The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 114

[Footnote 79: On his table were found these words:--"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if 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 (1686-1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape the dishonour which attached to him in connection with Dr. Tindal's will, and the immediate pressure of money difficulties. He was, more or less, insane.

"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.'"

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1886), p. 281.]]

[Footnote 80: If "dosed with," etc. 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," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.]

[Footnote i:

ATHENS, 'March 2nd, 1811'.

['MS. L.' (a).]

ATHENS, 'March 12th, 1811'.

['MS. L. (i), MS. M.']]

[Footnote ii:

'If [A] West or Lawrence, (take whichever you will) Sons of the Brush, supreme in graphic skill, Should clap a human head-piece on a mare, How would our Exhibition's loungers stare!

Or should some das.h.i.+ng limner set to sale My Lady's likeness with a Mermaid's tail.'

['MS. L.' (a).]

'The features finished, should superbly deck My Lady's likeness with a Filly's neck; Or should some limner mad or maudlin group A Mermaid's tail and Maid of Honour's Hoop.'

['MS. L. '(b).] ]

[Sub-Footnote A: I have been obliged to dive into the "Bathos" for the simile, as I could not find a description of these Painters' merits above ground.

"Si liceat parvis Componere magna"--

"Like London's column pointing to the skies Like a 'tall Bully', lifts its head and lies"

I was in hopes might bear me out, if the monument be like a Bully.

West's glory may be reduced by the scale of comparison. If not, let me have recourse to 'Tom Thumb the Great' [Fielding's farce, first played 1730] to keep my simile in countenance.--['MS. L. (b) erased]]

[Footnote iii: After line 6, the following lines (erased) were inserted:--

'Or patch a Mammoth up with wings and limbs, And fins of aught that flies or walks or swims'.

['MS. M'.]

Another variant ran--

'Or paint (astray from Truth and Nature led) A Judge with wings, a Statesman with a Head'!

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote iv:

'Believe me, Hobhouse'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote v:

'as we scribblers'.

['MSS. L'. ('a' and 'b'), 'MS. M'.]]

[Footnote vi:

'Like Wardle's'[A] 'speeches'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Sub-Footnote A: [Gwyllim Lloyd Wardle (1762-1834), who served in Ireland in 1798, as Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers, known as "Wynne's lambs," was M.P. for Okehampton 1807-12. In January, 1809, he brought forward a motion for a parliamentary investigation into the exercise of military patronage by the Duke of York, and the supposed influence of the Duke's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke.]]

[Footnote vii:

'As pertness lurks beneath a legal gown.

And nonsense in a lofty note goes down'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

or,

'Which covers all things like a Prelate's gown'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]