"There, in apartments small and damp, Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle, "Renouncing every pleasing page, From authors of historic use, Preferring to the letter'd sage, The square of the hypothenuse. "Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations. Which bring together the imprudent.” We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas: "Our choir would scarcely be excused Even as a band of raw beginners; All mercy now must be refused To such a set of croaking sinners "If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended : In furious mood he would have tore 'em!" But, whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus: he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a cares less mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects ag profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursiti hereafter," that he should again condescend to become as author. Therefore, let us take what we get, and be think ful. What right have we poor devils to be nice! We re well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's sta tion, who does not live in a garret, but has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful, and with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.* [The Monthly Reviewers, in those days the next in circulation to the Edinburgh, gave a much more favorable notice of the "Hours of Idleness." "These composituras (said they) are generally of a plaintive or an amatory cast, with an occasional mixture of satire; and they display both ease and strength-both pathos and fire. It will be expected that marks of juvenility and of haste should be discovered in these productions; and we seriously advise our young bard to fulfil with submissive perseverance, the duties of revision and correction. We discern, in Lord Byron, a degree of mental power, and a turn of mental disposition, which render us solicitous that both should be well en"}, vated and wisely directed, in his career of life. He hes received talents, and is accountable for the use of them We trust that he will render them beneficial to man, and a source of real gratification to himself in declining ag Then may he properly exclaim with the Roman orator, 'non lubet mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi, et i docti, sæpe fecerunt; neque me vixisse pœnitet: quoniam ita VIA, ut non frustra me natum existimem.'"-Lord Byron repaid the Edinburgh Critique with a satire-and became himse if a Monthly Reviewer.] ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS: A SATIRE.' "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."-SHAKSPEARE. PREFACE." ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turned from the career of my humor by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain,” I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavored to commemorate may do by me [The first edition of this satire, which then began with what is now the ninety-seventh line, ( Time was, ere yet," &c..) appeared in March, 1803. A second, to which the author prefixed his name, followed in October of that year; and a third and fourth were called for during his first pilgrimage, in 1810 and 1811. On his return to England, a fifth edition was prepared for the press by himself, with considerable care, but suppressed, and, except one copy, destroyed, when on the eve of publication. The text is now printed from the copy that escaped; on casually meeting with which, in 1816. he reperused the whole, and wrote on the margin some annotations, which also we shall preserve, -distinguishing them, by the insertion of their date, from as I have done by them. I dare say they will sue ceed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better. As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavored in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal. In the first edition of this satire, published anouymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition those affixed to the prior editions. The first of these MS. notes of 1816 appears on the fly-leaf and runs thus:-" The binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents; and nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another prevents me from consigning this 6.5erable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acre mony to the flames."] 2 This preface was written for the second edition. an! printed with it. The noble author had left this country previous to the publication of that edition, and is not ye returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811.-" He is, and gone again."-Lord B. 1816.] 3 [Mr. Hobhouse. See post, p. 436, note.] they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner,-a determination not to publish with my name any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition. With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and withont consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, langhed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery ean recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. -As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require a Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of the serpent," though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied. [Here the preface to the first edition commenced.] "I well recollect," said Lord Byron, in 1821, "the effect which the critique of the Edinburgh Reviewers on my årst poem, had upon me-it was rage and resistance, and reiress; but not despondency nor despair. A savage review a hemlock to a sucking author, and the one on me (which produced the English Bards, &c ) knocked me down-but I got up again. That critique was a master-piece of low wit, a tissue of scurrilous abuse. I remember there was a great deal of vulgar trash, about people being thankful for what they could get,'-'not looking a gift horse in the mouth,' and such stable expressions. But so far from their bullying the, or deterring me from writing, I was bent on falsifying Cheir raven predictions, and determined to show them, croak as they would, that it was not the last time they should hear from me."] "The severity of the criticism," as Sir Egerton Brydges has well observed, "touched Lord Byron in the point where Cis onginal strength lay: it wounded his pride, and roused has bitter indignation. He published English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' and bowed down those who had hither16 held a despotic victory over the public mind. There was, after all, more in the boldness of the enterprise, in the fearles ness of the attack, than in its intrinsic force. But the oral effect of the gallantry of the assault, and of the justice of the cause, made it victorious and triumphant. This was one of those lucky developments which cannot often occur; and which fixed Lord Byron's fame. From that day be engaged the public notice as a writer of undoubted Talent and energy both of intellect and temper."] Semper ego auditor tantum ? nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ?"-Juv. Sat. I. "Hoarse Fitzgerald."—" Right enough; but why notice such a mountebank.”—Byron, 1816.] Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Literary Fund: not content with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quan ty of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation. ENGLISH BARDS, ETC. STILL must I hear-shall hoarse Fitzgerald' bawl Oh! nature's noblest gift-my gray goose-quill! When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, Obey'd by all who naught beside obey; [For the long period of thirty-two years, this harmless poetaster was an attendant at the anniversary dinners of the Literary Fund, and constantly honored the occasion with an ode, which he himself recited with most comical dignity of emphasis. He was fortunate in having for his patron Viscount Dudley and Ward, on whose death, without a will, his benevolent intentions towards the bard were fulfilled by his son, the late Earl Dudley, who generously sent him a draft for 50007. Fitzgerald died in 1829. Of his numerous loyal effusions only a single line has survived its author; but the characteristics of his style have been so happily hit off in the " REJECTED ADDRESSES"-(a work which Lord Byron has pronounced to be "by far the best thing of the kind since the Rolliad,")-that we cannot resist the temptation of an extract : "Who burnt (confound his soul !) the houses twain, 7 Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen, in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli. ["This must have been written in the spirit of prophecy."-B. 1816.] When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, Such is the force of wit! but not belong I too can scrawl, and once upon a time A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet: Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest, And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd. And shall we own such judgment? no-as soon Or any other thing that's false, before Then should you ask me," why I venture o'er The path which Pope and Gifford trod before; If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed: Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read. "But hold!" exclaims a friend," here's some neglect: This-that-and t' other line seem incorrect." Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise, When sense and wit with poesy allied, No fabled graces, flourish'd side by side; From the same fount their inspiration drew, And, rear'd by taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew. Then, in this happy isle, a Pope's pure strain Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain ; This ingenuous youth is mentioned more particularly, liam Wordsworth, but laudeth Mister Coleridge and his with his production, in another place. In the Edinburgh Review.-["He's a very good fellow; and, except his mother and sister, the best of the set, to my mind."-B. 1816.] 3 Messrs. Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the first and the last of the Edinburgh Review; the others are mentioned hereafter.-[" This was not just. Neither the heart nor the head of these gentlemen are at all what they are here represented. At the time this was written, I was personally unacquainted with either."-B. 1816.] 4 IMIT. "Stulta est Clementia, cum tot ubique -occurras perituræ parcere charta."Juv. Sat. I. IMIT. "Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo Per quem magnus equos Aurunca flexit alum nus: Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam."Juv. Sat. I. [The first edition of the Satire opened with this line; and Lord Byron's original intention was to prefix the following "ARGUMENT. "The poet considereth times past, and their poesy-makes a sudden transition to times present-is incensed against book-makers-revileth Walter Scott for cupidity and balladmongering, with notable remarks on Master Southey-complaineth that Master Southey hath inflicted three poems, epic and otherwise, on the public-inveigheth against Wil elegy on a young ass-is disposed to vituperate Mr. Lewis -and greatly rebuketh Thomas Little (the late) and the Lord Strangford-recommendeth Mr. Hayley to turn his sttention to prose-and exhorteth the Moravians to glory Mr. Grahame--sympathizeth with the Rev. William Bowie's -and deploreth the melancholy fate of James Montgomery -breaketh out into invective against the Edinburgh Re viewers-calleth them hard names, harpies and the likeapostrophizeth Jeffrey, and prophesieth-Episode of Je frey and Moore, their jeopardy and deliverance: portents on the morn of the combat; the Tweed, Tolbooth, Frih of Forth, severally shocked; descent of a goddess to save Jeffrey; incorporation of the bullets with his sinciput and occiput.-Edinburgh Reviews en masse.-Lord Aberdeen, Herbert, Scott, Hallam, Pillans, Lambe, Sydney Smith, Brougham, &c.-The Lord Holland applauded for dinners and translations.-The Drama; Skeffington, Hook, Reynolds, Kenney, Cherry, &c.-Sheridan, Colman, and Car berland called upon to write.-Return to poesy-scritbiers of all sorts-lords sometimes rhyme; much better notHafiz, Rosa Matilda, and X. Y. Z-Rogers, Campbell, Gafford, &c. true poets-Translators of the Greek Authology -Crabbe-Darwin's style-Cambridge-Seatonian PrizeSmythe-Hodgson-Oxford-Richards- Poeta loquitur— Conclusion."] [When Lord Byron, in the autumn of 1808, was occupied upon this Satire, he devoted a considerable portion of his time to a deep study of the writings of Pope; and from that period may be dated his enthusiastic admiration of this great poet ] A polish'd nation's praise aspired to claim, Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode; And tales of terror jostle on the road; Immeasurable measures move along; For simpering folly loves a varied song, melt-To strange mysterious dulness still the friend, Admires the strain she cannot comprehend. Thus Lays of Minstrels-may they be the last !— On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to the sound at nights; And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, Decoy young border-nobles through the wood, And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why; While high-born ladies in their magic cell, Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell, Dispatch a courier to a wizard's grave, And fight with honest men to shield a knave. No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now.' Some leaden calf-but whom it matters not, Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review: Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race; One of my notions is, that the present is not a high age of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than ever there were, and proportionably less poetry. This thesis I have maintained for some years; but, strange to say, it teeteth not with favor from my brethren of the shell."-B. Diary, 1821.1 P With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced that we are all upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free. I am the more confirmed in this by hasing lately gone over some of our classics, particularly ope, whom I tried in this way:-I took Moore's poems, and my own, and some others, and went over them side by sade with Pope's, and I was really astonished and mortified at the ineffable distance, in point of sense, learning, effect, even imagination, passion, and invention, between the le Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, Chong us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myse.f accordingly."-B. Diary, 1817.) Stott, better known in the "Morning Post" by the name of Hafiz. This personage is at present the most profound explorer of the bathos. I remember, when the reigning faimly left Portugal, a special Ode of Master Stott's, beging thus-(Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia.)— "Princely offspring of Braganza, Erin greets thee with a stanza," &c. Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a Last thundering Ode, commencing as follows: "Oh for a Lay, loud as the surge That lashes Lapland's sounding shore." Lord have mercy on us the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" was nothing to this. See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was y plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning, Prologuizing to Bayes' tragedy, unfortunately takes away the ment of originality from the dialogue between Mescars the Spirits of Flood and Fell in the first canto. Then we have the amiable William of Deloraine, "a stark Boss-trooper," videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledgment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, 'twas his neck-verse at Harribee," i. e. the gallows. The biography of Gilpin Horner, and the marvellons pedestrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of seven-leagued boots, are chefsd'œuvre in the improvement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, but by no means sparing box on the ear bestowed on the page, and the entrance of a knight and t charger into the castle, under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Marmion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly what William of Deloraine would have been, had he been able to read and write. The poem was manufactured for Messrs. Constable, Murray, and Miller, worshipful booksellers, in consideration of the receipt of a sum of money; and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will write for hire, let him do his best for his pay-masters, but not disgrace his genius, which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of blackletter ballad imitations. ["When Lord Byron wrote his famous satire, I had my share of flagellation among my betters. My crime was having written a poem for a thousand pounds; which was no otherwise true, than that I sold the copyright for that sum. Now, not to mention that an author can hardly be censured for accepting such a sum as the booksellers are willing to give him, especially as the gentlemen of the trade made no complaints of their bargain, I thought the interference with my private affairs was rather beyond the limits of literary satire. I was, however, so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remonstrated against it with the editor, because I thought the Hours of Idleness' treated with undue severity. They were written, like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what had pleased the author in others, than what had been suggested by his own imagination; but, nevertheless, I thought they contamed passages of noble promise "-SIR WALTER SCOTT.] [Lord Byron, as is well known, set out with the determination never to receive money for his writings. For the liberty to republish this satire, he refused four hundred Such be their meed, such still the just reward These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; The time has been, when yet the muse was young, When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung, An epic scarce ten centuries could claim, While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name; The work of each immortal bard appears The single wonder of a thousand years.2 Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth, Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth, Without the glory such a strain can give, As even in ruin bids the language live. Not so with us, though minor bards content, On one great work a life of labor spent: With eagle pinion soaring to the skies, Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise! To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso yield, Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, The scourge of England and the boast of France! guineas; and the money paid for the copyright of the first and second cantos of Childe Harold, and of the Corsair, he presented to Mr. Dallas. In 1816, to a letter enclosing a draft of 1000 guineas, offered by Mr. Murray for the Siege of Corinth and Parisina, the noble poet sent this answer :"Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth-but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome to them, as addi tions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part whatever. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the way. I wish you would not throw temptation in mine; it is not from a disdain of the universal idol-nor from a present superfluity of his treasures-I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances." The poet was afterwards induced, at Mr. Murray's earnest persuasion, to accept the thousand guineas. The subjoined statement of the sums paid by him at various times to Lord Byron for copyright may be considered a bibliopolic curiosity : Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, "Paradise Lost," and "Gierusalemme Liberata," as their standard efforts; since neither the "Jerusalem Conquered" of the Italian, nor the Paradise Regained" of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive! "Thalaba," Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to pro duce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan of Arc," was marvellous enough, but "Thalaba," was one of those poems" which," in the words of Porson, "will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but-not till then.” 4["Of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous song."-Madec.) We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degrading title of epic." See his preface. Why is epic degraded and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and pestle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr. Southey's poem "disdains the appellation," allow us to ask-has he substituted any thing better in its stead of must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of his verse? See "The Old Woman of Berkley," a ballad, by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high-trotting horse." 7 The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiaren from the Anti-jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his Dactyles.[Lord Byron here alludes to Mr. Gifford's parody on Mr Southey's Dactylics, which ends thus: "Ne'er talk of ears again! look at thy spelling-book; Dilworth and Dyche are both mad at thy quantitiesDactylics, call'st thou 'em?- God help thee, silly one." 8 [Lord Byron, on being introduced to Mr. Southey i 1813, at Holland House, describes him as the best-locking bard he had seen for a long time."-" To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would," he says, "almost have writ ten his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person!* look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and there is s eulogy." In his Journal, of the same year, he says"Southey I have not seen much of. His appearance is epic, and he is the only existing entire man of letters. A the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorsh His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the wor41, and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps. too much of it for the present generation-posterity wi probably select. He has passages equal to any thing. present, he has a party, but no public-except for his prose writings. His Life of Nelson is beautiful." Elsewhere. and later, Lord Byron pronounces Southey's Don Rodericà, "the first poem of our time."] |