tioning some particulars respecting an early squib of mine,-the Parody on the Prince Regent's Letter,-I spoke of a dinner at which I was present on the very day of the first publication of that Parody, when it was the subject of much conversation at table, and none of the party, except our host, had any suspicion that I was the author of it. This host was Lord Holland; and as such a name could not but lend value to any anecdote connected with lit or bitterness, I should yet have frequented so much the thorny paths of satire, has always, to myself and those best acquainted with me, been a matter of surprise. By supposing the imagination, however, to be, in such cases, the sole or chief prompter of the satire-which, in my own instance, I must say, it has generally been -an easy solution is found for the difficulty. The same readiness of fancy which, with but little help from reality, can deck out "the Cynthia of the minute” with all possible attrac-erature, I only forbore the pleasure of adding tions, will likewise be able, when in the vein, such an ornament to my page, from knowing to shower ridicule on a political adversary, that Lord Holland had long viewed with disapwithout allowing a single feeling of real bitter- probation and regret much of that conduct ness to mix itself with the operation. Even of the Whig party towards the Regent in that sternest of all satirists, Dante, who, not 1812-13,† of the history of which this squib, content with the penal fire of the pen, kept an and the welcome reception it met with, forms Inferno ever ready to receive the victims of his an humble episode. wrath, even Dante, on becoming acquainted with some of the persons whom he had thus doomed, not only revoked their awful sentence, but even honored them with warm praise ;* and probably, on a little further acquaintance, would have admitted them into his Paradiso. When thus loosely and shallowly even the sub-characteristic of his good-nature than his wit, lime satire of Dante could strike its roots in his own heart and memory, it is easy to conceive how light and passing may be the feeling of hostility with which a partisan in the field of satire plies his laughing warfare; and how often it may happen that even the pride of hitting his mark outlives but a short time the flight of the shaft. Lord Holland himself, in addition to his higher intellectual accomplishments, possessed in no ordinary degree the talent of writing easy and playful vers de société; and, among the instances I could give of the lightness of his hand at such trifles, there is one no less as it accompanied a copy of the octavo edition of Bayle,‡ which, on hearing me rejoice one day that so agreeable an author had been at last made portable, he kindly ordered for me from Paris. So late, indeed, as only a month or two before his lordship's death, he was employing himself, with all his usual cheerful eagerness, I cannot dismiss from my hands these politi- in translating some verses of Metastasio; and cal trifles,— This swarm of themes that settled on iny pen, Which I, like summer-flies, shake off again,"— without venturing to add that I have now to connect with them one mournful recollectionone loss from among the circle of those I have longest looked up to with affection and admiration-which I little thought, when I began this series of prefatory sketches, I should have to mourn before their close. I need hardly add, that, in thus alluding to a great light of the social and political world recently gone out, I mean the late Lord Holland. It may be recollected, perhaps, that, in men la his Convite he praises very warmly some persons whom he had before abused.-See Foscolo, Discorso sul Testo di Dante. ↑ This will be seen whenever those valuable papers come occasionally consulted both Mr. Rogers and "Tis thus I turn th' Italian's song, He then adds, "I send you, too, a melan- to be published, which Lord Holland left behind him, ontaining Memoirs of his own times and of those immediately preceding them. In sixteen volumes, published at Paris, by Desoer. The only portion of the mass of trifles contained in this volume, that first found its way to the public eye through any more responsible channel than a newspaper, was the Letters of the Fudge Family in England,—a work which was sure, from its very nature, to encounter | the double risk of being thought dull as a mere sequel, and light and unsafe as touching on follies connected with the name of Religion. Into the question of the comparative dulness of any of my productions, it is not for me, of course, to enter; but to the charge of treating religious subjects irreverently, I shall content myself with replying in the words of Pascal,"Il a bien de la différence entre rire de la religion et rire de ceux qui la profanent par leurs opinions extravagantes." PREFACE ΤΟ THE TENTH VOLUME. THE Story which occupies this volume was intended originally to be told in verse; and a great portion of it was at first written in that form. This fact, as well as the character, perhaps, of the whole work, which a good deal partakes of the cast and coloring of poetry, have been thought sufficient to entitle it to a place in this general collection of my poetical writings. How little akin to romance or poesy were some of the circumstances under which this work was first projected by me, the reader may have seen froin a preceding preface; and the following rough outline, which I have found among my papers, dated Paris, July 25, 1820, will show both my first general conception, or foreshadowing of the story, and likewise the extent to which I thought right, in afterwards working out this design, to reject or modify some of its details. 