... I see that what I took for a joke of yours is true, and that you are at me in this number of the Quarterly. I have desired Power to send you back my copy when it comes, not liking to read it just now for reasons. In the meantime, here’s some good-humoured doggerel for you:—
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No! Editors don’t care a button,
What false and faithless things they do;
They’ll let you come and cut their mutton,
And then, they’ll have a cut at you.
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With Barnes I oft my dinner took,
Nay, met e’en Horace
Twiss to please him:
Yet Mister Barnes traduc’d my Book
For which may his own devils seize him!
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With Doctor Bowring I drank tea,
Nor of his cakes consumed a particle;
And yet th’ ungrateful LL.D.
Let fly at me, next week, an article!
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| BYRON’S COLLECTED WORKS. | 327 |
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John Wilson gave me suppers hot,
A dose of black-strap then I got,
And after a still worse of Blackwood.
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Alas! and must I close the list
So kind, with bumper in thy fist,—
With pen, so very gruff and tartarly.
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Now in thy parlour feasting me,
Now scribbling at me from your garret,—
Till, ’twixt the two, in doubt I be,
Which sourest is, thy wit or claret?
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Should you again see the Noble Scott before he goes, remember me most affectionately to him.
