Lord Holland, Sept, 28, 1812.]

[bq] {53}
_Far be from him that hour which asks in vain_
_Tears such as flow for Garrick in his strain;_
or, _Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn_
/ crowned his \
_Sad verse for him as_ { } _Garrick's urn_.--
\ _wept o'er_ /
[_Letter to Lord Holland, Sept_. 30, 1812.]

[41] [Originally, "Ere Garrick _died_," etc. "By the by, one of my
corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos
some sixty fathom--

'When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.'

Ceasing to _live_ is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be
first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes
'sought' and 'wrote' [_vide supra, variant_ ii.] Second thoughts in
every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come
amiss.... I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but
never sufficiently."--Letter to Lord Holland, September 26, 1812,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 150.]

[br]
_Such are the names that here your plaudits sought,_
_When Garrick acted, and when Brinsley wrote_.--[MS.]

[42] {54} [The following lines were omitted by the Committee:--

"_Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores_
_That late she deigned to crawl upon all-fours_.
_When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse_,
_If you command, the steed must come in course_.
_If you decree, the Stage must condescend_
To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend.
_Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce_,
_And gratify you more by showing less_.
Oh, since your Fiat stamps the Drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;
_That public praise be ne'er again disgraced_,
/ brutes to man recall \
_From_ { } _a nation's taste;_
\ _babes and brutes redeem_ /
Then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
When Reason's voice is echoed back with ours."

The last couplet but one was altered in a later copy, thus--

"_The past reproach let present scenes refute_,
_Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute._"

"Is Whitbread," wrote Lord Byron, "determined to castrate all my
_cavalry_ lines?... I do implore, for my _own_ gratification, one lash
on those accursed quadrupeds--'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love
me.'"--_Let