English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (continued 2)

Footnote 48: Ý "Awake a louder," etc., is the first line in Bowles's Spirit of Discovery: a very spirited and pretty dwarf Epic. Among other exquisite lines we have the following:-- ----"A kiss Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet Here heard; they trembled even as if the power," etc., etc. That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss; very much astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon. "Mis-quoted and misunderstood by me; but not intentionally. It was not the 'woods,' but the people in them who trembled--why, Heaven only knows--unless they were overheard making this prodigious smack." (B., 1816.) return Footnote Z: Ý Behold the new Petronius of the times The skilful Arbiter of modern crimes.... [MS.] return

Footnote 49: Ý The episode above alluded to is the story of "Robert à Machin" and "Anna d'Arfet," a pair of constant lovers, who performed the kiss above mentioned, that startled the woods of Madeira. [See Byron's letter to Murray, Feb. 7, 1821, "On Bowies' Strictures," Life, p. 688.] return Footnote Aa: Ý a Paget for your wife... [MS. First to Fourth Editions.] return

Footnote 50: ÝCurll is one of the Heroes of the Dunciad, and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Hervey, author of Lines to the Imitator of Horace. return Footnote Bb: Ý From Grosvenor Place or Square... [MS. British Bards] return

Footnote 51: Ý Lord Bolingbroke hired Mallet to traduce Pope after his decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord Bolingbroke--the "Patriot King,"--which that splendid, but malignant genius had ordered to be destroyed. return Footnote Cc: Ý On one alone Apollo deigns to smile And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle.... [MS. Addition to British Bards] return

Footnote 52: Ý Dennis the critic, and Ralph the rhymester:-- "Silence, ye Wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, Making Night hideous: answer him, ye owls!" Dunciad. [Book III. II. 165, 166, Pope wrote, "And makes night," etc.] return Footnote Dd: Ý Yet at their fiat---- Yet at their nausea----... [MS Newstead] return

Footnote 53: Ý See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for which he received three hundred pounds. [Twelve hundred guineas.--British Bards.] Thus Mr. B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another, than to elevate his own. ["Too savage all this on Bowles," wrote Byron, in 1816, but he afterwards returned to his original sentiments. "Although," he says (Feb. 7, 1821), "I regret having published English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, the part which I regret the least is that which regards Mr. Bowles, with reference to Pope. Whilst I was writing that publication, in 1807 and 1808, Mr. Hobhouse was desirous that I should express our mutual opinion of Pope, and of Mr. Bowles's edition of his works. As I had completed my outline, and felt lazy, I requested that he would do so. He did it. His fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope are in the first edition of English Bards, and are quite as severe, and much more poetical, than my own, in the second. On reprinting the work, as I put my name to it, I omitted Mr. Hobhouse's lines, by which the work gained less than Mr. Bowles.... I am grieved to say that, in reading over those lines, I repent of their having so far fallen short of what I meant to express upon the subject of his edition of Pope's works" (Life, pp. 688, 689). The lines supplied by Hobhouse are here subjoined:-- "Stick to thy sonnets, man!--at least they sell. Or take the only path that open lies For modern worthies who would hope to rise: Fix on some well-known name, and, bit by bit, Pare off the merits of his worth and wit: On each alike employ the critic's knife, And when a comment fails, prefix a life; Hint certain failings, faults before unknown, Review forgotten lies, and add your own; Let no disease, let no misfortune 'scape, And print, if luckily deformed, his shape: Thus shall the world, quite undeceived at last, Cleave to their present wits, and quit their past; Bards once revered no more with favour view, But give their modern sonneteers their due; Thus with the dead may living merit cope, Thus Bowles may triumph o'er the shade of Pope." return Footnote Ee: Ý Such sneering fame.... [British Bards] return

Footnote 54: Ý "'Helicon' is a mountain, and not a fish-pond. It should have been 'Hippocrene.'"--B., 1816. [The correction was made in the Fifth Edition.] return Footnote Ff: Ý Though Bell has lost his nightingales and owls, Matilda snivels still and Hafiz howls, And Crusca's spirit rising from the dead Revives in Laura, Quiz, and X. Y. Z.<... [British Bards. First to Third Editions, 1810] return

Footnote 55: Ý Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books they do not sell, have published a pair of Epics--Alfred (poor Alfred! Pye has been at him too!)--Alfred and the Fall of Cambria. "All right. I saw some letters of this fellow (Jh. Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, whose productions, which the poor woman by no means thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and bitterly, that I could hardly regret assailing him, even were it unjust, which it is not--for verily he is an ass."--B., 1816. [Compare Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin-- "And Cottle, not he whom that Alfred made famous, But Joseph of Bristol, the brother of Amos." The identity of the brothers Cottle appears to have been a matter beneath the notice both of the authors of the Anti-Jacobin and of Byron. Amos Cottle, who died in 1800 (see Lamb's Letter to Coleridge of Oct. 9, 1800; Letters of C. Lamb, 1888, i. 140), was the author of a Translation of the Edda of Soemund, published in 1797. Joseph Cottle, inter alia, published Alfred in 1801, and The Fall of Cambria, 1807. An Expostulatory Epistle, in which Joseph avenges Amos and solemnly castigates the author of Don Juan, was issued in 1819 (see Lamb's Letter to Cottle, Nov. 5, 1819), and was reprinted in the Memoir of Amos Cottle, inserted in his brother's Early Recollections of Coleridge (London, 1837, i. 119). The "unfortunate poetess" was, probably, Ann Yearsley, the Bristol milk-woman. Wordsworth, too (see Recollections of the Table-Talk of S. Rogers, 1856, p. 235), dissuaded her from publishing her poems. Roughness and bitterness were not among Cottle's faults or foibles, and it is possible that Byron misconceived the purport of the correspondence.] return Footnote Gg: Ý None since the past have claimed the tribute due... [British Bards. MS] return

Footnote 56: Ý Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of "Richmond Hill," and the like:--it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent. [The Rev. Thomas Maurice (1754-1824) had this at least in common with Byron--that his History of Ancient and Modern Hindostan was severely attacked in the Edinburgh Review. He published a vindication of his work in 1805. He must have confined his dulness to his poems (Richmond Hill (1807), etc.), for his Memoirs (1819) are amusing, and, though otherwise blameless, he left behind him the reputation of an "indiscriminate enjoyment" of literary and other society. Lady Anne Hamilton alludes to him in Epics of the Ton (1807), p. 165-- "Or warmed like Maurice by Museum fire, From Ganges dragged a hurdy-gurdy lyre." He was assistant keeper of MSS. at the British Museum from 1799 till his death. return Footnote Hh: Ý From Albion's cliffs to Caledonia's coast. Some few who know to write as well as feel... [MS.] return

Footnote 57: Ý Poor Montgomery, though praised by every English Review, has been bitterly reviled by the Edinburgh. After all, the Bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius. His Wanderer of Switzerland is worth a thousand Lyrical Ballads, and at least fifty Degraded Epics. [James Montgomery (1771-1854) was born in Ayrshire, but settled at Sheffield, where he edited a newspaper, the Iris, a radical print, which brought him into conflict with the authorities. His early poems were held up to ridicule in the Edinburgh Review by Jeffrey, in Jan. 1807. It was probably the following passage which provoked Byron's note: "When every day is bringing forth some new work from the pen of Scott, Campbell,... Wordsworth, and Southey, it is natural to feel some disgust at the undistinguishing voracity which can swallow down these... verses to a pillow." The Wanderer of Switzerland, which Byron said he preferred to the Lyrical Ballads, was published in 1806. The allusion in line 419 is to the first stanza of The Lyre-- "Where the roving rill meand'red Down the green, retiring vale, Poor, forlorn Alcæus wandered, Pale with thoughts--serenely pale." He is remembered chiefly as the writer of some admirable hymns. (Vide ante, p. 107, Answer to a Beautiful Poem, and note.)] return Footnote Jj: Ý The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.... [First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 58: Ý Arthur's Seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh. return Footnote Kk: Ý On him may meritorious honours tend While doubly mingling,... [MS. erased] return

Footnote 59: Ý Lines 439-527 are not in the MS. The first draft of the passage on Jeffrey, which appears to have found a place in British Bards and to have been afterwards cut out, runs as follows:-- "Who has not heard in this enlightened age, When all can criticise the historic page, Who has not heard in James's Bigot Reign Of Jefferies! monarch of the scourge, and chain, Jefferies the wretch whose pestilential breath, Like the dread Simoom, winged the shaft of Death; The old, the young to Fate remorseless gave Nor spared one victim from the common grave? "Such was the Judge of James's iron time, When Law was Murder, Mercy was a crime, Till from his throne by weary millions hurled The Despot roamed in Exile through the world. "Years have rolled on;--in all the lists of Shame, Who now can parallel a Jefferies' name? With hand less mighty, but with heart as black With voice as willing to decree the Rack, With tongue envenomed, with intentions foul The same in name and character and soul." The first four lines of the above, which have been erased, are to be found on p. 16 of British Bards. Pages 17, 18, are wanting, and quarto proofs of lines 438-527 have been inserted. Lines 528-539 appear for the first time in the Fifth Edition. return Footnote Mm: Ý And you united Bards... [MS. Addition to British Bards] And you ye nameless... [MS. erased.] return

Footnote 60: Ý "Too ferocious--this is mere insanity."--B., 1816. [The comment applies to lines 432-453.] return Footnote Nn: Ý Translation's servile work at length disown And quit Achaia's Muse to court your own... [MS. Addition to British Bards] return

Footnote 61: Ý "All this is bad, because personal."--B., 1816. return Footnote Pp: Ý Let these arise and anxious of applause... [British Bards. MS] return

Footnote 62: Ý In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the Magistracy; and on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints. [The first four editions read, "the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants."] [The following disclaimer to the foregoing note appears in the MS. in Leigh Hunt's copy of the Fourth Edition, 1811. It was first printed in the Fifth Edition:--] "I am informed that Mr. Moore published at the time a disavowal of the statements in the newspapers, as far as regarded himself; and, in justice to him, I mention this circumstance. As I never heard of it before, I cannot state the particulars, and was only made acquainted with the fact very lately. November 4, 1811." [As a matter of fact, it was Jeffrey's pistol that was found to be leadless.] return cross-reference: return to footnote of lines "To the Earl of Clare Footnote Qq: Ý But not in heavy... [British Bards. MS] return

Footnote 63: Ý The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; it would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of the river to have shown the smallest symptom of apprehension. return Footnote Rr: Ý Let prurient Southey cease... [MS. British Bards] return

Footnote 64: Ý This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the Edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish. return Footnote Ss: Ý still the babe at nurse... [MS.] Let Lewis jilt our nurseries with alarm With tales that oft disgust and never charm return

Footnote 65: ÝLine 508. For "oat-fed phalanx," the Quarto Proof and Editions 1-4 read "ranks illustrious." The correction is made in MS. in the Annotated Edition. It was suggested that the motto of the Edinburgh Review should have been, "Musam tenui meditamur avenâ." return Footnote Tt: Ý But thou with powers... [MS. British Bards] return

