English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (continued 3)
Reading edition
The last page of
MS. M.
is dated--
Byron, Capuchin Convent, Athens. March 14th, 1811.
The following memorandum, in Byron's handwriting, is also inscribed on the last page:
"722 lines, and 4 inserted after and now counted, in all 726.--B. Since this several lines are added.--B. June 14th, 1811. Copied fair at Malta, May 3rd, 1811.--B." Byron March 11th and 12th, Athens. 1811.,
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MS. L. (a)
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Byron, March 14th, 1811. Athens, Capuchin Convent.
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MS. L. (b)
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Footnote 1: Ý Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) succeeded West as P.R.A. in 1820. Benjamin West (1738-1820) had been elected P.R.A. in 1792, on the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds. return to footnote mark Footnote a: Ý Athens, March 2nd, 1811. [MS. L. (a).] Athens, March 12th, 1811. [MS. L. (i), MS. M.] return
Footnote 2: Ý In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's caricature of Mr. H--- as a "beast," and the consequent action, etc. The circumstance is, probably, too well known to require further comment. [Thomas Hope (1770-1831) was celebrated for his collections of pictures, sculpture, and bric-à-brac. He was the author of Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek, etc., which was attributed to Byron, and, according to Lady Blessington, excited his envy. "Low Dubost" was a French painter, who, in revenge for some fancied injustice, caricatured Hope and his wife as Beauty and the Beast. An exhibition of the sketch is said to have brought in from twenty to thirty pounds a week. A brother of Mrs. Hope (Louisa Beresford, daughter of Lord Decies, Archbishop of Tuam) mutilated the picture, and, an action having been brought, was ordered to pay a nominal sum of five pounds. Dubost's academy portrait of Mrs. Hope did not please Peter Pindar. "In Mistress Hope, Monsieur Dubost! Thy Genius yieldeth up the Ghost." Works (1812), v. 372.] return Footnote b: Ý IfA West or Lawrence, (take whichever you will) Sons of the Brush, supreme in graphic skill, Should clap a human head-piece on a mare, How would our Exhibition's loungers stare! Or should some dashing limner set to sale My Lady's likeness with a Mermaid's tail. [MS. L. (a).] The features finished, should superbly deck My Lady's likeness with a Filly's neck; Or should some limner mad or maudlin group A Mermaid's tail and Maid of Honour's Hoop. [MS. L.(b).] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; I have been obliged to dive into the "Bathos" for the simile, as I could not find a description of these Painters' merits above ground. "Si liceat parvis Componere magna"-- "Like London's column pointing to the skies Like a tall Bully, lifts its head and lies" I was in hopes might bear me out, if the monument be like a Bully. West's glory may be reduced by the scale of comparison. If not, let me have recourse to Tom Thumb the Great [Fielding's farce, first played 1730] to keep my simile in countenance.--[MS. L. (b) erased] return to main footnote return to poem
Footnote 3: Ý "While pure Description held the place of Sense." Pope, Prol. to the Sat., L. 148. "While Mr. Sol decked out all so glorious Shines like a Beau in his Birthday Embroidery." [Fielding, Tom Thumb, act i. sc. I.] [MS. M.] "Fas est et ab Hoste doceri." In the 7th Art. of the 31st No. of the Edinburgh Review (vol. xvi. Ap. 1810) the "Observations" of an Oxford Tutor are compared to "Children's Cradles" (page 181), then to a "Barndoor fowl flying" (page 182), then the man himself to "a Coach-horse on the Trottoir" (page 185) etc., etc., with a variety of other conundrums all tending to prove that the ingenuity of comparison increases in proportion to the dissimilarity between the things compared.--[MS. L. (b) erased.] return Footnote c: Ý After line 6, the following lines (erased) were inserted:-- Or patch a Mammoth up with wings and limbs, And fins of aught that flies or walks or swims. [MS. M.] Another variant ran-- Or paint (astray from Truth and Nature led) A Judge with wings, a Statesman with a Head! [MS. M.] return
Footnote 4: Ý Mere common mortals were commonly content with one Taylor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I speak of the beginning of 1809: what reform may have since taken place I neither know, nor desire to know.--[MSS. L. (b), M.]] return Footnote d: Ý Believe me, Hobhouse... [MS M.] return
Footnote 5: Ý Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our Parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review. [The reference may be to financial terms, such as sinking fund (a phrase not introduced by Pitt), the English equivalent of caisse d'amortissement, or income tax (impôt sur le revenu), or to actual French words such as chouannerie, projet, etc. But Pitt's "additions" are unnoticed by Frere and other reporters and critics of his speeches. For a satirical description of Pitt's words, "which are finer and longer than can be conceived," see Rolliad, 1799; Political Miscellanies, p. 421; and Political Eclogues, p. 195. "And Billy best of all things loves--a trope." Compare, too, Peter Pindar, "To Sylvanus Urban," Works (1812), ii. 259. "Lycurgus Pitt whose penetrating eyes Behold the fount of Freedom in excise, Whose patriot logic possibly maintains The identity of liberty and chains." return Footnote e: Ý as we scribblers... [MSS. L. (a and b), MS. M.] return
Footnote 6: Ý Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and Scotts! [Richard Heber (1773-1833), book-collector and man of letters, was half-brother of the Bishop of Calcutta. He edited, inter alia, Specimens of the Early English Poets, by George Ellis, 3 vols., London: 1811. W. H. Weber (1783-1818), a German by birth, was employed by Sir Walter Scott as an amanuensis and "searcher." He edited, in 1810, Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries, a work described by Southey (Letters, ii. 308) as "admirably edited, exceedingly curious, and after my own heart." He also published editions of Ford, and Beaumont and Fletcher, which were adversely criticized by Gifford. For an account of his relations to Scott and of his melancholy end, see Lockhart's Life of Scott (1871), p. 251.] return Footnote f: Ý Like Wardle'sA speeches. [MS. L. (a).] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; Gwyllim Lloyd Wardle (1762-1834), who served in Ireland in 1798, as Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers, known as "Wynne's lambs," was M.P. for Okehampton 1807-12. In January, 1809, he brought forward a motion for a parliamentary investigation into the exercise of military patronage by the Duke of York, and the supposed influence of the Duke's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke. return main footnote return to poem
Footnote 7: Ý Mac Flecknoe, the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of the writers. return Footnote g: Ý As pertness lurks beneath a legal gown. And nonsense in a lofty note goes down. [MS. L. (a).] or, Which covers all things like a Prelate's gown. [MS. L. (a).]] or, Which wraps presumption. [MS. M. erased.] return
Footnote 8: ÝAlmanzor: or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, a Tragedy by John Dryden. The bombastic character of the hero was severely criticized in Dryden's own time, and was defended by him thus: "'Tis said that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to perform impossibilities. I must therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I took the character. The first image I had of him was from the Achilles of Homer: the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, and the third from the Artaban of Mons. Calprenède.... He talks extravagantly in his passion, but if I would take the trouble to quote from Ben Jonson's Cethegus, I could easily show you that the rhodomontades of Almanzor are neither so irrational as his nor so impossible to be put in execution." An Essay on Heroic Plays. Works of John Dryden (1821), iv. 23-25. return Footnote h: Ý As when the poet to description yields Of waters gliding through the goodly fields; The Groves of Granta and her Gothic Halls, Oxford and Christchurch, London and St. Pauls, Or with a ruder flight he feebly aims To paint a rainbow or the River Thames. Perhaps you draw a fir tree or a beech, But then a landscape is beyond your reach; Or, if that allegory please you not, Take this--you'ld form a vase, but make a pot... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 9: Ý With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their side; who permits them to orators, and gives them consequence by a grave disquisition. ["Cicero also," says Addison, "has sprinkled several of his works with them; and in his book on Oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which, upon examination, prove arrant puns." Essay on Wit, Works (1888), ii. 354.]] return Footnote j: Ý Although you sketch a tree which Taste endures, Your ill-daubed Shipwreck shocks the Connoisseurs.... [MS M.] return
