The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 7/On Moore's Last Operatic Farce, or Farcical Opera

by George Gordon Byron

ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR FARCICAL OPERA.^[1]

⁠Good plays are scarce,
⁠So Moore writes farce;
The poet's fame grows brittle^[2]—
⁠We knew before
⁠That Little's Moore,
But now 't is Moore that's little.

September 14, 1811.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 295 (note).]

1. ["On a leaf of one of his paper books I find an epigram, written at this time, which, though not perhaps particularly good, I consider myself bound to insert."—Moore, Life, p. 137, note 1. The reference is to Moore's M.P.; or, The Blue Stocking, which was played for the first time at the Lyceum Theatre, September 9, 1811. For Moore's nom de plume, "The late Thomas Little, Esq.," compare Praed's The Belle of the Ball-Room—

   "If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
   I might have thought they murmured Little."]

2. Is fame like his so brittle?—[MS.]