Liberal of April 26, 1823. -Into the long quarrel between Southey, the reformed radical and obliging poet-laureate, and Byron, leader of the 'Satanic school,' there is neither space nor occasion here to enter. The result on Byron's side, notably the Dedication to Don Juan and The Vision of Judgment, was the writing of some of the most enjoyable satire ever penned. George III. died January 29, 1820; Southey's apotheosis of that monarch was published in April of the next year as A Vision of Judgment. The inexpressible flatness and absurdity of the hexameters which composed this poem cried out for ridicule, and Byron was ready. He sent the manuscript of his satire of the same name to Murray, October 4, 1821; Murray, however, cautiously refrained from printing, and the poem was first published in the Liberal of October 15, 1822. The Age of Bronze was composed in December of 1822 and January of 1823, and three months later was published by John Hunt without the author's name. The poem contains a rapid survey of Napoleon's career, of the Congress of the Allied Powers at Verona, 1822, and the political difficulties of Great Britain of that year.] All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain,' I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better. As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal. In the first edition of this satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead, my only reason for this being that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner, -a determination not to publish with my name any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition. With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are over-rated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require an Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds in merely bruising one of the heads of the serpent,' though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied. STILL must I hear?-shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, Prepare for rhyme - I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small, Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all! I printed - older children do the same. 50 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't. Not that a title's sounding charm can save Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave: This Lambe must own, since his patrician The work of each immortal bard appears The single wonder of a thousand years. Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth, Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth, Without the glory such a strain can give, First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, Behold her statue placed in glory's niche; Her fetters burst, and just released from prison, 210 A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen. threw More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome, Oh, wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard, Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard! Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou! Whether on ancient tombs thou takest thy stand, By gibb'ring spectres hail'd, thy kindred band; 270 Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page, To please the females of our modest age; All hail, M. P.! from whose infernal brain Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train; At whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds, And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, With small grey men,'' wild yagers,' and what not, To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott. Again all hail! if tales like thine may please, St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease; Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell. 281 |