Footnote 1: Ý In Vanbrugh and Gibber's comedy of The Provoked Husband, first played at Drury Lane, January 10, 1728. return Footnote k: Ý The greater portion of the men of rhyme Parents and children or their Sires sublime... [MS M.] return
Footnote 11: Ý "And in his ear I'll holla--Mortimer!" [I Henry IV., act i. sc. 3.] return Footnote m: Ý But change the malady they strive to cure... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 12: ÝGarrick's Lying Valet was played for the first time at Goodman's Fields, November 30, 1741. ["Peregrine" is a character in George Colman's John Bull, or An Englishman's Fire-Side, Covent Garden. March 5, 1803.] return Footnote n: Ý Fish in the woods and wild-boars in the waves... [MS M.] return
Footnote 13: Ý I have Johnson's authority for making Lear a monosyllable-- "Perhaps where Lear rav'd or Hamlet died On flying cars new sorcerers may ride." ["Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet dy'd." Prologue to Irene. Johnson's Works (1806), i. 168.] and (if it need be mentioned) the authority of the epigram on Barry and Garrick. [Note erased, Proof b, British Museum.] return Footnote o: Ý For Coat and waistcoat Slowshears is your man, But Breeches claim another Artisan; Now this to me I own seems much the same As one leg perfect and the other lame. [MSS. M., L. (a).] Sweitzer is your man. [MS. M. erased.] return
Footnote 14: Ý "Johnson: Pray, Mr. Bayes, who is that Drawcansir? Bayes. Why, Sir, a great [fierce] hero, that frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard to numbers, good sense, or justice [good manners, justice, or numbers]." The Rehearsal, act iv. sc. I. The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham (1627-1688), appeared in 1671. Sprat and others are said to have shared the authorship. So popular was the play that "Drawcansir" passed into a synonime for a braggadocio. It is believed that "Bayes" (that is, of course, "laureate") was meant for a caricature of Dryden: "he himself complains bitterly that it was so." (See Lives of the Poets (1890), i. 386; and Boswell's Life of Johnson (1876), p. 235, and note.) return Footnote p: Ý Him who hath sense to make a skilful choice Nor lucid Order, nor the Siren Voice Of Eloquence shall shun, and Wit and Grace (Or I'm deceived) shall aid him in the Race: These too will teach him to defer or join To future parts the now omitted line: This shall the Author like or that reject, Sparing in words and cautious to select: Nor slight applause will candid pens afford To him who well compounds a wanting word, And if, by chance, 'tis needful to produce Some term long laid and obsolete in use... [MSS. M., L. (a and b). The last line partly erased.] return
Footnote 15: Ý "Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus." Hor: De Arte Poet: 128-130. Mons. Dacier, Mons. de Sévigné, Boileau, and others, have left their dispute on the meaning of this sentence in a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sévigné's Letters, edited by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can construe may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who can't have taken the same liberty, I should have held "my farthing candle" as awkwardly as another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis 14th's Augustan "Siècle" induced me to subjoin these illustrious authorities. I therefore offer Boileau: "Il est difficile de trailer des sujets qui sont à la portée de tout le monde d'une maniere qui vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le tour qu'on y donne." Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile de donner des traits propres et individuels aux etres purement possibles." Dacier: "Il est difficile de traiter convenablement ces caractères que tout le monde peut inventer." Mr. Sévigné's opinion and translation, consisting of some thirty pages, I omit, particularly as Mr. Grouvelle observes, "La chose est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interpretations ne parait être la veritable." But, by way of comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, "Le lumineux Dumarsais" made his appearance, to set Horace on his legs again, "dissiper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentiments;" and I suppose some fifty years hence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no better than Ptolemy or Copernicus and comments of no more consequence than astronomical calculations. I am happy to say, "la longueur de la dissertation" of Mr. D. prevents Mr. G. from saying any more on the matter. A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good a scholar as Mr. de Sévigné, has said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing." And by the above extract, it appears that a good deal may be rendered as useless to the Proprietors. [Byron chose the words in question, Difficile, etc., as a motto for the first five cantos of Don Juan] return Footnote q: Ý The dextrous Coiner of a wanting word... [Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 16: Ý About two years ago a young man named Townsend was announced by Mr. Cumberland, in a review (since deceased) [the London Review], as being engaged in an epic poem to be entitled "Armageddon." The plan and specimen promise much; but I hope neither to offend Mr. Townsend, nor his friends, by recommending to his attention the lines of Horace to which these rhymes allude. If Mr. Townsend succeeds in his undertaking, as there is reason to hope, how much will the world be indebted to Mr. Cumberland for bringing him before the public! But, till that eventful day arrives, it may be doubted whether the premature display of his plan (sublime as the ideas confessedly are) has not,--by raising expectation too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument,--rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend's future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose talents I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the "dull of past and present days." Even if he is not a Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; if not a Homer, an Antimachus. I should deem myself presumptuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not addressed to one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties to encounter; but in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too well "the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely;" and I am afraid time will teach Mr. Townsend to know them better. Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this alike, and it is hard to say which have most of it. I trust that Mr. Townsend's share will be from envy; he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expression to malice. [This note was written [at Athens] before the author was apprised of Mr. Cumberland's death [in May, 1811].--MS. (See Byron's letter to Dallas, August 27, 1811.) The Rev. George Townsend (1788-1857) published Poems in 1810, and eight books of his Armageddon in 1815. They met with the fate which Byron had predicted. In later life he compiled numerous works of scriptural exegesis. He was a Canon of Durham from 1825 till his death.] return Footnote r: Ý Adroitly grafted... [Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 17: ÝThe first line of A Spirit of Discovery by Sea, by the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, first published in 1805. return Footnote s: Ý Since they enriched our language in their time In modern speeches or Black letter rhyme.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 18: ÝHarvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration and say, "the book had a devil." Now such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that "the devil had the book;" not from dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public school penance of "Long and Short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage. return Footnote t: Ý Though at a Monarch's nod, and Traffic's call Reluctant rivers deviate to Canal... [MSS M., L. (a and b).] return
