"A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!" Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good, (Unless his case be much misunderstood) When teased with creditors' continual claims, "To die like Cato," (1) leapt into the Thames! And therefore be it lawful through the town For any bard to poison, hang, or drown. (2) Clamet, Io cives! non sit qui tollere curet. Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem, Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam (1) 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, a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape a prosecution, on account of forging the will of Dr. Tindal; in which Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. To this Pope alludes― "Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on my quill, And write whate'er he please - except my will." (2) ["We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself.- JOHNSON. *I should never think it time to make away with myself.' I put the case of Eustace Budgell, who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on. '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 Who saves the intended suicide receives Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves; Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage- But him, unhappy! whom he seizes,-him Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach, Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti. Nec semel hoc fecit; nec, si retractus erit, jan known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known."". ker's Boswell, vol. ii. pp. 229. 290.-E.] See Cro (1) 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 lieu of the present. THE CURSE OF MINERVA "Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit,' Eneid, lib. xii. [This fierce philippic on Lord Elgin, whose collection of Athenian marbles was ultimately purchased for the nation, in 1816, at the cost of thirty-five thousand pounds, was written at Athens, in March, 1811, and prepared for publication along with the "Hints from Horace;" but, like that satire, suppressed by Lord Byron, from motives which the reader will easily understand. It was first given to the world in 1828. Few can wonder that Lord Byron's feelings should have been powerfully excited by the spectacle of the despoiled Parthenon; but it is only due to Lord Elgin to keep in mind, that, had those precious marbles remained, they must, in all likelihood, have perished for ever amidst the miserable scenes of violence which Athens has since witnessed; and that their presence in England has already, by universal admission, been of the most essential advantage to the fine arts of our own country. The political allusions in this poem are not such as require much explanation. It contains many lines, which, it is hoped, the author, on mature reflection, disapproved of— but is too vigorous a specimen of his iambics to be omitted in any collective edition of his works. E]'. |