Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/220

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204
CONVERSATIONS OF

didly,) have you read since you were a schoolboy, or can you, with all your memory, repeat five lines of that boasted ‘Essay on Memory’ that you have been bepraising so furiously all your life? Instruct me where to find the golden fleece. Be my Jason for once.”

“I remember being delighted with ‘The Pleasures of Memory’ when I was at Harrow; and that is saying a great deal, for I seldom read a book when I was there, and continue to like what I did then.

‘Jacquelina,’ too, is a much finer poem than ‘Lara.’ Your allowing precedence to the latter amused me. But they soon got a divorce.”

“There you go again: your taste is too fastidious. Rogers was very much offended at its being said that his ‘Pleasures,’ &c. were to be found shining in green and gold morocco-bindings in most parlour-windows, and on the book-shelves of all young ladies.”

“But, don’t we all write to please them? I am sure I was more pleased with the fame my ‘Corsair’ had, than with that of any other of my books. Why? for the