Footnote 19: Ý "Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." I dare say Mr. Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether any one else does or no.--To the above events, "quæque ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui," all times and terms bear testimony. [The Rev. G.F. Tavell was a fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, during Byron's residence, and owed this notice to the "zeal with which he protested against his juvenile vagaries." During a part of his residence at Trinity, Byron kept a tame bear in his rooms in Neville's Court. (See English Bards, l. 973, note, and postscript to the Second Edition, ante, p. 383. See also letter to Miss Pigot, October 26, 1807.) The following copy of a bill (no date) tells its own story:-- The Honble. Lord Byron. To John Clarke. To Bread & Milk for the Bear deliv'd. to Haladay ... ... ... £ 1 9 7 Cambridge Reve. A Clarke.] return Footnote u: Ý marshes dried, sustain... [Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 20: Ý "Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal. "Club," a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all. return Footnote v: Ý Thus--future years dead volumes shall revive... [Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 21: Ý "Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck; but the audience cried out ['Murder!'] 'Murder!' and she was obliged to go off the stage alive." Boswell's Johnson [1876, p. 60]. [Irene (first played February 6, 1749) for the future was put to death behind the scenes. The strangling her, contrary to Horace's rule, coram populo, was suggested by Garrick. (See Davies' Life of Garrick (1808), i. 157.)] return Footnote w: Ý As Custom fluctuates whose Iron Sway Though ever changing Mortals must obey... [MS M.] return
Footnote 22: Ý Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818). (Vide English Bards, etc., l. 265, n. 8.) The character of Hassan, "my misanthropic negro," as Lewis called him, was said by the critics of the day to have been borrowed from Zanga in Young's Revenge. Lewis, in his "Address to the Reader," quoted by Byron (in note 3), defends the originality of the conception. return Footnote x: Ý To mark the Majesty of Epic song... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 23: Ý In the postscript to The Castle Spectre, Mr. Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the effect "by making his heroine blue,"--I quote him--"blue he would have made her!" [The Castle Spectre, by M.G. Lewis, Esq., M.P., London, 1798, page 102.] return cross-reference: return to Footnote 22 of this poem Footnote y: Ý But which is preferable rhyme or blank Which holds in poesy... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 24: Ý In 1706 John Dennis, the critic (1657-1734), wrote an Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are about to be established on the English Stage; to show that they were more immoral than the most licentious play. return Footnote z: Ý ventures to appear... [MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 25: Ý One of the gangways in the Opera House, where the young men of fashion used to assemble. (See letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820; Life, p. 62.) return Footnote A: Ý And Harry Monmouth, till the scenes require, Resigns heroics to his sceptred Sire.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 26: Ý In the year 1808, happening at the opera to tread on the toes of a very well-dressed man, I turned round to apologize, when, to my utter astonishment, I recognized the face of the porter of the very hotel where I then lodged in Albemarle Street. So here was a gentleman who ran every morning forty errands for half a crown, throwing away half a guinea at night, besides the expense of his habiliments, and the hire of his "Chapeau de Bras."--[MS. L. (a).]] return Footnote B: Ý To "hollaing Hotspur" and the sceptred sire... [MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 27: Ý The first theatrical representations, entitled "Mysteries and Moralities," were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personae were usually Adam, Pater Coelestis, Faith, Vice, and sometimes an angel or two; but these were eventually superseded by Gammer Gurton's Needle.--Vide Warton's History of English Poetry [passim].--[MSS. M., L. (b). return Footnote C: Ý Dull as an Opera, I should sleep or sneer... [MS M.] return
Footnote 28: Ý Benvolio [Lord Grosvenor, MS. L. (b)] does not bet; but every man who maintains racehorses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for chastity, because she herself did not commit fornication. [Robert, second Earl Grosvenor (1767-1845), was created Marquis of Westminster in 1831. Like his father, Gifford's patron, the first Earl Grosvenor, he was a breeder of racehorses, and a patron of the turf. As Lord Belgrave, he brought forward a motion for the suppression of Sunday newspapers, June 11, 1799, denouncing them in a violent speech. The motion was lost; but many years after, in a speech delivered in the House of Lords, January 2, 1807, he returned to the charge. (See Parl. Hist., 34. 1006, 1010; and Parl. Deb., 8. 286.) (For a skit on Lord Belgrave's sabbatarian views, see Peter Pindar, Works (1812), iv. 519.)] return Footnote D: Ý And for Emotion's aid 'tis said and sung... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 29: Ý Samuel Foote (1720-1777), actor and playwright. His solo entertainments, in The Dish of Tea, An Auction of Pictures, 1747-8 (see his comedy Taste), were the precursors of Mathews at Home, and a long line of successors. His farces and curtain-pieces were often "spiced-up" with more or less malicious character-sketches of living persons. Among his better known pieces are The Minor (1760), ridiculing Whitefield and the Methodists, and The Mayor of Garratt (1763), in which he played the part of Sturgeon (Byron used this piece, for an illustration in his speech on the Frame-workers Bill, February 27, 1812). The Lyar, first played at Covent Garden, January 12, 1762, was the latest to hold the stage. It was reproduced at the Opera Comique in 1877. return Footnote E: Ý or form a plot... [Proof b, British Museum] return
Footnote 30: ÝHenry Carey, poet and musician (d. 1743), a natural son of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, was the author of Chrononhotonthologos, "the most tragical tragedy ever yet tragedised by any company of tragedians," which was first played at the Haymarket, February 22, 1734. The well-known lines, "Go, call a coach, and let a coach be called," etc., which Scott prefixed to the first chapter of The Antiquary, are from the last scene, in which Bombardinion fights with and kills the King Chrononhotonthologos. But his one achievement was Sally in our Alley, of which he wrote both the words and the music. The authorship of "God Save the King" has been attributed to him, probably under a misapprehension. return Footnote F: Ý What'eer the critic says or poet sings 'Tis no slight task to write on common things... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 31: ;nbsp Under Plato's pillow a volume of the Mimes of Sophron was found the day he died.--Vide Barthélémi, De Pauw, or Diogenes Laërtius, [Lib. iii. p. 168--Chouet 1595] if agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book. Cumberland, in his Observer, terms it moral, like the sayings of Publius Syrus. return Footnote G: Ý Ere o'er our heads your Muse's Thunder rolls.