4.
Then you've Sotheby's Tour,—[1]
No great things, to be sure,—
You could hardly begin with a less work;
For the pompous rascallion,
Who don't speak Italian
Nor French, must have scribbled by guess-work.
5.
No doubt he 's a rare man
Without knowing German
Translating his way up Parnassus,
And now still absurder
Fie meditates Murder
As you'll see in the trash he calls Tasso's.
6.
But you've others his betters
The real men of letters
Your Orators—Critics—and Wits—
And I'll bet that your Journal
(Pray is it diurnal?)
Will pay with your luckiest hits.
7.
You can make any loss up
With "Spence"[2] and his gossip,
- ↑ [Sotheby's Farewell to Italy and Occasional Poems were published in 1818, as the record of a tour which he had taken in 1816-17 with his family, Professor Elmsley, and Dr. Playfair. For Byron's unfinished skit on Sotheby's Tour, see Letters, 1900, iv. Appendix V. pp. 452, 453.]
- ↑ [Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, by
published in 1817. In a letter to Murray, September 4, 1817, Byron writes, "I have received safely, though tardily, the magnesia and tooth-powder, Phrosine and Alashtar. I shall clean my teeth with one, and wipe my shoes with the other."—Letters, 1901, iv.]
