The Poet Laureate, dear good man, worried my life out a year ago to let him write a play upon the subject especially for me.

The part of Sardanapalus was to be devised so as to bring out all my particular--er--capabilities, and any little hints that might occur to me were to be acted upon and embodied in the text.

But I wouldn't hear of it.

'Me dear Alfred,' I said, 'it isn't that I underrate your very well-known talents, but Byron's good enough for _me_.

Hang it all, you know, an artist owes something to the classics of his country.' So now, if that uneasy spirit ever looks this way from the land of the eternal shades, he'll see something at least to comfort him.