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 32: Ý In 1737 the manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre having brought Sir Robert Walpole a farce called The Golden Rump, the minister detained the copy. He then made extracts of the most offensive passages, read them to the house, and brought in a bill to limit the number of playhouses and to subject all dramatic writings to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain. Horace Walpole ascribed The Golden Rump to Fielding, and said that he had found an imperfect copy of the play among his father's papers. But this has been questioned. (See A Book of the Play, by Dutton Cook (1881), p. 27.) return Footnote H: Ý Earth, Heaven and Hell, are shaken with the Song.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 33: Ý His speech on the Licensing Act [in which he opposed the Bill], is reckoned one of his most eloquent efforts. [The following sentences have been extracted from the speech which was delivered:-- "The bill is not only an encroachment upon liberty, it is likewise an encroachment on property. Wit, my lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on... "Those gentlemen who have any such property are all, I hope, our friends; do not let us subject them to any unnecessary or arbitrary restraint... "The stage and the press, my lord, are two of our out-sentries; if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them into fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore I must now look upon the bill before us as a step for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom." Lord Chesterfield's sentiments with regard to laughter are contained in an apophthegm, repeated more than once in his correspondence: "The vulgar laugh aloud, but never smile; on the contrary, people of fashion often smile, but seldom or never laugh aloud." Chesterfield's Letters to his Godson, Oxford, 1890, p. 27.] return Footnote J: Ý Through deeds we know not, though already done,... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 34: Ý Archer and Squire Sullen are characters in Farquhar's play (1678-1707), The Beaux' Stratagem, March 8, 1707. return Footnote K: Ý What soothes the people's, Peer's, and Critic's ear.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 35: Ý Michael Perez, the "Copper Captain," in [Fletcher's] Rule a Wife and Have a Wife [licensed October 19, 1624]. return Footnote M: Ý And Vice buds forth developed with his Teens.... [MS M.] return
Footnote 36: Ý The Rev. Dr. Francis Willis died in 1807, in the 90th year of his age. He attended George III. in his first attack of madness in 1788. The power of his eye on other persons is illustrated by a story related by Frederick Reynolds (Life and Times, ii. 23), who describes how Edmund Burke quailed under his look. His son, John Willis, was entrusted with the entire charge of the king in 1811. Compare Shelley's Peter Bell the Third, part vi.-- "Let him shave his head: Where's Dr. Willis?" (See, too, Bland-Burges Papers (1885), pp. 113-115, and Life of George IV., by Percy Fitzgerald (1881), ii. 18.) return Footnote N: Ý The beardless Tyro freed at length from school. [MSS. L. (b), M. erased.] And blushing Birch disdains all College rule. [MS. M. erased.] And dreaded Birch. [MS. L. (a and b).] return
Footnote 37: Ý Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion. "Highwaymen and housebreakers," he says, in his Life of Gay, "seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage." Lives of the Poets, by Samuel Johnson (1890), ii. 266. It was asserted, on the other hand, by Sir John Fielding, the Bow-street magistrate, that on every run of the piece, The Beggar's Opera, an increased number of highwaymen were brought to his office; and so strong was his conviction, that in 1772 he remonstrated against the performance with the managers of both the houses. return Footnote P: Ý Unlucky Tavell! damned to daily cares By pugilistic Freshmen, and by Bears.... [MS. M. erased] return
Footnote 38: Ý Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, etc., on the subject of the drama, is too well known to require further comment. [Jeremy Collier (1650-1756), non-juring bishop and divine. The occasion of his controversy with Congreve was the publication of his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1697-8). Congreve, who had been attacked by name, replied in a tract entitled Amendments upon Mr. Collier's false and imperfect citations from the Old Batcheleur, etc.] return Footnote Q: Ý Ready to quit whatever he loved before, Constant to nought, save hazard and a whore.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 39: ÝA few months after lines 370-381 were added to The Hints, in September, 1812, Byron, at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the address delivered on the opening of the theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Committee of Management return Footnote R: Ý The better years of youth he wastes away.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 40: Ý Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of "good works." He is ably supported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same vineyard:--but I say no more, for, according to Johnny in full congregation,"No hopes for them as laughs." [The Rev. Charles Simeon (1758-1836) was the leader of the evangelical movement in Cambridge. The reference may be to the rigour with which he repelled a charge brought against him by Dr. Edwards, the Master of Sidney Sussex, that a sermon which he had preached in November, 1809, savoured of antinomianism. It may be noted that a friend (the Rev. W. Parish), to whom he submitted the MS. of a rejoinder to Pearson's Cautions, etc., advised him to print it, "especially if you should rather keep down a lash or two which might irritate." Simeon was naturally irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had mildly reproved him for some display of temper, signed himself, in humorous penitence, "Charles proud and irritable." (See Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Mr. Simeon, by Rev. W. Carus (1847), pp. 195, 282, etc.)] return Footnote S: Ý Master of Arts, as all the Clubs proclaim... [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 41: ÝBaxter's Shove to heavy-a--d Christians, the veritable title of a book once in good repute, and likely enough to be so again. ["Baxter" is a slip of the pen. The tract or sermon, An Effectual Shove to the heavy-arse Christian, was, according to the title-page, written by William Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, and "printed for the author" in London in 1768.] return Footnote T: Ý Scrapes wealth, o'er Grandam's endless jointure grieves... [MS. erased.] O'er Grandam's mortgage, or young hopeful's debts... [MS. L. (a).] O'er Uncle's mortgage... [MS. L. (b).] return
Footnote 42: Ý Ambrose Philips (1675?-1749) published hisEpistle to the Earl of Dorset and his Pastorals in 1709. It is said that Pope attacked him in his satires in consequence of an article in the Guardian, in which the Pastorals were unduly extolled. His verses, addressed to the children of his patron, Lord Carteret, were parodied by Henry Carey, in Namby Pamby, or a Panegyric on the New Versification. return Footnote U: Ý Your plot is told or acted more or less... [MS M.] return
Footnote 43: Ý See letters to Murray, Sept. 15, 1817; Jan. 25, 1819; Mar. 29, 1820; Nov. 4, 1820; etc. See also the two Letters against Bowles, written at Ravenna, Feb. 7 and Mar. 21, 1821, in which Byron's enthusiastic reverence for Pope is the dominant note. return Footnote V: Ý To greater sympathy our feelings rise When what is done is done before our eyes.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 44: ÝAs famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid [and may be like him a senator, one day or other: no disparagement to the High Court of Parliament.--MS.L. (b)], and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.-- Independence. [According to the Scholiast, Cassar made his barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pompeium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820) was, presumably, Benjamin Blake, a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.] return Footnote W: Ý Appalls an audience with the work of Death-- To gaze when Hubert simply threats to sere.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 45: Ý There was some foundation for this. When Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on Daniel Stuart, editor of the Courier, at his fine new house in Harley Street, the butler would not admit them further than the hall, and was not a little taken aback when he witnessed the deference shown to these strangely-attired figures by his master.