66 about thirteen or fourteen lines o story to be told in letters from a you rean philosopher, who, in the seco of the Christian era, goes to Egy purpose of discovering the elixir of ity, which is supposed to be one of of the Egyptian priests. During a the Nile, he meets with a beautif the daughter of one of the priests 1 She enters the catacombs, and disap hovers around the spot, and at las well and secret passages, &c., by w who are initiated enter. He sees t in one of those theatrical spectac formed a part of the subterranean 1 the Pyramids-finds opportunities sing with her-their intercourse in t rious region described. They are d and he is thrown into those subterra ons, where they who violate the ru tiation are confined. He is liber thence by the young maiden, and ta together, they reach some beauti where they linger, for a time, deli she is near becoming a victim to his taking alarm, she flies; and seeks r a Christian monk, in the Thebaid, to mother, who was secretly a Christia signed her in dying. The strugg love with her religion. A persecut Christians takes place, and she is seiz through the unintentional means of and suffers martyrdom. The scene c tyrdom described, in a letter from tl of the Thebaid, and the attempt m young philosopher to rescue her. H off from thence to the cell of the His letters from that retreat, after come a Christian, devoting his the tirely to repentance and the recol the beloved saint who had gone bef If I don't make something out of a deuce is in't." According to this plan, the eve story were to be told in Letters, or Poems, addressed by the philoso young Athenian friend; but, for g riety, as well as convenience, I after tributed the task of narration among Began my Egyptian Poem, and wrote personages of the Tale. The great * Preface to the Eighth Volume, p. 40 of this edition. however, of managing, in rhyme, details of a story, so as to be cle growing prosaic, and still more, the diffuse length to which I saw narration in verse would extend, deterred me from following this plan any further; and I then commenced the tale anew in its present shape. Of the Poems written for my first experiment, a few specimens, the best I could select, were introduced into the prose story; but the remainder I had thrown aside, and nearly forgotten even their existence, when a circumstance somewhat characteristic, perhaps, of that trading spirit which has now converted Parnassus itself into a market, again called my attention to them. The late Mr. Macrone, to whose general talents and enterprise in business all who knew him will bear ready testimony, had long been anxious that I should undertake for him some new Poem or Story, affording such subjects for illustration as might call into play the fanciful pencil of Mr. Turner. Other tasks and ties, however, had rendered my compliance with this wish impracticable; and he was about to give up all thoughts of attaining his object, when on learning from me accidentally that the Epicurean was still my own property, he proposed to purchase of me the use of the copyright for a single illustrated edition. The terms proffered by him being most liberal, I readily acceded to the proposed ar rangement; but, on further consideration, there arose some difficulty in the way of our treaty-the work itself being found insufficient to form a volume of such dimensions as would yield any hope of defraying the cost of the numerous illustrations then intended for it. Some modification, therefore, of our terms was thought necessary; and then first was the notion suggested to me of bringing forth from among my papers the original sketch, or opening of the story, and adding these fragments, as a sort of make-weight, in the mutual adjustment of our terms. That I had myself regarded the first experiment as a failure, was sufficiently shown by my relinquishment of it. But, as the published work had then passed through several editions, and had been translated into most of the languages of Europe, it was thought that an insight into the anxious process by which such success had been attained, might, as an encouragement, at least, to the humble merit of painstaking, be deemed of some little use. The following are the translations of this Tale which have reached me: viz. two in French; two in Italian, (Milan, 1836-Venice, 1835 ;) one in German, (Inspruc, 1828;) and one in Dutch, by M. Herman van Loghem, (Deventer, 1829.) |