Footnote 66: Ý His Lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and reviewer of Gell's Topography of Troy. [George Gordon, fourth Earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860), published in 1822 An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture. His grandfather purchased Gight, the property which Mrs. Byron had sold to pay her husband's debts. This may have been an additional reason for the introduction of his name.] return Footnote Uu: Ý Let Moore be lewd; let Strangford steal from Moore... [MS. First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 67: Ý Mr. Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer: the translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar tongue, and endeth thus:-- "Instead of money and rings, I wot, The hammer's bruises were her lot. Thus Odin's son his hammer got." [William Herbert (1778-1847), son of the first Earl of Carnarvon, edited Musæ Etonenses in 1795, whilst he was still at school. He was one of the earliest contributors to the Edinburgh Review. At the time when Byron was writing his satire, he was M.P. for Hampshire, but in 1814 he took Orders. He was appointed Dean of Manchester in 1840, and republished his poetical works, and among them his Icelandic Translations or Horæ Scandicæ (Miscellaneous Works, 2 vols.), in 1842.] return Footnote Vv: Ý For outlawed Sherwood's tales... [MS. Brit. Bards. Eds. 1-4] return

Footnote 68: Ý The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed Author of Peter Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms. [Sydney Smith (1771-1845), the "witty Canon of St. Paul's," was one of the founders, and for a short time (1802) the editor, of the Edinburgh Review. His Letters on the Catholicks, from Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham, appeared in 1807-8.] return Footnote Ww: Ý And even spurns the great Seatonian prize... [MS. First to Fourth Editions (a correction in the Annotated Copy).] return

Footnote 69: Ý Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's "Taste," and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein. It was not discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity.-- [Note added to Second Edition: Hallam is incensed because he is falsely accused, seeing that he never dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorry--not for having said so, but on his account, as I understand his Lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions. If he did not review Lord Holland's performance, I am glad; because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. If Mr. Hallam will tell me who did review it, the real name shall find a place in the text; provided, nevertheless, the said name be of two orthodox musical syllables, and will come into the verse: till then, Hallam must stand for want of a better.] [Henry Hallam (1777-1859), author of Europe during the Middle Ages, 1808, etc. "This," said Byron, "is the style in which history ought to be written, if it is wished to impress it on the memory" (Lady Blessington's Conversations with Lord Byron, 1834, p. 213). The article in question was written by Dr. John Allen, Lord Holland's domestic physician, and Byron was misled by the similarity of sound in the two names (see H. C. Robinson's Diary, i. 277), or repeated what Hodgson had told him (see Introduction, and Letter 102, note i). For a disproof that Hallam wrote the article, see Gent. Mag., 1830, pt. i. p. 389; and for an allusion to the mistake in the review, compare All the Talents, p. 96, and note. "Spare me not Chronicles and Sunday News, Spare me not Pamphleteers and Scotch Reviews" "The best literary joke I recollect is its [the Edin. Rev.] attempting to prove some of the Grecian Pindar rank non sense, supposing it to have been written by Mr. P. Knight."] return go to Footnote 78 Footnote Xx: Ý With odes by Smyth^A and epic songs by Hoyle, Hoyle whose learn'd page, if still upheld by whist Required no sacred theme to bid us list... [MS. British Bards] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; William Smyth (1766-1849). Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, published his English Lyrics (in 1806), and several other works. return to poem

Footnote 70: Ý Pillans is a [private, MS.] tutor at Eton. [James Pillans (1778-1864), Rector of the High School, and Professor of Humanity in the University, Edinburgh. Byron probably assumed that the review of Hodgson's Translation of Juvenal, in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1808, was by him.] return Footnote Yy: Ý Yet hold--as when by Heaven's supreme behest, If found, ten righteous had preserved the Rest In Sodom's fated town--for Granta's name Let Hodgson's Genius plead and save her fame But where fair Isis, etc.... [MS. and British Bards] return

Footnote 71: ÝThe Honourable G. Lambe reviewed "Beresford's Miseries," and is moreover Author of a farce enacted with much applause at the Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great expedition at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It was entitled Whistle for It. [See note, supra, on line 57.] His review of James Beresford's Miseries of Human Life; or the Last Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, appeared in the Edinburgh Review for Oct. 1806. return Footnote Zz: Ý See Clarke still striving piteously to please Forgets that Doggrel leads not to degrees... [MS. Fragment bound up with British Bards] return

Footnote 72: Ý Mr. Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions. [Here followed, in the First Edition: "The name of this personage is pronounced Broom in the south, but the truly northern and musical pronunciation is Brough-am, in two syllables;" but for this, Byron substituted in the Second Edition: "It seems that Mr. Brougham is not a Pict, as I supposed, but a Borderer, and his name is pronounced Broom, from Trent to Tay:--so be it." The title of the work was "Exposition of the Practices and Machinations which led to the usurpation of the Crown of Spain, and the means adopted by the Emperor of the French to carry it into execution," by Don Pedro Cevallos. The article, which appeared in Oct. 1808, was the joint composition of Jeffrey and Brougham, and proved a turning-point in the political development of the Review.] return Footnote aA: Ý So sunk in dullness and so lost in shame That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame... [MS. Addition to British Bards. First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 73: Ý: I ought to apologise to the worthy Deities for introducing a new Goddess with short petticoats to their notice: but, alas! what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's Genius, it being well known there is no genius to be found from Clackmannan to Caithness; yet without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "Kelpies" are too unpoetical, and the "Brownies" and "gude neighbours" (spirits of a good disposition) refused to extricate him. A Goddess, therefore, has been called for the purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with anything heavenly. return Footnote bB: Ý is wove... [MS. British Bards and First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 74: Ý Lines 528-539 appeared for the first time in the Fifth Edition. return Footnote cC: Ý And modern Britons justly praise their sires... [MS. British Bards and First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 75: Ý See the colour of the back binding of the Edinburgh Review. return Footnote dD: Ý --what her sons must know too well... [British Bards] return

Footnote 76: Ý "Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds too."--B., 1816. [The comment applies to the whole passage on Lord Holland.] [Henry Richard Vassall, third Lord Holland (1773-1840), to whom Byron dedicated the Bride of Abydos (1813). His Life of Lope de Vega (see note 4) was published in 1806, and Three Comedies from the Spanish, in 1807.] return Footnote eE: Ý Zeal for her honour no malignant Rage, Has bade me spurn the follies of the age.... [MS. British Bards. First Edition] return

Footnote 77: ÝHenry Petty (1780-1863) succeeded his brother as third Marquis of Lansdowne in 1809. He was a regular attendant at the social and political gatherings of his relative, Lord Holland; and as Holland House was regarded as one of the main rallying-points of the Whig party and of the Edinburgh Reviewers, the words, "whipper-in and hunts-man," probably refer to their exertions in this respect. return Footnote fF: Ý --Ocean's lonely Queen... [British Bards] --Ocean's mighty Queen... [First to Fourth Editions] return

Footnote 78: Ý See note 1, p. 337. return Footnote gG: Ý Like these thy cliffs may sink in ruin hurled The last white ramparts of a falling world... [British Bards MS.] return

Footnote 79: Ý Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author. Both are bepraised by his disinterested guests. return Footnote hH: Ý But should I back return, no lettered rage Shall drag my common-place book on the stage: Let vain Valentia^A rival luckless Carr, And equal him whose work he sought to mar... [Second to Fourth Editions] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp;. Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming with due decorations, graphical, topographical, typographical) deposed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit, that Mr. Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of The Stranger in Ireland.--Oh, fie, my lord! has your lordship no more feeling for a fellow-tourist?--but "two of a trade," they say, etc. [George Annesley, Viscount Valentia (1769-1844), published, in 1809, Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt in the Years 1802-6. Byron calls him "vain" Valentia, because his "accounts of ceremonies attending his lordship's interviews with several of the petty princes" suggest the thought "that his principal errand to India was to measure certain rank in the British peerage against the gradations of Asiatic royalty."--Eclectic Review, August, 1809. In August, 1808, Sir John Carr, author of numerous Travels, brought an unsuccessful action for damages against Messrs. Hood and Sharpe, the publishers of the parody of his works by Edward Dubois,--My Pocket Book: or Hints for a Ryghte Merrie and Conceitede Tour, in 4to, to be called "The Stranger in Ireland in 1805," By a Knight Errant, and dedicated to the papermakers. (See Letter to Hodgson, August 6, 1809, and suppressed stanza (stanza Ixxxvii.) of the first canto of Childe Harold.)] return to Footnote hH return to poem

Footnote 80: Ý Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review. However that may be, we know from good authority, that the manuscripts are submitted to her perusal--no doubt, for correction. return Footnote jJ: Ý To stun mankind, with Poesy or Prose [Second to Fourth Editions.] return

Footnote 81: Ý In the melo-drama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage; a new asylum for distressed heroes. [In the MS. and British Bards the note stands thus: "In the melodrama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage, and Count Everard in the fortress hides himself in a green-house built expressly for the occasion. 'Tis a pity that Theodore Hook, who is really a man of talent, should confine his genius to such paltry productions as The Fortress, Music Mad, etc. etc." Theodore Hook (1788-1841) produced Tekeli in 1806. Fortress and Music Mad were played in 1807. He had written some eight or ten popular plays before he was twenty-one.] return Footnote kK: Ý Thus much I've dared to do, how far my lay . [First to Fourth Editions.] return

Footnote 82: Ý Vide post, 1. 591, note 3. return

Footnote 83: Ý William Henry West Betty (1791-1874) ("the Young Roscius") made his first appearance on the London stage as Selim, disguised as Achmet, in Barbarossa, Dec. 1, 1804, and his last, as a boy actor, in Tancred, and Captain Flash in Miss in her Teens, Mar. 17, 1806, but acted in the provinces till 1808. So great was the excitement on the occasion of his début, that the military were held in readiness to assist in keeping order. Having made a large fortune, he finally retired from the stage in 1824, and passed the last fifty years of his life in retirement, surviving his fame by more than half a century. return

Footnote 84: Ý All these are favourite expressions of Mr. Reynolds, and prominent in his comedies, living and defunct. [Frederick Reynolds (1764-1841) produced nearly one hundred plays, one of the most successful of which was The Caravan, or the Driver and his Dog. The text alludes to his endeavour to introduce the language of ordinary life on the stage. Compare The Children of Apollo, p. 9-- "But in his diction Reynolds grossly errs; For whether the love hero smiles or mourns, 'Tis oh! and ah! and ah! and oh! by turns." return

Footnote 85: Ý James Kenney (1780-1849). Among his very numerous plays, the most successful were Raising the Wind (1803), and Sweethearts and Wives (1823). The World was brought out at Covent Garden, March 30, 1808, and had a considerable run. He was intimate with Charles and Mary Lamb (see Letters of Charles Lamb, ii. 16, 44). return

Footnote 85a: Ý Mr. T. Sheridan, the new Manager of Drury Lane theatre, stripped the Tragedy of Bonduca [Caratach in the original MS.] of the dialogue, and exhibited the scenes as the spectacle of Caractacus. Was this worthy of his sire? or of himself? [Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), most famous as the son of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and father of Lady Dufferin, Mrs. Norton, and the Duchess of Somerset, was author of several plays. His Bonduca was played at Covent Garden, May 3, 1808. The following answer to a real or fictitious correspondent, in the European Magazine for May, 1808, is an indication of contemporary opinion: "The Fishwoman's letter to the author of Caractacus on the art of gutting is inadmissible." For anecdotes of Thomas Sheridan, see Angelo's Reminiscences, 1828, ii. 170-175. See, too, Epics of the Ton, p. 264. return

