EPISTLE TO MR. MURRAY.
51
EPISTLE TO MR. MURRAY.
1.
My dear Mr. Murray,
You're in a damned hurry
To set up this ultimate Canto;[1]
But (if they don't rob us)
You'll see Mr. Hobhouse
Will bring it safe in his portmanteau.
2.
For the Journal you hint of,[2]
As ready to print off,
No doubt you do right to commend it;
But as yet I have writ off
The devil a bit of
Our "Beppo:"—when copied, I'll send it.
3.
In the mean time you've "Galley"[3]
Whose verses all tally,
Perhaps you may say he 's a Ninny,
But if you abashed are
Because of Alashtar,
He'll piddle another Phrosine.[4]
- ↑ [The Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.]
- ↑ [Murray bought a half-share in Blackwood's Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in August, 1818, and remained its joint proprietor till December, 1819, when it became the property of William Blackwood. But perhaps the reference is to Byron's Swiss Journal of September, 1816.]
- ↑ [Henry Gaily Knight (1786-1846), who was a contemporary of Byron at Trinity College, Cambridge, was a poetaster, and, afterwards, a writer of works on architecture. His Oriental verses supplied Byron with a subject for more than one indifferent jeu d'esprit.]
- ↑ [Phrosyne, a Grecian tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian tale, were
