It requires no apology for introducing here a poem already well known to the public-the Ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore. For some years past it has excited considerable interest in the literary circles; and it was mentioned by a highly respectable authority, as having been long a matter of surprise among them, that its author had not revealed his name, or published any other similar production. Subsequently to this account, it has obtained a very general popularity from the splendid eulogium pronounced upon it by the late Lord Byron. Little as the author himself seemed to value the shadowy prize of poetic reputation, or of any mere worldly distinction, it appears but an act of literary justice to establish his claim to the production of a poem so justly, and so honourably appreciated, by giving it a place amongst his more valuable remains. The noble poet's enthusiastic admiration of this nameless and unpatronized effusion of genius, is authenticated in a late work, entitled, "Medwin's Conversations of Byron." The impress of such a name upon the poetic merits of an ode deemed not unworthy of his lordship's own transcendent powers, is too valuable not to be recorded here.

The passage alluded to occurs in vol ii. p. 154 (second edit.) of the above-mentioned publication, and is as follows:

"The conversation turned after dinner on the lyrical poetry of the day; and a question arose as to which was the most perfect ode that had been produced.Shelley contended for Coleridge's on Switzerland, beginning-Ye Clouds,' &c.; others named some of Moore's Irish Melodies, and Campbell's Hohenlinden ; and had Lord Byron not been present, his own Invocation in Manfred, or the Ode to Napoleon, or on Promotheus, might have been cited.

"Like Gray,' said he, 'Campbell smells too much of the oil he is never satisfied with what he does; his finest things have been spoiled by over-polish. Like

:

paintings, poems may be too highly finished. The great art is effect, no matter how produced.

"I will shew you an ode you have never seen, that I consider little inferior to the best which the present prolific age has brought forth.' With this, he left the table, almost before the cloth was removed, and returned with a magazine, from which he read the following lines on Sir John Moore's burial.

"The feeling with which he recited these admirable stanzas I shall never forget. After he had come to an end, he repeated the third, and said it was perfect, particularly the lines

'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
'With his martial cloak around him.'

"I should have taken the whole,' said Shelley,'' for a rough sketch of Campbell's.'

"No,' replied Lord Byron; 'Campbell would have claimed it, if it had been his.'"

The poem found its way to the press without the concurrence or knowledge of the author. It was recited by a friend in presence of a gentleman travelling towards the north of Ireland, who was so much struck with it, that he requested and obtained a copy; and immediately after, it appeared in the Newry Telegraph, with the initials of the author's name. From that it was copied into most of the London prints, and thence into the Dublin papers; and subsequently it appeared, with some considerable errors, in the Edinburgh Annual Register, which contained the narrative that first kindled the poet's feelings on the subject, and supplied the materials to his mind. It remained for a long time unclaimed; and other poems,* in the mean time, appeared, falsely purporting to be written by the same unknown hand, which the author would not take the pains to disavow. It lately, however, seemed to have

Amongst those was an "Address to Sleep," which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine.

become the prey of some literary spoliators, whose dishonest ambition was immediately detected and exposed. Indeed, it is hard to say, whether the claims were urged seriously, or whether it was a stratagem to draw out the acknowledgment of the real author. However, the matter has been placed beyond dispute, by the proof that it appeared with the initials C. W., in an Irish print, long prior to the alleged dates which its false claimants assign.

It is unnecessary to enter into further particulars upon this point, as the question has been set at rest; and as Captain Medwin, who at first conjectured the poem to have been written by Lord Byron himself, has avowed, in his second edition of his work, that "his supposition was erroneous, and that it appears to be the production of the late Rev. C. Wolfe." It may be interesting to prefix the paragraph in the narrative of Sir John Moore's burial, which produced so strong an emotion in the mind of our author, and prompted this immediate and spontaneous effusion of poetic genius.

"Sir John Moore had often said, that if he was killed in battle, he wished to be buried where he fell. The body was removed at midnight to the citadel of Corunna. A grave was dug for him on the rampart there, by a party of the 9th regiment, the aides du-camp attending by turns. No coffin could be procured, and the officers of his staff wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened; for, about eight in the morning, some firing was heard, and the officers feared that if a serious attack were made, they should be ordered away, and not suffered to pay him their last duty. The officers of his family bore him to the grave; the funeral service was read by the chaplain; and the corpse was covered with earth."-Edinburgh Annual Register, 1808, p. 458.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

V.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed,

And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

VI..

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

VII.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun

That the foe was suddenly firing.

VIII.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone

But we left him alone with his glory!

The principal errors in most of the copies of this poem were pointed out by an early friend of the author in an eloquent letter, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, October 29th, 1824. One error, however, which occurred in the first line of the third stanza, he omitted to correct. The word "confined" was substituted for "enclosed," manifestly for the worse, as it appears somewhat artificial, and inconsistent with the nervous simplicity of thought and expression which marks the whole poem. The third line of the fourth stanza has been commonly altered thus-" on the face of the dead." I cannot forbear quoting the critical and just observations of the friend above mentioned, upon this unhappy error. "The expression as it has been printed, is common-place; that for which it was ignorantly substituted, is original and affecting. The poet did not merely mean to tell us the fact, that the comrades of Moore gazed on the face of their dead chief,—but he meant to convey an idea of the impression which that form of death made upon them. 'They gazed on the face that was dead,' gives not merely the fact, but the sentiment of death. It is like some of those fine scriptural expressions where the simplest terms are exuberant with imagination. It intimates the awful contrast between the heroic animation which kindled up that countenance just before in action, and its now cold, ghastly, and appalling serenity."-Upon another error which has universally prevailed, in the seventh stanza, the same eloquent friend has observed, "The third and fourth lines have been thus given,

'And we heard by the distant and random gun,
"That the foe was suddenly firing: