members, twelve in number, were provided with black gowns--that of
Byron, as head of the fraternity, being distinguished from the rest. A
chapter was held at certain times, when the skull drinking goblet was
filled with claret, and handed about amongst the gods of this
consistory, whilst many a grim joke was cracked at the expense of
this relic of the dead. The following lines were inscribed upon it by
Byron:

Start not, nor deem my spirit fled;
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee;
I died: let earth my bones resign.
Fill up, thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than mine.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others, let me shine,
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine.

Quaff while thou canst. Another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;