ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS;" A SATIRE. "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers." "Buch shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true, POPE. A FIFTH edition of the "English Bards and am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by review 3cotch Reviewers," in which Lord Byron intro-ers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I duced several alterations and corrections, was pre- have attacked none personally who did not compared in 1812, but was, at his desire, destroyed on mence on the offensive. An author's works are the eve of publication. One copy of this edition public property: he who purchases may judge, and alone escaped, from which the satire has been printed publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors in the present volume. The Author re-perused the I have endeavored to commemorate may do by me poem in the latter part of the summer in 1816, after as I have done by them: I dare say they will his final departure from England. He at that time succeed better in condemning my scribblings than also corrected the text in several places, and added in mending their own. But my object is not to a few notes and observations in the margin, which prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make the reader will find inserted. On the blank leaf others write better. preceding the title-page of the copy from which he As the poem has met with far more success than read, Lord Byron has written-"The binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents; and nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames." PREFACE.t I expected, I have endeavored in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal. In the first edition of this satire, published 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 nct to publish with my name any production which was not entirely and exclusively my own compostion. With regard to the real talents of many of the ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this satire with my name. If I were to be "turned from the career of my humor by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," poetical persons whose performances are mentioned I should have complied with their counsel. But I In the original manuscript, the title was "THE BRITISH BARDS A SATIRE." ↑ This preface was written for the second edition, and printed with it. The noble author had left this country previous to the publication of that editon, and in not yet returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811. He is, and gore gen. 1816.- MS. note by Lord Byron. or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults • The preface to the first edition began hero. overlooked, and his metrical canons received without | Inspires-our path though full of thorns, is plain scruple and without consideration. But the unques- Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain. tionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be Obey'd by all who nought beside obey; pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; per- When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, verted powers demand the most decided reprehension. Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime; No one can wish more than the author that some When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, known and able writer had undertaken their expos- And weigh their justice in a golden scale; ure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massin- E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, ger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears, country practitioner may, in cases of absolute neces-More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe, sity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent And shrink from ridicule, though not from law. the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the mal- Such is the force of wit! but not belong ady. A caustic is here offered, as it is to be feared To me the arrows of satiric song; nothing short of actual cautery can recover the The royal vices of our age demand numerous patients afflicted with the present preva- A keener weapon, and a mightier hand. lent and distressing rabies for rhyming.-As to the Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, Edinburgh Reviewers-it would indeed require an And yield at least amusement in the race: Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame succeeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of The cry is up, and scribblers are my game. the serpent," though his own hand should suffer in Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small, the encounter, he will be amply satisfied. |Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all! I too can scrawl, and once upon a time I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme, A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame; I printed-older children do the same. STILL must I hear?-shail hoarse Fitzgerald+ bawlt 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; Oh! nature's noblest gift-my gray goose-quill! A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade • 'The first ninety-six lines were prefixed to the second edition: the original And shall we own such judgment? no-as soon opened with Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days, Ignoble themes, &c.-Line 97. Seek roses in December-ice in June; ↑ Hoarse Fitzgerald.-Right enough; but why nice such a munte Believe a woman or an epitaph, Dank?-MS. note by Lord Byron. IMITATION, "Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, Juvenal, Sotire I. Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the "Literary Fund: " not contem with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation. § Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh! that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli. | No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream.--This must have been writ ton in th spirit of prophecy -MS. note by Lord Byron. Or any other thing that's false, before To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced, | In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, To these, when authors bend in humble awe, Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days, melt Till the swoln bubble bursts-and all is air! Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, Stott, better known in the "Morning Post" by the name of Hafis This personage is at present the most profound explorer of the bathos. remember, when the reigning family left Portugal, a special ode of Master Stott's, beginning thus: For nature then an English audience felt. sun; Is new," yet still from change to change we run: (Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia.) "Princely offspring of Braganza, Erin greets thee with a stanza," &c. &c. Also a sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most thundering odo, commencing as follows: "Oh! for a Lay! loud as the surge That lashes Lapland's sounding shore." this. ↑ See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning prologuizing to Bayes's tragedy unfortunate takes away the merit of originality from the dialogue between Messieurs the Spirits of Flood and Fell in the first canto. Then we have the amiablu William of Deloraine, "a stark moss-trooper," videlicet, a happy compou.. here resented. At the time this was written (1808) 1 was personally unac- of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical quainted wh either. 1816.-MS. note by Lord Byron. lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledg Mears, Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the first and the last ment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his of the Elinburg Review; the others are mentioned hereafter. "Stuita est Clementis, cum tot ubique occurras periture parcen charte." ↑ IMITATION Juvenal, Satire I. "Cur tamen hoe libeat potius decurrere campo Juvenal, Satire I. But hold! esclaims a friend, &.-The following six lines were inserted the fifth edition. own elegant phrase, 'twas his neck-verse at hairbee," i. e. the gallows. Thus saith the preacher, &c -The following fourteen lines were inserted very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will write for hire, let him do his a the second edition. ! Ecclesiae, chap. I. best for his paymasters, but not disgrace his genius, which is undoubted great, by a repetition of black-letter ballad imitations. bard may chant too often and too long: And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, Oh! Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; The time has been, when yet the muse was young, Without the glory such a strain can give, • "Good night to Marmion "the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion. ↑ As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the "Paradise Lost," and "Gierusalemme Liberata," as their standard efforts, since neither the "Jerusalem Conquered" of the Italian, nor the "Paradise Regained" of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive? Next comes the dull disciple of thy schoo., Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here, . We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degrading ste epic. See his preface. Why is epic degraded and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr. Southey poem "disdains the appellation," allow us to ask-has he substituted any thing better instead? or must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as the quality of his verse ↑ See "The Old Woman of Berkley," a ballad, by Mr. Southey, wherein s aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high-trotting house." The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the And Jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his dactylics: "God help thee, silly one !" Poetry of the Anti-jacobin, p. 25. Against this passage on Wordsworth and Coloridge, Lord Byron ba written "unjust." Lyrical Ballads, p. 4.-"The Tables Turned," Stanza I "Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? Up. up, my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you'll grow double." Mr. W. in his preface labors hard to prove that prose and verse ane much the same; and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly coo formable. "And thus to Betty's questions, he • Coleridge's Poems, p. 11, Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Devocabire fabrion; I Thedaba, Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of pre-p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady;" and p. 52,"Lines to a young cedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded Ass."' to a miracle. Joan of Arc was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of tt He brays, the laureat of the long-ear'd kw-Altered by Lon! Byro those poems" which," in the words of Purson, "will be read when Homer in his last revision of the satire. In all former editions the line stood, "A fellow-feeling makes us wond'rous kind." and Virgil re forgotten, but-not till then." Uh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard, And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, Whether he spin poor couplets into plays, Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward With "small gray men," "wild yagers," and what- Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,† not, To crown with honor thee and Walter Scott; Who in soft guise, surrounded by a chuir hush'd? "Tis Little! young Catullus of his day, She bi's thee "mend thy line,† and sin no more." For aee, translator of the tinse! song, Beho-ye tarts! one moment spare the text Hayley's last work, and worst-until his next; "For every one knows little Matt's an M. P."-See a poem to Mr. Lesis, in The Statesman, supposed to be written by Mr. Jekyll. In the original manuscript, "Mend thy fife." And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch; [years.§ Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, and grief "Breaks into mawkish lines each holy book." Mr. Grahame has poured forth two volumes of cant, under the name o "Sabbath Walks," and "Biblical Pictures." § Still whimpering through threescore of years.—Thus altered in the fifth edition. The original reading was, "Dissolved in thine own melting tears." Whether thou wing'st, &c.—This couplet, in all the editions before the fifth, was printed, of The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may refer to angford's Camoens," page 127, note to page 56, or to the last he Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Camoens. § Fuatan; in the first edition, nonsense, page "Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief, T See Bowles's Sonnets, &c.-" Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stanses on hearing the Bells of Ostend." "Awake a londer," &c., &c., 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," &c., &c. That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss, very much astonished, ag well they might be, at such a phenomenon. [Misquoted and misunderstood by me; but not intentionally. It was no the woods," but the people in them who tremb'ed-why, Heaven only knows-unless they were overheard making the prodigious smack-M note by Lord Byron. 1816.) |