Footnote 86: Ý George Colman, the younger (1762-1836), wrote numerous dramas, several of which, e.g. The Iron Chest (1796), John Bull (1803), The Heir-at-Law (1808), have been popular with more than one generation of playgoers. An amusing companion, and a favourite at Court, he was appointed Lieutenant of the Yeomen of the Guard, and examiner of plays by Royal favour, but his reckless mode of life kept him always in difficulties. John Bull is referred to in Hints from Horace, line 166. return

Footnote 87: Ý Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), the original of Sir Fretful Plagiary in The Critic, a man of varied abilities, wrote poetry, plays, novels, classical translations, and works of religious controversy. He was successively Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and secretary to the Board of Trade. His best known plays are The West Indian, The Wheels of Fortune, and The Jew. He published his Memoirs in 1806-7. return

Footnote 88: Ý Sheridan's translation of Pizarro, by Kotzebue, was first played at Drury Lane, 1799. Southey wrote of it, "It is impossible to sink below Pizarro. Kotzebue's play might have passed for the worst possible if Sheridan had not proved the possibility of making it worse" (Southey's Letters, i. 87). Gifford alludes to it in a note to The Mæviad as "the translation so maliciously attributed to Sheridan." return

Footnote 89: Ý In all editions, previous to the fifth, it was, "Kemble lives to tread." Byron used to say, that, of actors, "Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two; but that Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together." Such effect, however, had Kean's acting on his mind, that once, on seeing him play Sir Giles Overreach, he was seized with a fit. return

Footnote 90: Ý See supra, line 562. (click c4 to return) return

Footnote 91: Ý Andrew Cherry (1762-1812) acted many parts in Ireland and in the provinces, and for a few years appeared at Drury Lane. He was popular in Dublin, where he was known as "Little Cherry." He was painted as Lazarillo in Jephson's Two Strings to Your Bow. He wrote The Travellers (1806), Peter the Great (1807), and other plays. return

Footnote 92: Ý Mr. [now Sir Lumley] Skeffington is the illustrious author of The Sleeping Beauty; and some comedies, particularly Maids and Bachelors: Baccalaurii baculo magis quam lauro digni. [Lumley St. George (afterwards Sir Lumley) Skeffington (1768-1850). Besides the plays mentioned in the note, he wrote The Maid of Honour (1803) and The Mysterious Bride (1808). Amatory Verses, by Tom Shuffleton of the Middle Temple (1815), are attributed to his pen. They are prefaced by a dedicatory letter to Byron, which includes a coarse but clever skit in the style of English Bards. "Great Skeffington" was a great dandy. According to Capt. Gronow (Reminiscences, i. 63), "he used to paint his face so that he looked like a French toy; he dressed à la Robespierre, and practised all the follies;... was remarkable for his politeness and courtly manners... You always knew of his approach by an avant courier of sweet smell." His play The Sleeping Beauty had a considerable vogue.] return

Footnote 93: Ý Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), natural son of Charles Dibdin the elder, made his first appearance on the stage at the age of four, playing Cupid to Mrs. Siddons' Venus at the Shakespearian Jubilee in 1775. One of his best known pieces is The Jew and the Doctor (1798). His pantomime, Mother Goose, in which Grimaldi took a part, was played at Covent Garden in 1807, and is said to have brought the management £20,000. return cross-reference: return to Footnote 82 of this poem

Footnote 94: Ý Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, scene-painter to Drury Lane theatre--as such, Mr. Skeffington is much indebted to him. return

Footnote 95: Ý Naldi and Catalani require little notice; for the visage of the one, and the salary of the other, will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the Lady's appearance in trousers. [Guiseppe Naldi (1770-1820) made his début on the London stage at the King's Theatre in April, 1806. In conjunction with Catalani and Braham, he gave concerts at Willis' Rooms. Angelica Catalani (circ. 1785-1849), a famous soprano, Italian by birth and training, made her début at Venice in 1795. She remained in England for eight years (1806-14). Her first appearance in England was at the King's Theatre, in Portogallo's Semiramide, in 1806. Her large salary was one of the causes which provoked the O. P. (Old Prices) Riots in December, 1809, at Covent Garden. Praed says of his Ball Room Belle-- "She warbled Handel: it was grand; She made the Catalani jealous." return

Footnote 96: Ý Moore says that the following twenty lines were struck off one night after Lord Byron's return from the Opera, and sent the next morning to the printer. The date of the letter to Dallas, with which the lines were enclosed, suggests that the representation which provoked the outburst was that of I Villegiatori Rezzani, at the King's Theatre, February 21, 1809. The first piece, in which Naldi and Catalani were the principal singers, was followed by d'Egville's musical extravaganza, Don Quichotte, on les Noces de Gamache. In the corps de ballet were Deshayes, for many years master of the ballet at the King's Theatre; Miss Gayton, who had played a Sylph at Drury Lane as early as 1806 (she was married, March 18, 1809, to the Rev. William Murray, brother of Sir James Pulteney, Bart.--Morning Chronicle, December 30, 1810), and Mademoiselle Angiolini, "elegant of figure, petite, but finely formed, with the manner of Vestris." Mademoiselle Presle does not seem to have taken part in Don Quichotte; but she was well known as première danseuse in La Belle Laitière, La Fête Chinoise, and other ballets. return

Footnote 97: ÝFor "whet" Editions 1-5 read "raise." Lines 632-637 are marked "good" in the Annotated Fourth Edition. return

Footnote 98: Ý To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a man, I beg leave to state, that it is the institution, and not the Duke of that name, which is here alluded to. A gentleman, with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost in the Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at Backgammon^A. It is but justice to the manager in this instance to say, that some degree of disapprobation was manifested: but why are the implements of gaming allowed in a place devoted to the society of both sexes? A pleasant thing for the wives and daughters of those who are blessed or cursed with such connections, to hear the Billiard-Balls rattling in one room, and the dice in another! That this is the case I myself can testify, as a late unworthy member of an Institution which materially affects the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may not even move to the sound of a tabor and fiddle, without a chance of indictment for riotous behaviour. [The Argyle Institution, founded by Colonel Greville, flourished many years before the Argyll Rooms were built by Nash in 1818. This mention of Greville's name caused him to demand an explanation from Byron, but the matter was amicably settled by Moore and G. F. Leckie, who acted on behalf of the disputants (see Life, pp. 160, 161).] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; "True. It was Billy Way who lost the money. I knew him, and was a subscriber to the Argyle at the time of this event."--B., 1816. return to Footnote 98 return to poem

Footnote 99: Ý Petronius, "Arbiter elegantiarum" to Nero, "and a very pretty fellow in his day," as Mr. Congreve's "Old Bachelor" saith of Hannibal. return

Footnote 100: Ý "We are authorised to state that Mr. Greville, who has a small party at his private assembly rooms at the Argyle, will receive from 10 to 12 [p.m.] masks who have Mrs. Chichester's Institution tickets.--Morning Post, June 7, 1809. return

Footnote 101: Ý See note on line 686 (click c5 to return), infra. return

Footnote 102: Ý Clodius--"Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur."--[MS] [The allusion is to the well-known incidents of his intrigue with Pompeia, Cæsar's wife, and his sacrilegious intrusion into the mysteries of the Bona Dea. The Romans had a proverb, "Clodius accuset Moechos?" (Juv., Sat. ii. 27). That "Steenie" should lecture on the "turpitude of incontinence!" (The Fortunes of Nigel, cap. xxxii.)] return

Footnote 103: Ý I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, I saw stretched before me all that remained of courage, feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful officer: his faults were the faults of a sailor--as such, Britons will forgive them. ["His behaviour on the field was worthy of a better fate, and his conduct on the bed of death evinced all the firmness of a man without the farce of repentance--I say the farce of repentance, for death-bed repentance is a farce, and as little serviceable to the soul at such a moment as the surgeon to the body, though both may be useful if taken in time. Some hireling in the papers forged a tale about an agonized voice, etc. On mentioning the circumstance to Mr. Heaviside, he exclaimed, 'Good God! what absurdity to talk in this manner of one who died like a lion!'--he did more."--[MS] He died like a brave man in a better cause; for had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, his last moments would have been held up by his countrymen as an example to succeeding heroes. [Charles John Carey, ninth Viscount Falkland, died from a wound received in a duel with Mr. A. Powell on Feb. 28, 1809. (See Byron's letter to his mother, March 6, 1809.) The story of "the agonized voice" may be traced to a paragraph in the Morning Post, March 2, 1809: "Lord Falkland, after hearing the surgeon's opinion, said with a faltering voice and as intelligibly as the agonized state of his body and mind permitted, "I acquit Mr. Powell of all blame; in this transaction I alone am culpable.'"] return cross-reference: return to Footnote 101 cross-reference: return to Footnote 55 of Hints from Horace

Footnote 104: Ý "Yes: and a precious chase they led me."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 105: Ý "Fool enough, certainly, then, and no wiser since."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 106: ÝWhat would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, Hafiz, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz (where he reposes with Ferdousi and Sadi, the Oriental Homer and Catullus), and behold his name assumed by one Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers for the Daily Prints? return

Footnote 107: Ý Miles Peter Andrews (d. 1824) was the owner of large powder-mills at Dartford. He was M.P. for Bewdley. He held a good social position, but his intimate friends were actors and playwrights. His Better Late than Never (which Reynolds and Topham helped him to write) was played for the first time at Drury Lane, October 17, 1790, with Kemble as Saville, and Mrs. Jordan as Augusta. He is mentioned in The Baviad, l. 10; and in a note Gifford satirizes his prologue to Lorenzo, and describes him as an "industrious paragraph-monger." return

Footnote 108: Ý In a manuscript fragment, bound in the same volume as British Bards, we find these lines:-- "In these, our times, with daily wonders big, A Lettered peer is like a lettered pig; Both know their Alphabet, but who, from thence, Infers that peers or pigs have manly sense? Still less that such should woo the graceful nine; Parnassus was not made for lords and swine." return

Footnote 109: Ý Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1634-1685), author of many translations and minor poems, endeavoured (circ. 1663) to found an English literary academy. return

Footnote 110: Ý John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave (1658), Marquis of Normanby (1694), Duke of Buckingham (1703) (1649-1721), wrote an Essay upon Poetry, and several other works. return

Footnote 111: Ý Lines 727-740 were added after British Bards had been printed, and are included in the First Edition, but the appearance in British Bards of lines 723-726 and 741-746, which have been cut out from Mr. Murray's MS., forms one of many proofs as to the identity of the text of the MS. and the printed Quarto. return

