For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:[1]110
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:[2]
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!120
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."[3]
She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
- ↑ British peer.—[MS.]
- ↑ Sneaking Jackal.—[MS.]
- ↑ His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them. [On the Erechtheum there was deeply cut in a plaster wall the words—
"Quod non fecerunt Goti,
Hoc fecerunt Scoti."]
Lord Elgin's first marriage with Mary, daughter of William Hamilton Nisbet, was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1808.]