-- Personal Reminiscence of the late Miss Stuart, of 106, Harley Street. return Footnote X: Ý Nor call a Ghost, unless some cursed hitch Requires a trapdoor Goblin or a Witch.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 46: Ý "Bayes: If I am to write familiar things, as sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of stewed prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood; for when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge." Rehearsal, act ii. sc. 1. This passage is instanced by Johnson as a proof that "Bayes" was a caricature of Dryden. "Bayes, when he is to write, is blooded and purged; this, as Lamotte relates, ... was the real practice of the poet." Lives of the Poets 1890), i. 388. return Footnote Y: Ý This comes from Commerce with our foreign friends These are the precious fruits Ausonia sends.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 47: Ý Cant term for £100,000. return Footnote Z: Ý Our Giant Capital where streets still spread Where once our simpler sins were bred.... [MS L. (a)] Our fields where once the rustic earned his bread.... [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 48: Ý I have not the original by me, but the Italian translation runs as follows:-- "E una cosa a mio credere molto stravagante, che un Padre desideri, o permetta, che suo figliuolo coltivi e perfezioni questo talento." A little further on: " Si trovano di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' oro e d' argento," Educazione dei Fanciulli del Signer Locke (Venice, 1782), ii. 87. ["If the child have a poetic vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world, that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved." ... "It is very seldom seen, that any one discovers mines of gold or silver on Parnassus." Some Thoughts concerning Education, by John Locke (1880), p. 152.] return Footnote Aa: Ý Aches with the Orchestra he pays to hear... [MS M.] return
Footnote 49: Ý "Iro pauperior:" a proverb: this is the same beggar who boxed with Ulysses for a pound of kid's fry, which he lost and half a dozen teeth besides. (See Odyssey, xviii. 98.) return Footnote Bb: Ý Scarce kept awake by roaring out encore... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 50: Ý The Irish gold mine in Wicklow, which yields just ore enough to swear by, or gild a bad guinea. return Footnote Cc: Ý Ere theatres were built and reverend clerks Wrote plays as some old book remarks... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 51: Ý As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he was under great obligations--"And Homer (damn him!) calls"--it may be presumed that anybody or anything may be damned in verse by poetical licence [I shall suppose one may damn anything else in verse with impunity.--MS. L. (b)]; and, in case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a precedent. return Footnote Dd: Ý Who did what Vestris--yet, at least,--cannot, And cut his kingly capers "Sans culotte."... [MS M.] return
Footnote 52: Ý For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see Davies's Life of Garrick. I believe it is Regulus, or Charles the First [Lincoln's Inn Fields, March 1, 1737]. The moment it was known to be his the theatre thinned, and the book-seller refused to give the customary sum for the copyright. [See Life of Garrick, by Thomas Davies (1808), ii. 205.] return Footnote Ee: Ý Who yet squeaks on nor fears to be forgot If good Earl Grosvenor supersede them not... [MS L. (a)] Who still frisk on with feats so vastly low 'Tis strange Earl Grosvenor suffers such a show... [MS M.] return
Footnote 53: Ý: Thomas Erskine (third son of the fifth Earl of Buchan) afterwards Lord Erskine (1750-1823), Lord Chancellor (1806-7), an eloquent orator, a supremely great advocate, was, by comparison, a failure as a judge. His power over a jury, "his little twelvers," as he would sometimes address them, was practically unlimited. (See Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers (1856), p. 126.) return Footnote Ff: Ý Suppressing Peer! to whom all vice gives place, Save Gambling--for his Lordship loves a Race... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 54: Ý Lines 589-626 are not in the Murray MS., nor in either of the Lovelace MSS. return Footnote Gg: Ý Hobhouse, since we have roved through Eastern climes, While all the Ægean echoed to our rhymes, And bound to Momus by some pagan spell Laughed, sang and quaffed to "Vive la Bagatelle!... [MS L. (a)] Hobhouse, with whom once more I hope to sit And smile at what our Stage retails for wit. Since few, I know, enjoy a laugh so well Sardonic slave to "Vive la Bagatelle" So that in your's like Pagan Plato's bed They'll find some book of Epigrams when dead [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 55: ÝTo the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I have to return thanks for the fervour of that charity which, in 1809, induced them to express a hope that a thing then published by me might lead to certain consequences, which, although natural enough, surely came but rashly from reverend lips. I refer them to their own pages, where they congratulated themselves on the prospect of a tilt between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, from which some great good was to accrue, provided one or both were knocked on the head. Having survived two years and a half those "Elegies" which they were kindly preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, Hal;" but if, as David says in The Rivals, it should come to "bloody sword and gun fighting," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" [Byron, writing at Athens, away from his books, misquotes The Rivals. The words, "Sir Lucius, we--we--we--we won't run," are spoken by Acres, not by David.] I do not know what I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my works are their lawful perquisite, to be hewn in pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them: but why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have "smote me on one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the "recording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon or Ramsden should be engaged in such a conflict as that in which they requested me to fall, I hope they may escape with being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may be at hand to extract the ball.-- ["If, however, the noble Lord and the learned advocate have the courage requisite to sustain their mutual insults, we shall probably soon hear the explosions of another kind of paper war, after the fashion of the ever-memorable duel which the latter is said to have fought, or seemed to fight, with 'Little' Moore. We confess there is sufficient provocation, if not in the critique, at least in the satire, to urge a 'man of honour' to defy his assailant to mortal combat, and perhaps to warrant a man of law to declare war in Westminster Hall. Of this we shall no doubt hear more in due time" (Eclectic Review, May, 1809). Byron pretends to believe that the "Christian" Reviewers, actuated by stern zeal for piety, were making mischief in sober earnest. "Heaviside" (see last line of Byron's note) was the surgeon in attendance at the duel between Lord Falkland and Mr. A. Powell. (See English Bards, 1. 686, note 2.) return Footnote Hh: Ý My wayward Spirit weakly yields to gloom, But thine will waft thee lightly to the Tomb, So that in thine, like Pagan Plato's, bed They'll find some Manuscript of Mimes, when dead... [MS M.] return
Footnote 56: Ý Macbeth, act v. sc. 7. return Footnote Jj: Ý And spite of Methodism and Collier's curse... [MS M.] He who's seduced by plays must be a fool If boys want teaching let them stay at school... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 57: ÝSee the critique of the Edinburgh Review on Hours of Idleness, January, 1808. return Footnote Kk: Ý Whom Nature guides so writes that he who sees Enraptured thinks to do the same with ease... [MS M.] return
Footnote 58: Ý "Invenies alium, si te hic fastidit, Alexin." return Footnote Mm: Ý But after toil-inked thumbs and bitten nails Scratched head, ten quires--the easy scribbler fails... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 59: ÝHere MS. L. (a) recommences. return Footnote Nn: Ý The one too rustic, t'other too refined... [MS L. (a and b)] return
Footnote 60: ÝJohn Jackson (1769-1845), better known as "Gentleman" Jackson, was champion of England from 1795 to 1803. His three fights were against Fewterel (1788), George Ingleston, nicknamed "the Brewer" (1789), and Mendoza (1795). In 1803 he retired from the ring. His rooms at 13, Bond Street, became the head-quarters of the Pugilistic Club. (See Pierce Egan's Life in London, pp. 252-254, where the rooms are described, and a drawing of them by Cruikshank is given.) Jackson's character stood high. "From the highest to the lowest person in the Sporting World, his decision is law." He was Byron's guest at Cambridge, Newstead, and Brighton; received from him many letters; and is described by him, in a note to Don Juan (xi. 19), as "my old friend and corporeal pastor and master." return Footnote Pp: Ý Offensive most to men with house and land Possessed of Pedigree and bloody hand... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 61: Ý Mr. Southey has lately tied another canister to his tail in The Curse of Kehama, maugre the neglect of Madoc, etc., and has in one instance had a wonderful effect. A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of "one in jeopardy:" he rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on butter-milk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel-spear and a landing net, and at last (horresco referens) pulled out--his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. Its "alacrity of sinking" was so great, that it has never since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry premises, Cornhill. Be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of "Felo de bibliopolâ" against a "quarto unknown;" and circumstantial evidence being since strong against The Curse of Kehama (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in Grub-street--Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the bell-man of St. Sepulchre's. The same advocates, pro and con, will be employed as are now engaged in Sir F. Burdett's celebrated cause in the Scotch courts. The public anxiously await the result, and all live publishers will be subpoenaed as witnesses.--But Mr. Southey has published The Curse of Kehama,--an inviting title to quibblers. By the bye, it is a good deal beneath Scott and Campbell, and not much above Southey, to allow the booby Ballantyne to entitle them, in the Edinburgh Annual Register (of which, by the bye, Southey is editor) "the grand poetical triumvirate of the day." But, on second thoughts, it can be no great degree of praise to be the one-eyed leaders of the blind, though they might as well keep to themselves "Scott's thirty thousand copies sold," which must sadly discomfort poor Southey's unsaleables. Poor Southey, it should seem, is the "Lepidus" of this poetical triumvirate. I am only surprised to see him in such good company. "Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil he came there." The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition of Euclid:-- "Because, in the triangles D B C, A C B; D B is equal to A C; and B C common to both; the two sides D B, B C, are equal to the two A C, C B, each to each, and the angle D B C is equal to the angle A C B: therefore, the base D C is equal to the base A B, and the triangle D B C (Mr. Southey) is equal to the triangle A C B, the less to the greater, which is absurd" etc. The editor of the Edinburgh Register will find the rest of the theorem hard by his stabling; he has only to cross the river; 'tis the first turnpike t' other side Pons AsinorumA. [The Curse of Kehama, by Robert Southey, was published 1810; Arthur, or The Northern Enchantment, by the Rev. Richard Hole, in 1789; Alfred, by Joseph Cottle, in 1801; Davideis`, by Abraham Cowley, in 1656; Richard the First, by Sir James Bland Surges, in 1801; Exodiad, by Sir J. Bland Surges and R. Cumberland, in 1808; Exodus, by Charles Hoyle, in 1802; Epigoniad, by W. Wilkie, D.D., in 1757; Calvary, by R. Cumberland, in 1792; Fall of Cambria, by Joseph Cottle, in 1809; Siege of Acre, by Hannah Cowley, in 1801; The Vision of Don Roderick, by Sir Walter Scott, in 1811; Tom Thumb the Great, by Henry Fielding, in 1730. The Courier of July 16, 1811, reports in full the first stage of the case Sir F. Burdett v. William Scott (vide supra), which was brought before Lord Meadowbank as ordinary in the outer court. Jeffrey was counsel for the pursuer, who sought to recover a sum of £5000 lent under a bond. For the defence it was alleged that the money had been entrusted for a particular purpose, namely, the maintenance of an infant. Jeffrey denied the existence of any such claim, and maintained that whatever was scandalous or calumnious in the defence was absolutely untrue. The case, which was not included in the Scottish Law Reports, was probably settled out of court. Evidently the judge held that on technical grounds an action did not lie. Burdett's enemies were not slow in turning the scandal to account. (See a contemporary pamphlet, Adultery and Patriotism, London, 1811.)] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; This Latin has sorely puzzled the University of Edinburgh. Ballantyne said it meant the "Bridge of Berwick," but Southey claimed it as half English; Scott swore it was the "Brig o' Stirling:" he had just passed two King James's and a dozen Douglasses over it. At last it was decided by Jeffrey, that it meant nothing more nor less than the "counter of Archy Constable's shop." return to main footnote return to poem cross-reference: return to Footnote 63 of this poem Footnote Qq: Ý Composed for any but the lightest strain... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 62: ÝVoltaire's Pucelle is not quite so immaculate as Mr. Southey's Joan of Arc, and yet I am afraid the Frenchman has both more truth and poetry too on his side--(they rarely go together)--than our patriotic minstrel, whose first essay was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, whose title of witch would be correct with the change of the first letter. return Footnote Rr: Ý And must I then my... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 63: Ý Like Sir Bland Burges's Richard; the tenth book of which I read at Malta, on a trunk of Eyre's, 19, Cockspur-street. If this be doubted, I shall buy a portmanteau to quote from. [Sir James Bland Burges (1752-1824), who assumed, in 1821, the name of Lamb, married, as his first wife, the Hon. Elizabeth Noel, daughter of Lord Wentworth, and younger sister of Byron's mother-in-law, Lady Milbanke. He was called to the bar in 1777, and in the same year was appointed a Commissioner in Bankruptcy. In 1787 he was returned M.P. for the borough of Helleston; and from 1789 to 1795 held office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1795, at the instance of his chief, Lord Grenville, he vacated his post, and by way of compensation was created a baronet with a sinecure post as Knight-Marshal of the Royal Household. Thenceforth he devoted himself to literature. In 1796 he wrote the Birth and Triumph of Love, by way of letter-press to some elegant designs of the Princess Elizabeth. (For Richard the First and the Exodiad, see note, p. 436.) His plays, Riches and Tricks for Travellers, appeared in 1810, and there were other works. In spite of Wordsworth's testimony (Wordsworth signed, but Coleridge dictated and no doubt composed, the letter: see Thomas Poole and His Friends, ii. 27) "to a pure and unmixed vein of native English" in Richard the First (Bland-Burges Papers, 1885, p. 308), Burges as a poet awaits rediscovery. His diaries, portions of which were published in 1885, are lively and instructive. He has been immortalized in Person's Macaronics-- "Poetis nos lætamur tribus, Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus. Si ulterius ire pergis, Adde his Sir James Bland Burges!" return Footnote Ss: Ý Ye who require Improvement... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 64: Ý [Charles Lamb, in "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago" (Prose Works, 1836, ii. 30), records his repeated visits, as a Blue Coat boy, "to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levée, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission." return Footnote Tt: Ý And Tragedy, whatever stuff he spoke Now wants high heels, long sword and velvet cloak... [MS L. (a) erased] return
Footnote 65: Ý Lines 677, 678 are not in MS. L. (a). return Footnote Uu: Ý Curtail or silence the offensive jest... [MS M.] Curtail the personal or smutty jest... [MS L. (a) erased] return
Footnote 66: Ý Lines 689-696 are not in MS. L. (a) or MS. L. (b). return Footnote Vv: Ý Overthrow whole books with all their hosts of faults... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 67: Ý MS. L. (a and b) continue at line 758. return Footnote Ww: Ý So that not Hellebore with all its juice... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 68: Ý "Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, Gurgite cum medio portans OEagrius Hebrus, Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua; Ah, miseram Eurydicen! animâ fugiente vocabat; Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ." [Georgic, iv. 523-527.] return Footnote Xx: Ý I'll act instead of whetstone--blunted, but Of use to make another's razor cut... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 69: Ý I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; it is a tailor, but begged Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta--psha!--of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to his country customers--Merry's "Moorfields whine" was nothing to all this. The "Delia Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession; but these Arcadians ("Arcades ambo"--bumpkins both) send out their native nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes and small-clothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures, and Pæans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shop-board, they describe the fields of battle, when the only blood they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced by the ninth part of a "poet;" "And own that nine such poets made a Tate." Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if he did, why not take it as his motto? [An Essay on War; Honington Green, a Ballad,. . . an Elegy and other Poems, was published in 1803.] return Footnote Yy: Ý From Horace show the better arts of song... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 70: Ý This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too (who once was wiser) has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of "Remains" utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; but the "tragedies" are as ricketty as if they had been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end; and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the least they have done: for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under the statute against "resurrection men." What does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort of eclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to provide for the child; now, might not some of this Sutor ultra Crepidaitis friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription split into so many modicums!-- "To the Duchess of Somuch, the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are," etc. etc.-- why, this is doling out the "soft milk of dedication" in gills,-- there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child, a book, and a dedication: send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil. [For Robert Bloomfield, see English Bards, ll. 774-786 (click c6 to return), and note 2. For Joseph Blacket, see English Bards, ll. 765-770 (click c7 to return), and note 1. Blacket's Remains, with Life by Pratt, appeared in 1811. The work was dedicated "To Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author," etc.] return Footnote Zz: Ý To Trade, but gave their hours to arms and arts... [MS L. (a)] With traffic... [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 71: Ý Lines 737-758 are not in either of the three original MSS. of Hints from Horace, and were probably written in the autumn of 1811. They appear among a sheet of "alterations to English Bards, and S. Reviewers, continued with additions" (MSS. L.), drawn up for the fifth edition, and they are inserted on a separate sheet in MS. M. A second sheet (MSS. L.) of "scraps of rhyme,... principally additions and corrections for English Bards, etc." (for the fifth edition), some of which are dated 1810, does not give the whole passage, but includes the following variants (erased) of lines 753-756:-- (i.) "Then let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink, The dullest fattest weed on Lethe's brink. Down with that volume to the depths of hell! Oblivion seems rewarding it too well." (ii.) "Yet then thy quarto still may," etc. A "Druid" (see English Bards, line 741 (click c10 to return)) was Byron's name for a scribbler who wrote for his living. In MS. M., "scribbler" has been erased, and "Druid" substituted. It is doubtful to whom the passage, in its final shape, was intended to apply, but it is possible that the erased lines, in which "ponderous quarto" stands for "lost songs," were aimed at Southey (see ante, line 657, note 1). return to poem Footnote aA: Ý Babe of old ThelussonA--... [MS L. (a) and (b)] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; Peter Isaac Thellusson, banker (died July 21, 1797), by his will directed that his property should accumulate for the benefit of the unborn heir of an unborn grandson. The will was, finally, upheld, but, meanwhile, on July 28, 1800, an act (39 and 40 Geo. III.c.98) was passed limiting such executory devises.] return to poem
Footnote 72: ÝMS. L. (a) recommences at line 758. return Footnote bB: Ý A groat--ah bravo! Dick's the boy for sums He'll swell my fifty thousand into plums... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 73: Ý Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the sole survivor, the ultimus Romanorum, the last of the Cruscanti--"Edwin" the "profound" by our Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penultimate. A Familiar Epistle to the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. "What reams of paper, floods of ink," Do some men spoil, who never think! And so perhaps you'll say of me, In which your readers may agree. Still I write on, and tell you why; Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, But may instruct or entertain Without the risk of giving pain, etc., etc. On Some Modern Quacks and Reformists. In tracing of the human mind Through all its various courses, Though strange, 'tis true, we often find It knows not its resources: And men through life assume a part For which no talents they possess, Yet wonder that, with all their art, They meet no better with success, etc., etc. [A Familiar Epistle, etc., by T. Vaughan, Esq., was published in the Morning Chronicle, October 7, 1811. Gifford, in the Baviad (l. 350), speaks of "Edwin's mewlings," and in a note names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr. T. Vaughan." Love's Metamorphoses, by T. Vaughan, was played at Drury Lane, April 15, 1776. He also wrote The Hotel, or Double Valet, November 26, 1776, which Jephson rewrote under the title of The Servant with Two Masters. Compare Children of Apollo, p. 49:-- "Jephson, who has no humour of his own, Thinks it no crime to borrow from the town; The farce (almost forgot) of The Hotel Or Double Valet seems to answer well. This and his own make Two Strings to his Bow."] return Footnote cC: Ý Are idle dogs and (damn them!) always poor... [MS L. (a) and (b)] return
Footnote 74: Ý See Milton's Lycidas. return Footnote dD: Ý Unlike Potosi holds no silver mine... [MS L. (a)] Keeps back his ingots like/Is rather costive--like/Is no Potosi, but...an Irish Mine [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 75: Ý Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc. return Footnote eE: Ý Write but recite not, e'en Apollo's song Mouthed in a mortal ear would seem too long, Long as the last year of a lingering lease, When Revel pauses until Rents increase... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote 76: Ý A crust for the critics.... [Bayes, in "the Rehearsal", [act ii. sc. 2]] return Footnote fF: Ý To finish all... [MS L. (b )] That Bard the mask will fit... [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 77: Ý And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!" [See English Bards, line 1 and note 3.] return to poem Footnote gG: Ý Revenge defeats its object in the dark And pistols (courage bullies!) miss their mark... [MS L. (a)] And pistols (courage duellists!) miss their mark... [MS L. (b)] return