Footnote 112: Ý Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, K.G. (1748-1825), Viceroy of Ireland, 1780-1782, and Privy Seal, etc., published Tragedies and Poems, 1801. He was Byron's first cousin once removed, and his guardian. Poems Original and Translated, were dedicated to Lord Carlisle, and, as an erased MS. addition to British Bards testifies, he was to have been excepted from the roll of titled poetasters-- "Ah, who would take their titles from their rhymes? On one alone Apollo deigns to smile, And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle." Before, however, the revised Satire was sent to the press, Carlisle ignored his cousin's request to introduce him on taking his seat in the House of Lords, and, to avenge the slight, eighteen lines of castigation supplanted the flattering couplet. Lord Carlisle suffered from a nervous disorder, and Byron was informed that some readers had scented an allusion in the words "paralytic puling." "I thank Heaven," he exclaimed, "I did not know it; and would not, could not, if I had. I must naturally be the last person to be pointed on defects or maladies." In 1814 he consulted Rogers on the chance of conciliating Carlisle, and in Childe Harold, iii. 29, he laments the loss of the "young and gallant Howard" (Carlisle's youngest son) at Waterloo, and admits that "he did his sire some wrong." But, according to Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 362), who prints an excellent parody on Carlisle's lines addressed to Lady Holland in 1822, in which he urges her to decline the legacy of Napoleon's snuff-box, Byron made fun of his "noble relative" to the end of the chapter (vide post, p. 370, note 2). return

Footnote 113: ÝThe Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the Stage, and offers his plan for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his Lordship will be permitted to bring forward anything for the Stage--except his own tragedies. [This pamphlet was entitled Thoughts upon the present condition of the stage, and upon the construction of a new Theatre, anon. 1808.] Line 732. None of the earlier editions, including the fifth and Murray, 1831, insert "and" between "petit-maître" and "pamphleteer." No doubt Byron sounded the final syllable of "maître," anglicé "mailer." return

Footnote 114: Ý "Doff that lion's hide, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs." Shakespeare, King John. Lord Carlisle's works, most resplendently bound, form a conspicuous ornament to his book-shelves:-- "The rest is all but [only, MS.] leather and prunella." "Wrong also--the provocation was not sufficient to justify such acerbity."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 115: Ý All the Blocks, or an Antidote to "All the Talents" by Flagellum (W. H. Ireland), London, 1807: The Groan of the Talents, or Private Sentiments on Public Occasions, 1807; "Gr--vile Agonistes, A Dramatic Poem, 1807, etc., etc." return

Footnote 116: Ý "Melville's Mantle," a parody on Elijah's Mantle, a poem. [Elijah's Mantle, being verses occasioned by the death of that illustrious statesman, the Right Hon. W. Pitt. Dedicated to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Lincoln (1807), was written by James Sayer. Melville's Mantle, being a Parody on the poem entitled "Elijah's Mantle" was published by Budd, 1807. A Monody on the death of the R. H. C. J. Fox, by Richard Payne Knight, was printed for J. Payne, 1806-7. Another "Monody," Lines written on returning from the Funeral of the R. H. C. J. Fox, Friday Oct. 10, 1806, addressed to Lord Holland, was by M. G. Lewis, and there were others.] return

Footnote 117: Ý This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew King, seems to be a follower of the Della Crusca school, and has published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in the style of the first edition of The Monk. "She since married the Morning Post--an exceeding good match; and is now dead--which is better."--B., 1816. [The last seven words are in pencil, and, possibly, by another hand. The novelist "Rosa," the daughter of "Jew King," the lordly money-lender who lived in Clarges Street, and drove a yellow chariot, may possibly be confounded with "Rosa Matilda," Mrs. Byrne (Gronow, Rem. (1889), i. 132-136). (See note 1, p. 358.)] return

Footnote 118: ÝLines 759, 760 were added for the first time in the Fourth Edition. return

Footnote 119: Ý Lines 756-764, with variant ii., refer to the Della Cruscan school, attacked by Gifford in The Baviad and The Mæviad. Robert Merry (1755-1798), together with Mrs. Piozzi, Bertie Greatheed, William Parsons, and some Italian friends, formed a literary society called the Oziosi at Florence, where they published The Arno Miscellany (1784) and The Florence Miscellany (1785), consisting of verses in which the authors "say kind things of each other" (Preface to The Florence Miscellany, by Mrs. Piozzi). In 1787 Merry, who had become a member of the Della Cruscan Academy at Florence, returned to London, and wrote in the World (then edited by Captain Topham) a sonnet on "Love," under the signature of "Della Crusca." He was answered by Mrs. Hannah Cowley, née Parkhouse (1743-1809), famous as the authoress of The Belle's Stratagem (acted at Covent Garden in 1782), in a sonnet called "The Pen," signed "Anna Matilda." The poetical correspondence which followed was published in The British Album (1789, 2 vols.) by John Bell. Other writers connected with the Della Cruscan school were "Perdita" Robinson, née Darby (1758-1800), who published The Mistletoe (1800) under the pseudonym "Laura Maria," and to whom Merry addressed a poem quoted by Gifford in The Baviad (note to line 284); Charlotte Dacre, who married Byrne, Robinson's successor as editor of the Morning Post, wrote under the pseudonym of "Rosa Matilda," and published poems (Hours of Solitude, 1805) and numerous novels (Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer's, 1805; Zofloya; The Libertine, etc.); and "Hafiz" (Robert Stott, of the Morning Post). Of these writers, "Della Crusca" Merry, and "Laura Maria" Robinson, were dead; "Anna Matilda" Cowley, "Hafiz" Stott, and "Rosa Matilda" Dacre were still living. John Bell (1745-1831), the publisher of The British Album, was also one of the proprietors of the Morning Post, the Oracle, and the World, in all of which the Della Cruscans wrote. His "Owls and Nightingales" are explained by a reference to The Baviad (l. 284), where Gifford pretends to mistake the nightingale, to which Merry ("Arno") addressed some lines, for an owl. "On looking again, I find the owl to be a nightingale!--N'importe."] return

Footnote 120: Ý These are the signatures of various worthies who figure in the poetical departments of the newspapers. return

Footnote 121: Ý "This was meant for poor Blackett, who was then patronised by A. I. B." (Lady Byron); "but that I did not know, or this would not have been written, at least I think not."--B., 1816. [Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), said by Southey (Letters, i. 172) to possess "force and rapidity," and to be endowed with "more powers than Robert Bloomfield, and an intellect of higher pitch," was the son of a labourer, and by trade a cobbler. He was brought into notice by S. J. Pratt (who published Blacket's Remains in 1811), and was befriended by the Milbanke family. Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron, wrote (Sept. 2, 1809), "Seaham is at present the residence of a poet, by name Joseph Blacket, one of the Burns-like and Dermody kind, whose genius is his sole possession. I was yesterday in his company for the first time, and was much pleased with his manners and conversation. He is extremely diffident, his deportment is mild, and his countenance animated melancholy and of a satirical turn. His poems certainly display a superior genius and an enlarged mind...." Blacket died on the Seaham estate in Sept., 1810, at the age of twenty-three. (See Byron's letter to Dallas, June 28, 1811; his Epitaph for Joseph Blackett; and Hints from Horace, l. 734. (click c8 to return))] return cross-reference: return to Footnote 70 of Hints from Horace

Footnote 122: Ý Capel Lofft, Esq., the Mæcenas of shoemakers, and Preface-writer-General to distressed versemen; a kind of gratis Accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not know how to bring it forth. [Capel Lofft (1751-1824), jurist, poet, critic, and horticulturist, honoured himself by his kindly patronage of Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823), who was born at Honington, near Lofft's estate of Throston, Suffolk. Robert Bloomfield was brought up by his elder brothers--Nathaniel a tailor, and George a shoemaker. It was in the latter's workshop that he composed The Farmer's Boy, which was published (1798) with the help of Lofft. He also wrote Rural Tales (1802), Good Tidings; or News from the Farm (1804), The Banks of the Wye (1811), etc. (See Hints from Horace, line 734 (cllck c9 to return), notes 1 and 2.)] return to poem

Footnote 123: Ý See Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, elegy, or whatever he or any one else chooses to call it, on the enclosures of "Honington Green." [Nathaniel Bloomfield, as a matter of fact, called it a ballad.--Poems (1803).] return

Footnote 124: Ý Vide Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of Staffordshire. [The exact title is The Moorland Bard; or Poetical Recollections of a Weaver, etc. 2 vols., 1807. The author was T. Bakewell, who also wrote A Domestic Guide to Insanity, 1805.] return

Footnote 125: Ý It would be superfluous to recall to the mind of the reader the authors of The Pleasures of Memory and The Pleasures of Hope, the most beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope's Essay on Man: but so many poetasters have started up, that even the names of Campbell and Rogers are become strange.--[Beneath this note Byron scribbled, in 1816,-- "Pretty Miss Jaqueline Had a nose aquiline, And would assert rude Things of Miss Gertrude, While Mr. Marmion Led a great army on, Making Kehama look Like a fierce Mameluke." "I have been reading," he says, in 1813, Memory again, and Hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is really wonderful--there is no such a thing as a vulgar line in his book." In the annotations of 1816, Byron remarks, "Rogers has not fulfilled the promise of his first poems, but has still very great merit." return

Footnote 126: Ý Gifford, author of the Baviad and Mæviad, the first satires of the day, and translator of Juvenal, [and one (though not the best) of the translators of Juvenal.--British Bards. return

Footnote 127: Ý Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon and Virgil's Georgics, and author of Saul, an epic poem. [William Sotheby (1757-1833) began life as a cavalry officer, but being a man of fortune, sold out of the army and devoted himself to literature, and to the patronage of men of letters. His translation of the Oberon appeared in 1798, and of the Georgics in 1800. Saul was published in 1807. When Byron was in Venice, he conceived a dislike to Sotheby, in the belief that he had made an anonymous attack on some of his works; but, later, his verdict was, "a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely); but is a bore" (Diary, 1821; Works, p. 509, note). He is "the solemn antique man of rhyme" (Beppo, st. lxiii.), and the "Botherby" of The Blues; and in Don Juan, Canto I. st. cxvi., we read-- "Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's house His Pegasus nor anything that's his." return

Footnote 128: Ý Macneil, whose poems are deservedly popular, particularly "Scotland's Scaith," and the "Waes of War," of which ten thousand copies were sold in one month. [Hector Macneil (1746-1816) wrote in defence of slavery in Jamaica, and was the author of several poems: Scotland's Skaith, or the History of Will and Jean (1795), The Waes of War, or the Upshot of the History of Will and Jean (1796), etc., etc.] return

Footnote 129: Ý Mr. Gifford promised publicly that the Baviad and Mæviad should not be his last original works: let him remember, "Mox in reluctantes dracones." [Cf. New Morality, lines 29-42.] return

Footnote 130: Ý Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in October 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which Death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents, which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume. [H. K. White (1785-1806) published Clifton Grove and other poems in 1803. Two volumes of his Remains, consisting of poems, letters, etc., with a life by Southey, were issued in 1808. His tendency to epilepsy was increased by over-work at Cambridge. He once remarked to a friend that "were he to paint a picture of Fame, crowning a distinguished undergraduate after the Senate house examination, he would represent her as concealing a Death's head under a mask of Beauty" (Life of H. K. W., by Southey, i. 45). By "the soaring lyre, which else had sounded an immortal lay," Byron, perhaps, refers to the unfinished Christiad, which, says Southey, "Henry had most at heart."] return

