that he was piqued at none of his own being mentioned; and, after he had praised the verses so highly, could not own them. No other reason can be assigned for his not acknowledging himself the author, particularly as he was a great admirer of General Moore. Talking after dinner of swimming, he said : * I am corroborated in this opinion lately by a lady, whose brother received them many years ago from Lord Byron, in his Lordship's own hand-writing. 66 Murray published a letter I wrote to him from Venice, which might have seemed an idle display of vanity; "but the object of my writing it was to contradict what "Turner had asserted about the impossibility of crossing "the Hellespont from the Abydos to the Sestos side, in consequence of the tide. 66 "One is as easy as the other; we did both." Here he turned round to Fletcher, to whom he occasionally referred, and said, “ Fletcher, how far was it Mr. Ekenhead 66 66 66 66 and I swam ?" Fletcher replied, "Three miles and a half, my Lord." (Of course he did not diminish the distance.) "The real width of the Hellespont," resumed Lord Byron, " is not much above a mile; but the current is prodigiously strong, and we were carried down notwithstanding all our efforts. I don't know how Leander contrived to stem the stream, and steer straight across; but nothing is "impossible in love or religion. If I had had a Hero on "the other side, perhaps I should have worked harder. "We were to have undertaken this feat some time before, "but put it off in consequence of the coldness of the water; and it was chilly enough when we performed it. I know I should have made a bad Leander, for it gave me an ague that I did not so easily get rid of. There were some 66 66 sailors in the fleet who swam further than I did I do "not say than I could have done, for it is the only exer"cise I pride myself upon, being almost amphibious. 66 "I remember being at Brighton many years ago, and having great difficulty in making the land, the wind Crowds of blowing off the shore, and the tide setting out. people were collected on the beach to see us. (I think he said Hobhouse) was with me; and," he added, "I had great difficulty in saving him-he nearly drowned me. 66 "When I was at Venice, there was an Italian who knew no more of swimming than a camel, but he had heard of my prowess in the Dardanelles, and challenged me. Not "wishing that any foreigner at least should beat me at my own arms, I consented to engage in the contest. Alexander Scott proposed to be of the party, and we started "from Lido. Our land-lubber was very soon in the rear, 66 66 66 66 66 and Scott saw him make for a Gondola. He rested him self first against one, and then against another, and gave We saw in before we got half way to St. Mark's Place. no more of him, but continued our course through the "Grand Canal, landing at my palace-stairs. The water of the Lagunes is dull, and not very clear or agreeable to |