“Will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the coloured prints from Holmes’s miniature (the latter done shortly before I left your country, and the prints about a year ago); I shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the like. It is a picture of my upright self done for Scrope B. Davies, esq.†
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† There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not ham deliberately inflicted it;—from a pen like his, touches are often wounds, without being actually intended as such. |
| A. D. 1818. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 171 |
“Why have you not sent me an answer, and lists of subscribers to the translation of the Armenian Eusebius? of which I sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had the letter?—I shall send you another:—you must not neglect my Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal demands.
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Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.
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To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all—and sellest some—
My Murray.
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“Upon thy table’s baize so green
The last new Quarterly is seen,
But where is thy new Magazine,
My Murray?
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“Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine—
The ‘Art of
Cookery,’ and mine,
My Murray.
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“Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
And Sermons to thy mill bring grist;
And then thou hast the ‘Navy List,’
My Murray.
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“And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without ‘the Board of Longitude,’
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray!”
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