Footnote 131: Ý Lines 832-834, as they stand in the text, were inserted in MS. in both the Annotated Copies of the Fourth Edition. return

Footnote 132: Ý "I consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the first of these times, in point of power and genius."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 133: Ý Mr. Shee, author of Rhymes on Art and Elements of Art. [Sir Martin Archer Shee (1770-1850) was President of the Royal Academy (1830-45). His Rhymes on Art (1805) and Elements of Art (1809), a poem in six cantos, will hardly be regarded as worthy of Byron's praise, which was probably quite genuine. He also wrote a novel, Harry Calverley, and other works.] return

Footnote 134: Ý Mr. Wright, late Consul-General for the Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem, just published: it is entitled Horæ Ionicæ, and is descriptive of the isles and the adjacent coast of Greece. [Walter Rodwell Wright was afterwards President of the Court of Appeal in Malta, where he died in 1826. Horæ Ionicæ, a Poem descriptive of the Ionian Islands, and Part of the Adjacent Coast of Greece, was published in 1809. He is mentioned in one of Byron's long notes to Childe Harold, canto ii., dated Franciscan Convent, Mar. 17, 1811.] return

Footnote 135: Ý The translators of the Anthology have since published separate poems, which evince genius that only requires opportunity to attain eminence. [The Rev. Robert Bland (1779-1825) published, in 1806, Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, with Tales and Miscellaneous Poems. In these he was assisted (see Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson, vol. i. pp. 226-260) by Denman (afterwards Chief Justice), by Hodgson himself, and, above all, by John Herman Merivale (1779-1844), who subsequently, in 1813, was joint editor with him of Collections from the Greek Anthology, etc.] return

Footnote 136: Ý Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the grandfather of Charles Robert Darwin. Coleridge describes his poetry as "nothing but a succession of landscapes or paintings. It arrests the attention too often, and so prevents the rapidity necessary to pathos."--Anima Poetæ, 1895, p. 5. His chief works are The Botanic Garden (1789-92) and The Temple of Nature (1803). Byron's censure of The Botanic Garden is inconsistent with his principles, for Darwin's verse was strictly modelled on the lines of Pope and his followers. But the Loves of the Triangles had laughed away the Loves of the Plants. return

Footnote 137: Ý The neglect of The Botanic Garden is some proof of returning taste. The scenery is its sole recommendation. return

Footnote 138: Ý This was not Byron's mature opinion, nor had he so expressed himself in the review of Wordsworth's Poems which he contributed to Crosby's Magazine in 1807 (Life, p. 669). His scorn was, in part, provoked by indignities offered to Pope and Dryden, and, in part, assumed because one Lake poet called up the rest; and it was good sport to flout and jibe at the "Fraternity." That the day would come when the message of Wordsworth would reach his ears and awaken his enthusiasm, he could not, of course, foresee (see Childe Harold, canto iii. stanzas 72, et seqq.). return

Footnote 139: Ý Messrs. Lamb and Lloyd, the most ignoble followers of Southey and Co. [Charles Lloyd (1775-1839) resided for some months under Coleridge's roof, first in Bristol, and afterwards at Nether Stowey (1796-1797). He published, in 1796, a folio edition of his Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer, in which a sonnet by Coleridge and a poem of Lamb's were included. Lamb and Lloyd contributed several pieces to the second edition of Coleridge's Poems, published in 1797; and in 1798 they brought out a joint volume of their own composition, named Poems in Blank Verse. Edmund Oliver, a novel, appeared also in 1798. An estrangement between Coleridge and Lloyd resulted in a quarrel with Lamb, and a drawing together of Lamb, Lloyd, and Southey. But Byron probably had in his mind nothing more than the lines in the Anti-Jacobin, where Lamb and Lloyd are classed with Coleridge and Southey as advocates of French socialism:-- "Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd and Lamb and Co., Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux." In later life Byron expressed a very different opinion of Lamb's literary merits. (See the preface to Werner, now first published.)] return

Footnote 140: Ý By the bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to "Gramarye," and more to Grammar, than the Lady of the Lay and her Bravo, William of Deloraine. return

Footnote 141: Ý"Unjust."--B., 1816. [In Frost at Midnight, first published in 1798, Coleridge twice mentions his "Cradled infant."] return

Footnote 142: Ý The Rev. W. L. Bowles (vide ante, p. 323, note 2), published, in 1789, Fourteen Sonnets written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey. return

Footnote 143: Ý It may be asked, why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a few years ago?--The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it; but as his Lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burden my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brother scribbler; but I see no reason why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, has, for a series of years, beguiled a "discerning public" (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate the earl: no--his works come fairly in review with those of other Patrician Literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said anything in favour of his Lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obligations to Lord Carlisle: if so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly appreciated and publicly acknowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion on his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, by quotations from Elegies, Eulogies, Odes, Episodes, and certain facetious and dainty tragedies bearing his name and mark:-- "What can ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards." So says Pope. Amen! "Much too savage, whatever the foundation might be."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 144: Ý Line 952. Note-- "Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora." (Virgil.) return

Footnote 145: Ý "The devil take that 'Phoenix'! How came it there?" (B., 1816.) return

Footnote 146: ÝThe Rev. Charles James Hoare (1781-1865), a close friend of the leaders of the Evangelical party, gained the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge in 1807 with his poem on the Shipwreck of St. Paul. return

Footnote 147: Ý Edmund Hoyle, the father of the modern game of whist, lived from 1672 to 1769. The Rev. Charles Hoyle, his "poetical namesake," was, like Hoare, a Seatonian prizeman, and wrote an epic in thirteen books on the Exodus. return

Footnote 148: Ý The Games of Hoyle, well known to the votaries of Whist, Chess, etc., are not to be superseded by the vagaries of his poetical namesake ["illustrious Synonime" in MS. and British Bards, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated in the advertisement, all the "Plagues of Egypt." return

Footnote 149: Ý Here, as in line 391, "Fresh fish from Helicon," etc., Byron confounds Helicon and Hippocrene. return

Footnote 150: Ý This person, who has lately betrayed the most rabid symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem denominated The Art of Pleasing, as "Lucus a non lucendo," containing little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts as ["lies as" in MS.] monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the Satirist. If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines for the mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more serviceable than his present salary. [Note.--An unfortunate young person of Emanuel College, Cambridge, ycleped Hewson Clarke, has lately manifested the most rabid symptoms of confirmed Authorship. His Disorder commenced some years ago, and the Newcastle Herald teemed with his precocious essays, to the great edification of the Burgesses of Newcastle, Morpeth, and the parts adjacent even unto Berwick upon Tweed. These have since been abundantly scurrilous upon the [town] of Newcastle, his native spot, Mr. Mathias and Anacreon Moore. What these men had done to offend Mr. Hewson Clarke is not known, but surely the town in whose markets he had sold meat, and in whose weekly journal he had written prose deserved better treatment. Mr. H.C. should recollect the proverb "'tis a villainous bird that defiles his own nest." He now writes in the Satirist. We recommend the young man to abandon the magazines for mathematics, and to believe that a high degree at Cambridge will be more advantageous, as well as profitable in the end, than his present precarious gleanings.] [Hewson Clarke (1787-circ. 1832) was entered at Emmanuel Coll. Camb. circ. 1806 (see Postscript). He had to leave the University without taking a degree, and migrated to London, where he devoted his not inconsiderable talents to contributions to the Satirist, the Scourge, etc. He also wrote: An Impartial History of the Naval, etc., Events of Europe ... from the French Revolution ... to the Conclusion of a General Peace (1815); and a continuation of Hume's History of England, 2 vols. (1832). The Satirist, a monthly magazine illustrated with coloured cartoons, was issued 1808-1814. Hours of Idleness was reviewed Jan. 1808 (i. 77-81). "The Diary of a Cantab" (June, 1808, ii. 368) contains some verses of "Lord B----n to his Bear. To the tune of Lachin y gair." The last verse runs thus:- "But when with the ardour of Love I am burning, I feel for thy torments, I feel for thy care; And weep for thy bondage, so truly discerning What's felt by a Lord, may be felt by a Bear." In August, 1808 (iii. 78-86), there is a critique on Poems Original and Translated, in which the bear plays many parts. The writer "is without his bear and is himself muzzled," etc. Towards the close of the article a solemn sentence is passed on the author for his disregard of the advice of parents, tutors, friends; "but," adds the reviewer, "in the paltry volume before us we think we observe some proof that the still small voice of conscience will be heard in the cool of the day. Even now the gay, the gallant, the accomplished bear-leader is not happy," etc. Hence the castigation of "the sizar of Emmanuel College." return to poem cross-reference: return to Footnote 19 of Hints from Horace

Footnote 151: Ý "Right enough: this was well deserved, and well laid on." (B., 1816.) return

Footnote 152: Ý "Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals." (Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ii. 83.) There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; the breed is still in high perfection. We see no reason to doubt the truth of this statement, as a large stock of the same breed are to be found there at this day.--British Bards. [Lines 981-984 do not occur in the MS. Lines 981, 982, are inserted in MS. in British Bards.] return

Footnote 153: ÝThis gentleman's name requires no praise: the man who [has surpassed Dryden and Gifford as a Translator.--MS. British Bards] in translation displays unquestionable genius may be well expected to excel in original composition, of which, it is to be hoped, we shall soon see a splendid specimen. [Francis Hodgson (1781-1852) was Byron's lifelong friend. His Juvenal appeared in 1807; Lady Jane Grey and other Poems, in 1809; Sir Edgar, a Tale, in 1810. For other works and details, see Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson, by the Rev. James T. Hodgson (1878).] return

Footnote 154: Ý Hewson Clarke, Esq., as it is written. return

Footnote 155: Ý The Aboriginal Britons, an excellent ["most excellent" in MS.] poem, by Richards. [The Rev. George Richards, D.D. (1769-1835), a Fellow of Oriel, and afterwards Rector of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The Aboriginal Britons, a prize poem, was published in 1792, and was followed by The Songs of the Aboriginal Bards of Britain (1792), and various other prose and poetical works.] return

Footnote 156: Ý With this verse the satire originally ended. return

Footnote 157: ÝA friend of mine being asked, why his Grace of Portland was likened to an old woman? replied, "he supposed it was because he was past bearing." (Even Homer was a punster--a solitary pun.)--[MS.] His Grace is now gathered to his grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as ever; but even his sleep was better than his colleagues' waking. 1811. [William Henry Cavendish, third Duke of Portland (1738-1809), Prime Minister in 1807, on the downfall of the Ministry of "All the Talents," till his death in 1809, was, as the wits said, "a convenient block to hang Whigs on," but was not, even in his vigour, a man of much intellectual capacity. When Byron meditated a tour to India in 1808, Portland declined to write on his behalf to the Directors of the East India Company, and couched his refusal in terms which Byron fancied to be offensive.] return

Footnote 158: Ý "Saw it August, 1809."--B., 1816. [The following notes were omitted from the Fifth Edition:-- "Calpe is the ancient name of Gibraltar. Saw it August, 1809.--B., 1816. "Stamboul is the Turkish word for Constantinople. Was there the summer 1810." To "Mount Caucasus," he adds, "Saw the distant ridge of,--1810, 1811"] return

