THE SUN.
(1) LORD BYRON AND THE 'MORNING CHRONICLE'
('The Sun', February 4, 1814).
That poetical Peer, Lord BYRON, knowing full well that anything
insulting to his Prince or injurious to his country would be most
thankfully received and published by the 'Morning Chronicle', did in
March, 1812, send the following loyal and patriotic lines to that loyal
and patriotic Paper, in which of course they appeared:
"To A LADY WEEPING.
"Weep, daughter of a Royal line,
_A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay:_
Ah! happy! if each tear of thine
Could wash a father's _fault_ away!
"Weep--for thy tears are Virtue's tears--
Auspicious to these suffering isles:
And be each drop, in future years,
Repaid thee by thy people's smiles!"
These lines the 'Morning Chronicle', in the following paragraph of
yesterday, informs us were aimed at the PRINCE REGENT, and addressed to
the Princess CHARLOTTE:
"'The Courier' is indignant at the discovery now made by Lord BYRON,
that he was the author of 'the Verses to a Young Lady weeping,' which
were inserted about a twelvemonth ago in 'the Morning Chronicle'. The
Editor thinks it audacious in a hereditary Counsellor of the King to
admonish the 'Heir Apparent'. It may not be 'courtly', but it is
certainly 'British', and we wish the kingdom had more such honest
advisers."
No wonder the 'Courier', and every loyal man, should be indignant at the
discovery (made by the republication of these worthless lines, in the
Noble Lord's new Volume) that this gross insult came from the pen of "a
hereditary Counsellor of the KING! "No wonder every good subject should
execrate this novel and disagreeable mode of "'admonishing' the Heir
Apparent," which is further from being British than it is from being
Courtly; for, from Courtier baseness may be expected, but from a Briton
no such infamous dereliction of his duty as is involved in a malignant,
'anonymous' attack by a Peer of the Realm upon the person exercising the
Sovereign Authority of his Country.
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