To Mr. Murray [For Orford And For Waldegrave]

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Title:     To Mr. Murray [For Orford And For Waldegrave]
Author: Lord Byron [More Titles by Byron]

1.

FOR Orford[1] and for Waldegrave[2]
You give much more than me you _gave_;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray!

2.

Because if a live dog, 't is said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth _two_ dead,
My Murray!

3.

And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose,--
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray!

4.

But now this sheet is nearly crammed,
So, if _you will_, _I_ shan't be shammed,
And if you _won't_,--_you_ may be damned,
My Murray![3]

August 23, 1821.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] [Horace Walpole's _Memoirs of the Last Nine Years of the Reign of George II._ ]

[2] [_Memoirs_ by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.]

[3] ["Can't accept your courteous offer [_i.e._ £2000 for three cantos of _Don Juan, Sardanapalus_, and _The Two Foscari_.] These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season'--'flat public'--'don't go off'--'lordship writes too much'--'won't take advice'--'declining popularity'--'deductions for the trade'--'make very little'--'generally lose by him'--'pirated edition'--'foreign edition'--'severe criticisms,' etc., with other hints and howls for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer."--Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 348.]

[The end]
Lord Byron's poem: To Mr. Murray [For Orford And For Waldegrave]

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