Footnote 159: Ý Georgia. return

Footnote 160: Ý Mount Caucasus. return

Footnote 161: Ý Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stoneshop, are the work of Phidias! "Credat Judæus!" [R. Payne Knight, in his introduction to Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, published 1809, by the Dilettanti Society, throws a doubt on the Phidian workmanship of the "Elgin" marbles. See the Introduction to The Curse of Minerva.] return

Footnote 162: Ý Sir William Gell (1777-1836) published the Topography of Troy (1804), the Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca (1807), and the Itinerary of Greece (1808). Byron reviewed the two last works in the Monthly Review (August, 1811), (Life, pp. 670, 676). Fresh from the scenes, he speaks with authority. "With Homer in his pocket and Gell on his sumpter-mule, the Odysseus tourist may now make a very classical and delightful excursion." The epithet in the original MS. was "coxcomb," but becoming acquainted with Gell while the satire was in the press, Byron changed it to "classic." In the fifth edition he altered it to "rapid," and appended this note:-- "'Rapid,' indeed! He topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it." return

Footnote 163: Ý Mr. Gell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr. Gell conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display. "'Troy and Ithaca.' Visited both in 1810, 18ll."--B., 1816. "'Ithaca' passed first in 1809."--B., 1816. "Since seeing the plain of Troy, my opinions are somewhat changed as to the above note. Cell's survey was hasty and superficial."--B., 1816. return

Footnote 164: Ý "Singular enough, and din enough, God knows." (B., 1816). return

Footnote 165: Ý "The greater part of this satire I most sincerely wish had never been written-not only on account of the injustice of much of the critical, and some of the personal part of it--but the tone and temper are such as I cannot approve." Byron. July 14, 1816. Diodati, Geneva. return

Contents Contents p.5

Postscript to the Second Edition

I have been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle,

unresisting

Muse, whom they have already so be-deviled with their ungodly ribaldry;

"Tantæne animis coelestibus Iræ!"

I suppose I must say of

Jeffrey

as Sir

Andrew Aguecheek

saith,

"an I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him."

What

a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia

1

.

My Northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary Anthropophagus, Jeffery; but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking"? I have adduced facts already well known, and of

Jeffrey's

mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury:--what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;" but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears, literary or personal: those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days.

There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subaudi

esquire

), a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the

Satirist

for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name, till coupled with the

Satirist

. He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather

pleased

than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the

Satirist

, who, it seems, is a gentleman--God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers.

I

hear that Mr.

Jerningham

2

is about to take up the cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, "pour on, I will endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers, and, in the words of

Scott,

I wish

"To all and each a fair good night, And rosy dreams and slumbers light."

Footnote 1:

Ý The article never appeared, and Lord Byron, in the

Hints from Horace

, taunted Jeffrey with a silence which seemed to indicate that the critic was beaten from the field.

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

Ý Edward Jerningham (1727-1812), third son of Sir George Jerningham, Bart., was an indefatigable versifier. Between the publication of his first poem,

The Nunnery

, in 1766, and his last,

The Old Bard's Farewell

, in 1812, he sent to the press no less than thirty separate compositions. As a contributor to the

British Album

, Gifford handled him roughly in the

Baviad

(lines 21, 22); and Mathias, in a note to

Pursuits of Literature

, brackets him with Payne Knight as "ecrivain du commun et poëte vulgaire." He was a dandy with a literary turn, who throughout a long life knew every one who was worth knowing. Some of his letters have recently been published (see

Jerningham Letters

, two vols., 1896).

return

Contents Contents p.5 cross-reference: return to Footnote 19 of Hints from Horace

Hints from Horace^a

being An Allusion in English Verse to the Epistle "ad Pisones, de Arte Poeticâ," and Intended as a Sequel to

English Bards, And Scotch Reviewers

.

----"Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." Hor. De Arte Poet., II. 304 and 305. "Rhymes are diftlcult things--they are stubborn things, Sir." Fielding's Amelia, Vol. iii. Book; and Chap. v.

Footnote a:

Ý

Hints from Horace (Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1811); being an Imitation in English Verse from the Epistle, etc.

[MS. M.]

Hints from Horace: being a Partial Imitation, in English Verse, of the Epistle Ad Pisones, De Arte Poeticâ; and intended as a sequel to English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 12, 1811.

[

Proof b

.]

return to footnote mark

Introduction to Hints from Horace

Three MSS. of

Hints from Horace

are extant, two in the possession of Lord Lovelace (MSS. L. a and b), and a third in the possession of Mr. Murray (

MS. M

.).

Proofs of lines 173-272 and 1-272 (

Proofs a, b

), are among the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum. They were purchased from the Rev. Alexander Dallas, January 12, 1867, and are, doubtless, fragments of the proofs set up in type for Cawthorn in 1811. They are in "book-form," and show that the volume was intended to be uniform with the Fifth Edition of

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

, of 1811. The text corresponds closely but not exactly with that adopted by Murray in 1831, and does not embody the variants of the several MSS. It is probable that complete proofs were in Moore's possession at the time when he included the selections from the

Hints

in his

Letters and Journals

, pp. 263-269, and that the text of the entire poem as published in 1831 was derived from this source. Selections, numbering in all 156 lines, had already appeared in

Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron

, by R. C. Dallas, 1824, pp. 104-113. Byron, estimating the merit by the difficulty of the performance, rated the

Hints from Horace

extravagantly high. He only forbore to publish them after the success of

Childe Harold

, because he felt, as he states, that he should be "heaping coals of fire upon his head" if he were in his hour of triumph to put forth a sequel to a lampoon provoked by failure. Nine years afterwards, when he resolved to print the work with some omissions, he gravely maintained that it excelled the productions of his mature genius.

"As far," he said, "as versification goes, it is good; and on looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times"

[September 23, 1820]. The opinion of J. C. Hobhouse that the

Hints

would require "a good deal of slashing" to adapt them to the passing hour, and other considerations, again led Byron to suspend the publication. Authors are frequently bad judges of their own works, but of all the literary hallucinations upon record there are none which exceed the mistaken preferences of Lord Byron. Shortly after the appearance of

The Corsair

he fancied that

English Bards

was still his masterpiece; when all his greatest works had been produced, he contended that his translation from Pulci was his "grand performance,--the best thing he ever did in his life;" and throughout the whole of his literary career he regarded these

Hints from Horace

with a special and unchanging fondness.

Contents Contents p.5

Hints from Horace

Athens

: Capuchin Convent, March. 12, 1811

a

.

