he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!-[Eustace Budgell, a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape prosecution for forging the will of Dr. Tindal, in which Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. "We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. I put the case of Eustace Budgell. Suppose, sir,' said I, that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society. JOHNSON. 'Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.""

67.-Page 242, line 15.

Dosed with vile drams on Sunday he was found,

If" dosed with," &c. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," &c. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lien of the present.

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

-"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et pænam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."

Eneid, lib. xii.

INTRODUCTION TO THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

MR. HOBHOUSE relates that, during a ten weeks' residence at Athens, Lord Byron and himself devoted a portion of every day to the contemplation of the relics of Grecian art. Full of classical enthusiasm, and feeling how much the locality and the monuments exalted one another, the poet was indignant at the spoliation of the Parthenon. In this mood he gave vent at Athens, in March, 1811, to the fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, which he prepared to publish on his return to England, and suppressed upon the remonstrance of the friends of his victim. He often asserted that he was free from malice, and that his satires were the product of a momentary spleen, but he also believed that they had greater spirit than all the rest of his writings, and his opinion of their vigour induced him to print them when the animosity was gone. It was easy on these occasions to turn him from his purpose, and the success o the two first cantos of "Childe Harold" removed much of the temptation to do to Lord Elgin as Lord Elgin had done to the Parthenon. The poet had stumbled upon another road to fame, and could afford to be generous, or more correctly, to be just. The marvels of sculpture which Lord Elgin brought from Athens were wrested, not from classic Greece, but from barbarism and decay. They were purchased by our government in 1816 for thirty-five thousand pounds, and placed in the British Museum, where they will prolong the evidence of Grecian genius. The first authentic edition of "The Curse of Minerva" was published in 1828, but in a letter of Lord Byron's, written in March, 1816, he speaks of a miserable and stolen copy, as having been printed in a Magazine. The opening paragraphs, which were considered by some of his friends the finest verses he composed during his absence from England, he intended to append, under the title of a "Descriptive Fragment," to a future edition of "Childe Harold." He changed his purpose, and a little later made them the commencement of the third canto of "The Corsair." These splendid lines are pronounced by travellers a perfect picture of the scene, and they far transcend any other portion of "The Curse of Minerva," which contains, however, many vigorous couplets. Next in excellence to the brilliant beginning is the concluding paragraph, which depicts with poetic energy the possible consequences of a French invasion of our shores. The perverse pleasure he took in startling the public with anti-patriotic ebullitions, could alone have suggested the wild assertion that we deserved to be swept by the whirlwind we had raised. The strife, which he pretends originated with England, was kindled by the guilty ambition of France, and it is not we who were answerable for the miseries of wars which we waged in defence of ourselves and our allies.

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

ATHENS: CAPUCHIN CONVENT, March 17, 1811.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Ægina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last.
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's1 latest day!
Not yet not yet-Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before

But ere he sunk below Citheron's head,
The cup of woe was quaffd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But, lo from high Hymettus to the plain The queen of night asserts her silent reign;2 No murky vapour, herald of the storm,

Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form.
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:

The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,3
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.4

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war: Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane,
I mark'd the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in pocts' lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past return'd, the present scem'd to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's glare,
Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair