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 prosecution for forging the will of Dr Tindall, in which Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. "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.' 65. 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. Introduction to the Curse of Minerva. THE removal of the relicts of Grecian art which now adorn the British Museum, and are known as the Elgin marbles, excited much generous indignation in Lord Byron. He was travelling in Greece at the time, and was moved to wrath at witnessing the spoliation of the Parthenon and other monuments of the glorious past. But the act was justified in the minds of most persons by the apathy of the Greeks themselves, and the consideration that the relics were saved from decay and possible destruction. The Turks cared nothing for the associations which enriched even the mutilated fragments of Grecian art in the eyes of educated people in England, and no one could then foresee how speedily Greece was to attain her independence. Besides, there were actually rival purchasers on the scene, and if Lord Elgin had not secured the marbles they would have been sent to Paris. Lord Byron gave vent to his feelings in his letters and poetry, but his "Curse of Minerva " was kept among his papers, and was never printed until a copy was surreptitiously obtained and published in a magazine. The paragraphs with which the poem originally commenced were transferred to the third canto of "The Corsair." The concluding lines as now printed are the best, and show that Lord Byron was not so cosmopolitan as to be indifferent to the danger his own country ran from foreign invasion. |