llowing
lines from _The Candidate_, which suggested the epitaph (lines 145-154),
were, doubtless, familiar to him:--

"Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head
Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead;
Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that prayer)
Be planted on my grave, nor wither there;
And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest
Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest,
Let it hold up this comment to his eyes;
Life to the last enjoy'd, _here_ Churchill lies;
Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives)
Reading my Works he cries--_here_ Churchill lives."

Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 1816, at Dover. He was to sail that night
for Ostend, and, to while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and thought
out, perhaps began to write, the lines which were finished three months
later at the Campagne Diodati.

"The Grave of Churchill," writes Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October,
1816), "might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for,
though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a
resemblance between their history and character.... both these poets
held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed
by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of
both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of
mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes.
Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and
indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness."

Save for the affectation of a style which did not belong to him, and
which in his heart he despised, Byron's commemoration of Churchill does
not lack depth or seriousness. It was the parallel between their lives
and temperaments which awoke reflection and sympathy, and prompted this
"natural homily." Perhaps, too, the shadow of impending exile had
suggested to his imagination that further parallel which Scott
deprecated, and deprecated in vain, "death in the flower of his age, and
in a foreign land."]

[60] {46}[On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines Lord
Byron has written, "The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured
to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a
serious imitation of the style of a great poet--its beauties and its
defects: I say the _style_; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this,
if the