As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse,
And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse.
"Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed,"
Knew you the rumpus which the Author raised;
"Nor even here your smiles would be represt,"
Knew you these lines—the badness of the best,10
"Flame! fire! and flame!" (words borrowed from Lucretius.[decimal 1])
"Dread metaphors" which open wounds like issues!
"And sleeping pangs awake—and—— But away"—
(Confound me if I know what next to say).
Lo "Hope reviving re-expands her wings,"
And Master G— recites what Dr. Busby sings!—
"If mighty things with small we may compare,"
(Translated from the Grammar for the fair!)
Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering car,"
And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar."20
"This spirit" "Wellington has shown in Spain,"
To furnish Melodrames for Drury Lane.
"Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story,"
And George and I will dramatise it for ye.
"In Arts and Sciences our Isle hath shone"
Notes
- ↑ [Busby's translation of Lucretius (The Nature of Things, a Didascalic Poem) was published in 1813. Byron was a subscriber, and is mentioned in the preface as "one of the most distinguished poets of the age." The passage in question is, perhaps, taken from the Second Book, lines 880, 881, which Busby renders—
"Just as she quickens fuel into fire,
And bids it, flaming, to the skies aspire."]
Your bounty's comfort—rapture your applause;
When in your fostering beam you bid us live,70
You give the means of life, and gild the means you give."
Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812.]