Footnote 78: ÝLines 813-816 not in MS. L. (a) or MS. L. (b). return Footnote hH: Ý Though much displeased... [MS L. (a) and (b)] return
Footnote 79: ÝOn his table were found these words:--"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope! [Eustace Budgell (1686-1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape the dishonour which attached to him in connection with Dr. Tindal's will, and the immediate pressure of money difficulties. He was, more or less, insane. "We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. I put the case of Eustace Budgell. 'Suppose, sir,' said I, 'that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society?' Johnson. 'Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.'" Boswell's Life of Johnson (1886), p. 281.] return Footnote jJ: Ý The The scrutiny.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote 80: Ý If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present. return Footnote kK: Ý Oh ye aspiring youths whom fate or choice... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote mM: Ý All are not Erskines who adorn the bar... [MS M.] return
Footnote nN: Ý With very middling verses to offend The Devil and Jeffrey grant but to a friend.... [MS L. (a)] Though what "Gods, men, and columns" interdict, The Devil and JeffreyA pardon--in a Pict.... [MS M.] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; "The Devil and Jeffrey are here placed antithetically to gods and men, such being their usual position, and their due one--according to the facetious saying, 'If God won't take you, the Devil must;' and I am sure no one durst object to his taking the poetry, which, rejected by Horace, is accepted by Jeffrey. That these gentlemen are in some cases kinder,--the one to countrymen, and the other from his odd propensity to prefer evil to good,--than the 'gods, men, and columns' of Horace, may be seen by a reference to the review of Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming; and in No. 31 of the Edinburgh Review (given to me the other day by the captain of an English frigate off Salamis), there is a similar concession to the mediocrity of Jamie Graham's British Georgics. It is fortunate for Campbell, that his fame neither depends on his last poem, nor the puff of the Edinburgh Review. The catalogues of our English are also less fastidious than the pillars of the Roman librarians. A word more with the author of Gertrude of Wyoming. At the end of a poem, and even of a couplet, we have generally 'that unmeaning thing we call a thought;' so Mr. Campbell concludes with a thought in such a manner as to fulfil the whole of Pope's prescription, and be as 'unmeaning' as the best of his brethren:-- 'Because I may not stain with grief The death-song of an Indian chief.' "When I was in the fifth form, I carried to my master the translation of a chorus in Prometheus, wherein was a pestilent expression about 'staining a voice,' which met with no quarter. Little did I think that Mr. Campbell would have adopted my fifth form 'sublime'--at least in so conspicuous a situation. 'Sorrow' has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 'wet' (in sonnets), this many a day; and now it 'stains,' and stains a sound, of all feasible things! To be sure, death-songs might have been stained with that same grief to very good purpose, if Outalissi had clapped down his stanzas on wholesome paper for the Edinburgh Evening Post, or any other given hyperborean gazette; or if the said Outalissi had been troubled with the slightest second sight of his own notes embodied on the last proof of an overcharged quarto; but as he is supposed to have been an improvisatore on this occasion, and probably to the last tune he ever chanted in this world, it would have done him no discredit to have made his exit with a mouthful of common sense. Talking of 'staining' (as Caleb Quotem says) 'puts me in mind' of a certain couplet, which Mr. Campbell will find in a writer for whom he, and his school, have no small contempt:-- 'E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art--the art to blot!' " [MS. M.] return to this footnote return to poem
Footnote pP: Ý And mustard rarely pleases in a pie... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote qQ: Ý At the Sessions... [MS L. (b) in pencil] return
Footnote rR: Ý Lines 647-650-- Whose character contains no glaring fault... Shall I, I say... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote sS: Ý After 660-- But why this hint-what author e'er could stop His poems' progress in a Grocers shop.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote tT: Ý As lame as I am, but a better bard... [MS M.] return
Footnote uU: Ý Apollo's song the fate of men foretold... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote vV: Ý Have studied with a Master day and night... [MS L. (a, b)] return
Footnote wW: Ý They storm Bolt Court, they publish one and all... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote xX: Ý Rogers played this prank... [MS M.] return
Footnote yY: Ý There see their sonnets first--but Spring--hot prest Beholds a Quarto--Tarts must tell the Rest.... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote zZ: Ý To fuddled Esquires or to flippant Lords... [MS M.] return
Footnote AA: Ý Till lo! that modern Midas of the swains-- Feels his ears lengthen--with the lengthening strains... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote BB: Ý Adds a week's growth to his enormous ears... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote CC: Ý But what are these? Benefits might bind Some decent ties about a manly mind... [MS M.] return
Footnote DD: Ý Our modern sceptics can no more allow.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote DD: Ý Some rhyming peer--Carlisle or CarysfortA... [MS Newstead] Sub-Footnote A: nbsp; [To variant ii. (p. 444) (this footnote) is subjoined this note: "Of 'John Joshua, Earl of Carysfort,' I know nothing at present, but from an advertisement in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by his Lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morea. Being a rhymer himself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the close of that couplet; and as for what follows and goes before, let him place it to the account of the other Thane; since I cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con the contents of his 'foolscap crown octavos.'" [John Joshua Proby, first Earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-general in 1805, envoy to Berlin in 1806, and ambassador to Petersburgh in 1807. Besides his poems (Dramatic and Miscellaneous Works, 1810), he published two pamphlets (1780,1783), to show the necessity of universal suffrage and short parliaments. He died in 1828.] return to poem
Footnote EE: Ý Hoarse with bepraising, and half choaked with lies, Sweat on his brow and tear drops in his eyes... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote FF: Ý hen sits again, then shakes his piteous head As if the Vicar were already dead.... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote GG: Ý But if you're too conceited to amend... [MS L. (a)] return
Footnote HH: Ý On pain of suffering from their pen or tongues... [MS M. erased] fly Fitzgerald's lungs... [MS M.] return
Footnote JJ: Ý Ah when Bards mouth! how sympathetic Time Stagnates, and Hours stand still to hear their rhyme... [MS M. erased] return
Footnote KK: Ý Besides how know ye? that he did not fling Himself there--for the humour of the thing.... [MS M.] return
Footnote MM: Ý Small thanks, unwelcome life he quickly leaves; And raving poets--really should not lose... [MS M.] return
Footnote NN: Ý Nor is it clearly understood that verse Has not been given the poet for a curse; Perhaps he sent the parson's pig to pound, Or got a child on consecrated ground; But, be this as it may, his rhyming rage Exceeds a Bear who strives to break his cage. If free, all fly his versifying fit; The young, the old, the simpleton and wit... [MS L. (a)] return
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