Who would not laugh, if Lawrence¹, hired to grace^b His costly canvas with each flattered face, Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush? Or, should some limner join, for show or sale, A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid's tail^c? Or low Dubost²--as once the world has seen-- Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen? Not all that forced politeness, which defends Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems^d The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet. Poets and painters, as all artists know³, May shoot a little with a lengthened bow; We claim this mutual mercy for our task, And grant in turn the pardon which we ask; But make not monsters spring from gentle dams-- Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs. A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends (Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends^f; And nonsense in a lofty note goes down, As Pertness passes with a legal gown^g: Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain^h The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain: The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls, King's Coll-Cam's stream-stained windows, and old walls: Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames³. You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine^j-- But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a vase--it dwindles to a pot; Then glide down Grub-street--fasting and forgot: Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till--true. In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire. The greater portion of the rhyming tribe^k (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) Are led astray by some peculiar lure^m. I labour to be brief--become obscure; One falls while following Elegance too fast; Another soars, inflated with Bombast; Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly, He spins his subject to Satiety; Absurdly varying, he at last engraves Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the wavesⁿ! Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice, The flight from Folly leads but into Vice; None are complete, all wanting in some part, Like certain tailors, limited in art. For galligaskins Slowshears is your man^o But coats must claim another artisan⁴. Now this to me, I own, seems much the same As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame; Or, with a fair complexion, to expose Black eyes, black ringlets, but--a bottle nose! Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear. But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice^p, Await the Poet, skilful in his choice; With native Eloquence he soars along, Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his song. Let Judgment teach him wisely to combine With future parts the now omitted line: This shall the Author choose, or that reject, Precise in style, and cautious to select; Nor slight applause will candid pens afford To him who furnishes a wanting word^q. Then fear not, if 'tis needful, to produce Some term unknown, or obsolete in use, (As Pitt has furnished us a word or two⁵, Which Lexicographers declined to do;) So you indeed, with care,--(but be content To take this license rarely)--may invent. New words find credit in these latter days, If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase^r; What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer Muse. If you can add a little, say why not, As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott? Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs^s, Enriched our Island's ill-united tongues; 'Tis then--and shall be--lawful to present Reform in writing, as in Parliament. As forests shed their foliage by degrees, So fade expressions which in season please; And we and ours, alas! are due to Fate, And works and words but dwindle to a date. Though as a Monarch nods, and Commerce calls^t, Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals; Though swamps subdued, and marshes drained, sustain^u The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain, And rising ports along the busy shore Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar, All, all, must perish; but, surviving last, The love of Letters half preserves the past. True, some decay, yet not a few revive;^{6 v} Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive, As Custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway^w Our life and language must alike obey. The immortal wars which Gods and Angels wage, Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page? His strain will teach what numbers best belong To themes celestial told in Epic song^x. The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint The Lover's anguish, or the Friend's complaint. But which deserves the Laurel--Rhyme or Blank^y? Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit. Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. You doubt--see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's Dean⁷. Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. Though mad Almanzor⁸ rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song Hero rants in modern plays; Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and pun⁹ in very middling prose. Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. But so Thalia pleases to appear^z, Poor Virgin! damned some twenty times a year! Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight:-- Adapt your language to your Hero's state. At times Melpomene forgets to groan, And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone; Nor unregarded will the act pass by Where angry Townly¹⁰ "lifts his voice on high." Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to Kings, When common prose will serve for common things; And lively Hal resigns heroic ire^A,-- To "hollaing Hotspur"¹¹ and his sceptred sire^B. 'Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all your art, To polish poems; they must touch the heart: Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song, Still let it bear the hearer's soul along; Command your audience or to smile or weep, Whiche'er may please you--anything but sleep. The Poet claims our tears; but, by his leave, Before I shed them, let me see him grieve. If banished Romeo feigned nor sigh nor tear, Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or sneer^C. Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face, And men look angry in the proper place. At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly, And Sentiment prescribes a pensive eye; For Nature formed at first the inward man, And actors copy Nature--when they can. She bids the beating heart with rapture bound, Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the ground; And for Expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung^D, She gave our mind's interpreter--the tongue, Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense (At least in theatres) with common sense; O'erwhelm with sound the Boxes, Gallery, Pit, And raise a laugh with anything--but Wit. To skilful writers it will much import, Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Court; Whether they seek applause by smile or tear, To draw a Lying Valet,¹² or a Lear,¹³ A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school, A wandering Peregrine, or plain John Bull; All persons please when Nature's voice prevails, Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales. Or follow common fame, or forge a plot;^E Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not! One precept serves to regulate the scene: Make it appear as if it might have been. If some Drawcansir¹⁴ you aspire to draw, Present him raving, and above all law: If female furies in your scheme are planned, Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand; For tears and treachery, for good and evil, Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil! But if a new design you dare essay, And freely wander from the beaten way, True to your characters, till all be past, Preserve consistency from first to last. Tis hard¹⁵ to venture where our betters fail, [xxx] Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale; And yet, perchance,'tis wiser to prefer A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, and err; Yet copy not too closely, but record, More justly, thought for thought than word for word; Nor trace your Prototype through narrow ways, But only follow where he merits praise. For you, young Bard! whom luckless fate may lead¹⁶ To tremble on the nod of all who read, Ere your first score of cantos Time unrolls,^F Beware--for God's sake, don't begin like Bowles! "Awake a louder and a loftier strain,"¹⁷-- And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?-- He sinks to Southey's level in a trice, Whose Epic Mountains never fail in mice! Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire The tempered warblings of his master-lyre; Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute, "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit" He speaks, but, as his subject swells along, Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song."^G Still to the "midst of things" he hastens on, As if we witnessed all already done;^H Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean To raise the subject, or adorn the scene; Gives, as each page improves upon the sight, Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness--light; And truth and fiction with such art compounds, We know not where to fix their several bounds. If you would please the Public, deign to hear What soothes the many-headed monster's ear:^J If your heart triumph when the hands of all Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall, Deserve those plaudits--study Nature's page, And sketch the striking traits of every age; While varying Man and varying years unfold Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told; Observe his simple childhood's dawning days, His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays: Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!^K Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan^M O'er Virgil's¹⁸ devilish verses and his own; Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse, He flies from Tavell's frown to "Fordham's Mews;" (Unlucky Tavell!¹⁹ doomed to daily cares^N By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,) Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain, Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket Plain. Rough with his elders, with his equals rash, Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash; Constant to nought--save hazard and a whore,^P Yet cursing both--for both have made him sore: Unread (unless since books beguile disease, The P----x becomes his passage to Degrees); Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away,^Q And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.; Master of Arts! as hells and clubs²⁰ proclaim,^R Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name! Launched into life, extinct his early fire, He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire; Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir; Sends him to Harrow--for himself was there. Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer, His son's so sharp--he'll see the dog a Peer! Manhood declines--Age palsies every limb; He quits the scene--or else the scene quits him; Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves,^S And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets, O'er hoards diminished by young Hopeful's debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons--but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept--is buried--Let him rot! But from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.^T Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred,^U When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in History's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy, True Briton all beside, I here am French-- Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench: The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show; We hate the carnage while we see the trick, And find small sympathy in being sick. Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth Appals an audience with a Monarch's death;^V To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or Nature bear? A haltered heroine²¹ Johnson sought to slay-- We saved Irene, but half damned the play, And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes; And Lewis'²² self, with all his sprites, would quake To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake! Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, We loathe the action which exceeds belief: And yet, God knows! what may not authors do, Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue"?²³ Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can, Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man, Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape^W Must open ten trap-doors for your escape. Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did;²⁴ Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, Rage, love, and aught but moralise--in song. Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends,^X Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends! Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay On whores--spies--singers--wisely shipped away. Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread^Y Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread, In all iniquity is grown so nice, It scorns amusements which are not of price. Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,^Z Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubling by his own "encore;"^Aa Squeezed in "Fop's Alley,"²⁵ jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes; Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease, Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release: Why this, and more, he suffers--can ye guess?-- Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!²⁶ So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools! Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk,^{27 Bb} (What harm, if David danced before the ark?)^Cc In Christmas revels, simple country folks Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse jokes. Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low,^Dd 'Tis strange Benvolio²⁸ suffers such a show; Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,^Ee Oaths, boxing, begging--all, save rout and race. Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time:²⁹ Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best, And turned some very serious things to jest. Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the Gown--Priests--Lawyers--Volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens, When "Crononhotonthologos must die,"³⁰ And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,^Ff And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, Friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la bagatelle!" Which charmed our days in each Ægean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy Life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last; But find in thine--like pagan Plato's bed,^{31 Gg} Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, when dead. Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes, Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies;³² Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance; Decorum left her for an Opera dance! Yet Chesterfield,³³ whose polished pen inveighs 'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays; Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains, And damning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains. Repeal that act! again let Humour roam Wild o'er the stage--we've time for tears at home; Let Archer³⁴ plant the horns on Sullen's brows, And Estifania gull her "Copper"³⁵ spouse; The moral's scant--but that may be excused, Men go not to be lectured, but amused. He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill;³⁶ Aye, but Macheath's example--psha!--no more! It formed no thieves--the thief was formed before;³⁷ And spite of puritans and Collier's curse,^Hh Plays make mankind no better, and no worse.³⁸ Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men! Nor burn damned Drury if it rise again.³⁹ But why to brain-scorched bigots thus appeal? Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly Zeal? For times of fire and faggot let them hope! Times dear alike to puritan or Pope. As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, So would new sects on newer victims gaze. E'en now the songs of Solyma begin; Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin! While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves, And Simeon kicks,⁴⁰ where Baxter only "shoves."⁴¹ Whom Nature guides, so writes, that every dunce,^Jj Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once; But after inky thumbs and bitten nails,^Kk And twenty scattered quires, the coxcomb fails. Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope? Yet his and Philips'⁴² faults, of different kind, For Art too rude, for Nature too refined,^Mm Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit 'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit. A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced In this nice age, when all aspire to taste; The dirty language, and the noisome jest, Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest; Proscribed not only in the world polite,^Nn But even too nasty for a City Knight! Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them pass, Unmatched by all, save matchless Hudibras! Whose author is perhaps the first we meet, Who from our couplet lopped two final feet; Nor less in merit than the longer line, This measure moves a favourite of the Nine. Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain Formed, save in Ode, to bear a serious strain,^Pp Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late This measure shrinks not from a theme of weight, And, varied skilfully, surpasses far Heroic rhyme, but most in Love and War, Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, Are curbed too much by long-recurring rhyme. But many a skilful judge abhors to see, What few admire--irregularity. This some vouchsafe to pardon; but 'tis hard When such a word contents a British Bard. And must the Bard his glowing thoughts confine,^Qq Lest Censure hover o'er some faulty line? Remove whate'er a critic may suspect, To gain the paltry suffrage of "Correct"? Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, To fly from Error, not to merit Praise? Ye, who seek finished models, never cease,^Rr By day and night, to read the works of Greece. But our good Fathers never bent their brains To heathen Greek, content with native strains. The few who read a page, or used a pen, Were satisfied with Chaucer and old Ben; The jokes and numbers suited to their taste Were quaint and careless, anything but chaste; Yet, whether right or wrong the ancient rules, It will not do to call our Fathers fools! Though you and I, who eruditely know To separate the elegant and low, Can also, when a hobbling line appears, Detect with fingers--in default of ears. In sooth I do not know, or greatly care To learn, who our first English strollers were; Or if, till roofs received the vagrant art, Our Muse, like that of Thespis, kept a cart; But this is certain, since our Shakespeare's days, There's pomp enough--if little else--in plays; Nor will Melpomene ascend her Throne^Ss Without high heels, white plume, and Bristol stone. Old Comedies still meet with much applause, Though too licentious for dramatic laws; At least, we moderns, wisely, 'tis confest, Curtail, or silence, the lascivious jest.^Tt Whate'er their follies, and their faults beside, Our enterprising Bards pass nought untried; Nor do they merit slight applause who choose An English subject for an English Muse, And leave to minds which never dare invent French flippancy and German sentiment. Where is that living language which could claim Poetic more, as philosophic, fame, If all our Bards, more patient of delay, Would stop, like Pope, to polish by the way?⁴³ Lords of the quill, whose critical assaults O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults,^Uu Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail, And prove our marble with too nice a nail! Democritus himself was not so bad; He only thought--but you would make us--mad! But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard Against that ridicule they deem so hard; In person negligent, they wear, from sloth, Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth; Reside in garrets, fly from those they meet, And walk in alleys rather than the street. With little rhyme, less reason, if you please, The name of Poet may be got with ease, So that not tuns of helleboric juice^Vv Shall ever turn your head to any use; Write but like Wordsworth--live beside a lake, And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake;⁴⁴ Then print your book, once more return to town, And boys shall hunt your Bardship up and down.⁴⁵ Am I not wise, if such some poets' plight, To purge in spring--like Bayes⁴⁶--before I write? If this precaution softened not my bile, I know no scribbler with a madder style; But since (perhaps my feelings are too nice) I cannot purchase Fame at such a price, I'll labour gratis as a grinders' wheel,^Ww And, blunt myself, give edge to other's steel, Nor write at all, unless to teach the art To those rehearsing for the Poet's part; From Horace show the pleasing paths of song,^Xx And from my own example--what is wrong. Though modern practice sometimes differs quite, 'Tis just as well to think before you write; Let every book that suits your theme be read, So shall you trace it to the fountain-head. He who has learned the duty which he owes To friends and country, and to pardon foes; Who models his deportment as may best Accord with Brother, Sire, or Stranger-guest; Who takes our Laws and Worship as they are, Nor roars reform for Senate, Church, and Bar; In practice, rather than loud precept, wise, Bids not his tongue, but heart, philosophize: Such is the man the Poet should rehearse, As joint exemplar of his life and verse. Sometimes a sprightly wit, and tale well told, Without much grace, or weight, or art, will hold A longer empire o'er the public mind Than sounding trifles, empty, though refined. Unhappy Greece! thy sons of ancient days The Muse may celebrate with perfect praise, Whose generous children narrowed not their hearts With Commerce, given alone to Arms and Arts.^Yy Our boys (save those whom public schools compel To "Long and Short" before they're taught to spell) From frugal fathers soon imbibe by rote, "A penny saved, my lad, 's a penny got." Babe of a city birth! from sixpence take^Zz The third, how much will the remainder make?-- "A groat."--"Ah, bravo! Dick hath done the sum!^aA He'll swell my fifty thousand to a Plum."⁴⁷ They whose young souls receive this rust betimes, 'Tis clear, are fit for anything but rhymes; And Locke will tell you, that the father's right Who hides all verses from his children's sight; For Poets (says this Sage⁴⁸, and many more,) Make sad mechanics with their lyric lore:^bB And Delphi now, however rich of old, Discovers little silver, and less gold, Because Parnassus, though a Mount divine, Is poor as Irus,⁴⁹ or an Irish mine.^{50 cC} Two objects always should the Poet move, Or one or both,--to please or to improve. Whate'er you teach, be brief, if you design For our remembrance your didactic line; Redundance places Memory on the rack, For brains may be o'erloaded, like the back.^dD Fiction does best when taught to look like Truth, And fairy fables bubble none but youth: Expect no credit for too wondrous tales, Since Jonas only springs alive from Whales! Young men with aught but Elegance dispense; Maturer years require a little Sense. To end at once:--that Bard for all is fit^eE Who mingles well instruction with his wit; For him Reviews shall smile; for him o'erflow The patronage of Paternoster-row; His book, with Longman's liberal aid, shall pass (Who ne'er despises books that bring him brass); Through three long weeks the taste of London lead, And cross St. George's Channel and the Tweed. But every thing has faults, nor is't unknown That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, And wayward voices, at their owner's call, With all his best endeavours, only squall; Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, And double-barrels (damn them!) miss their mark.^{51 fF} Where frequent beauties strike the reader's view, We must not quarrel for a blot or two; But pardon equally to books or men, The slips of Human Nature, and the Pen. Yet if an author, spite of foe or friend, Despises all advice too much to mend, But ever twangs the same discordant string, Give him no quarter, howsoe'er he sing. Let Havard's⁵² fate o'ertake him, who, for once, Produced a play too dashing for a dunce: At first none deemed it his; but when his name Announced the fact--what then?--it lost its fame. Though all deplore when Milton deigns to doze,^gG In a long work 'tis fair to steal repose. As Pictures, so shall Poems be; some stand The critic eye, and please when near at hand;^hH But others at a distance strike the sight; This seeks the shade, but that demands the light, Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious view, But, ten times scrutinised, is ten times new. Parnassian pilgrims! ye whom chance, or choice,^jJ Hath led to listen to the Muse's voice, Receive this counsel, and be timely wise; Few reach the Summit which before you lies. Our Church and State, our Courts and Camps, concede Reward to very moderate heads indeed! In these plain common sense will travel far; All are not Erskines who mislead the Bar:^{53 kK} But Poesy between the best and worst No medium knows; you must be last or first; For middling Poets' miserable volumes Are damned alike by Gods, and Men, and Columns.^mM Again, my Jeffrey--as that sound inspires,⁵⁴ How wakes my bosom to its wonted fires! Fires, such as gentle Caledonians feel When Southrons writhe upon their critic wheel, Or mild Eclectics,⁵⁵ when some, worse than Turks, Would rob poor Faith to decorate "Good Works." Such are the genial feelings them canst claim-- My Falcon flies not at ignoble game. Mightiest of all Dunedin's beasts of chase! For thee my Pegasus would mend his pace. Arise, my Jeffrey! or my inkless pen Shall never blunt its edge on meaner men; Till thee or thine mine evil eye discerns, "Alas! I cannot strike at wretched kernes."⁵⁶ Inhuman Saxon! wilt thou then resign A Muse and heart by choice so wholly thine? Dear d--d contemner of my schoolboy songs, Hast thou no vengeance for my Manhood's wrongs? If unprovoked thou once could bid me bleed, Hast thou no weapon for my daring deed? What! not a word!--and am I then so low? Wilt thou forbear, who never spared a foe? Hast thou no wrath, or wish to give it vent? No wit for Nobles, Dunces by descent? No jest on "minors," quibbles on a name,⁵⁷ Nor one facetious paragraph of blame? Is it for this on Ilion I have stood, And thought of Homer less than Holyrood? On shore of Euxine or Ægean sea, My hate, untravelled, fondly turned to thee. Ah! let me cease! in vain my bosom burns, From Corydon unkind Alexis turns:⁵⁸ Thy rhymes are vain; thy Jeffrey then forego, Nor woo that anger which he will not show. What then?--Edina starves some lanker son, To write an article thou canst not shun; Some less fastidious Scotchman shall be found, As bold in Billingsgate, though less renowned. As if at table some discordant dish,⁵⁹ Should shock our optics, such as frogs for fish; As oil in lieu of butter men decry, And poppies please not in a modern pie'^nN If all such mixtures then be half a crime, We must have Excellence to relish rhyme. Mere roast and boiled no Epicure invites; Thus Poetry disgusts, or else delights. Who shoot not flying rarely touch a gun: Will he who swims not to the river run? And men unpractised in exchanging knocks Must go to Jackson⁶⁰ ere they dare to box. Whate'er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil, None reach expertness without years of toil; But fifty dunces can, with perfect ease, Tag twenty thousand couplets, when they please. Why not?--shall I, thus qualified to sit For rotten boroughs, never show my wit? Shall I, whose fathers with the "Quorum" sate,^pP And lived in freedom on a fair estate; Who left me heir, with stables, kennels, packs,^qQ To all their income, and to--twice its tax; Whose form and pedigree have scarce a fault, Shall I, I say, suppress my Attic Salt? Thus think "the Mob of Gentlemen;" but you, Besides all this, must have some Genius too. Be this your sober judgment, and a rule, And print not piping hot from Southey's school, Who (ere another Thalaba appears), I trust, will spare us for at least nine years. And hark'ye, Southey!⁶¹ pray--but don't be vexed-- Burn all your last three works--and half the next. But why this vain advice? once published, books Can never be recalled--from pastry-cooks!^rR Though "Madoc," with "Pucelle,"⁶² instead of Punk, May travel back to Quito--on a trunk!⁶³ Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and Lempriere, Led all wild beasts but Women by the ear; And had he fiddled at the present hour, We'd seen the Lions waltzing in the Tower;⁶⁴ And old Amphion, such were minstrels then, Had built St. Paul's without the aid of Wren. Verse too was Justice, and the Bards of Greece Did more than constables to keep the peace; Abolished cuckoldom with much applause, Called county meetings, and enforced the laws, Cut down crown influence with reforming scythes, And served the Church--without demanding tithes; And hence, throughout all Hellas and the East, Each Poet was a Prophet and a Priest, Whose old-established Board of Joint Controls⁶⁵ Included kingdoms in the cure of souls. Next rose the martial Homer, Epic's prince, And Fighting's been in fashion ever since; And old Tyrtæus, when the Spartans warred, (A limping leader, but a lofty bard)^sS Though walled Ithome had resisted long, Reduced the fortress by the force of song. When Oracles prevailed, in times of old, In song alone Apollo's will was told.^tT Then if your verse is what all verse should be, And Gods were not ashamed on't, why should we? The Muse, like mortal females, may be wooed;⁶⁶ In turns she'll seem a Paphian, or a prude; Fierce as a bride when first she feels affright, Mild as the same upon the second night; Wild as the wife of Alderman or Peer, Now for His Grace, and now a grenadier! Her eyes beseem, her heart belies, her zone-- Ice in a crowd--and Lava when alone. If Verse be studied with some show of Art. Kind Nature always will perform her part; Though without Genius, and a native vein Of wit, we loathe an artificial strain, Yet Art and Nature joined will win the prize, Unless they act like us and our allies. The youth who trains to ride, or run a race, Must bear privations with unruffled face, Be called to labour when he thinks to dine, And, harder still, leave wenching and his wine. Ladies who sing, at least who sing at sight, Have followed Music through her farthest flight;^uU But rhymers tell you neither more nor less, "I've got a pretty poem for the Press;" And that's enough; then write and print so fast;-- If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be last? They storm the Types, they publish, one and all,^{67 vV} They leap the counter, and they leave the stall. Provincial Maidens, men of high command, Yea! Baronets have inked the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them; Pollio played this prank,^wW (Then Phoebus first found credit in a Bank!) Not all the living only, but the dead, Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' Head;⁶⁸ Damned all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, Those Books of Martyrs to the rage for rhyme. Alas! woe worth the scribbler! often seen In Morning Post, or Monthly Magazine. There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, hot pressed,^xX Behold a Quarto!--Tarts must tell the rest. Then leave, ye wise, the Lyre's precarious chords To muse-mad baronets, or madder lords,^yY Or country Crispins, now grown somewhat stale, Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric ale! Hark to those notes, narcotically soft! The Cobbler-Laureats⁶⁹ sing to Capel Lofft!⁷⁰ Till, lo! that modern Midas, as he hears,^zZ Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears!^AA There lives one Druid, who prepares in time⁷¹ 'Gainst future feuds his poor revenge of rhyme; Racks his dull Memory, and his duller Muse, To publish faults which Friendship should excuse. If Friendship's nothing, Self-regard might teach More polished usage of his parts of speech. But what is shame, or what is aught to him?^BB He vents his spleen, or gratifies his whim. Some fancied slight has roused his lurking hate, Some folly crossed, some jest, or some debate; Up to his den Sir Scribbler hies, and soon The gathered gall is voided in Lampoon. Perhaps at some pert speech you've dared to frown, Perhaps your Poem may have pleased the Town: If so, alas! 'tis nature in the man-- May Heaven forgive you, for he never can! Then be it so; and may his withering Bays Bloom fresh in satire, though they fade in praise While his lost songs no more shall steep and stink The dullest, fattest weeds on Lethe's brink, But springing upwards from the sluggish mould, Be (what they never were before) be--sold! Should some rich Bard (but such a monster now,⁷² In modern Physics, we can scarce allow),^CC Should some pretending scribbler of the Court, Some rhyming Peer--there's plenty of the sort--^{73 DD} All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn, (Ah! too regardless of his Chaplain's yawn!) Condemn the unlucky Curate to recite Their last dramatic work by candle-light, How would the preacher turn each rueful leaf, Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief! Yet, since 'tis promised at the Rector's death, He'll risk no living for a little breath. Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line, (The Lord forgive him!) "Bravo! Grand! Divine!" Hoarse with those praises (which, by Flatt'ry fed,^EE Dependence barters for her bitter bread), He strides and stamps along with creaking boot; Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot, Then sits again, then rolls his pious eye,^FF As when the dying vicar will not die! Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his heart;-- But all Dissemblers overact their part. Ye, who aspire to "build the lofty rhyme,"⁷⁴ Believe not all who laud your false "sublime;" But if some friend shall hear your work, and say, "Expunge that stanza, lop that line away," And, after fruitless efforts, you return Without amendment, and he answers, "Burn!" That instant throw your paper in the fire, Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire; But (if true Bard!) you scorn to condescend,^GG And will not alter what you can't defend, If you will breed this Bastard of your Brains,⁷⁵ We'll have no words--I've only lost my pains. Yet, if you only prize your favourite thought, As critics kindly do, and authors ought; If your cool friend annoy you now and then, And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen; No matter, throw your ornaments aside,-- Better let him than all the world deride. Give light to passages too much in shade, Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made; Your friend's a "Johnson," not to leave one word, However trifling, which may seem absurd; Such erring trifles lead to serious ills, And furnish food for critics, or their quills.⁷⁶ As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune, Or the sad influence of the angry Moon, All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues, As yawning waiters fly⁷⁷ Fitzscribble's lungs;^HH Yet on he mouths--ten minutes--tedious each^{78 JJ} As Prelate's homily, or placeman's speech; Long as the last years of a lingering lease, When Riot pauses until Rents increase. While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways, If by some chance he walks into a well, And shouts for succour with stentorian yell, "A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!" Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace; For there his carcass he might freely fling,^KK From frenzy, or the humour of the thing. Though this has happened to more Bards than one; I'll tell you Budgell's story,--and have done. Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good, (Unless his case be much misunderstood) When teased with creditors' continual claims, "To die like Cato,"⁷⁹ leapt into the Thames! And therefore be it lawful through the town For any Bard to poison, hang, or drown. Who saves the intended Suicide receives Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves;^MM And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose The Glory of that death they freely choose. Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse^NN Prick not the Poet's conscience as a curse; Dosed⁸⁰ with vile drams on Sunday he was found, Or got a child on consecrated ground! And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage-- Feared like a bear just bursting from his cage. If free, all fly his versifying fit, Fatal at once to Simpleton or Wit: But him, unhappy! whom he seizes,--him He flays with Recitation limb by limb; Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach, And gorges like a Lawyer--or a Leech. 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400 410 420 430 440 450 460 470 480 490 500 510 520 530 540 550 560 570 580 590 600 610 620 630 640 650 660 670 680 690 700 710 720 730 c8 Ýc9 740 750 760 770 780 790 800 c12 810 820 830 840