Then why no more? if Phœbus smile on you,
Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too ?*
Him too the mania, not the muse has seized;
Not inspiration, but a mind diseased:
And now no boor can seek his last abode,
No common be enclosed, without an ode.
Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile
On Britain's sons, and bless our genial isle,
Let poesy go forth, pervade the whole,
Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul!

Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at once a slipper and a song;
So shall the fair your handiwork peruse;
Your sonnets sure shall please-perhaps your shoes.
May Moorlandt weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors' lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems-when they pay for coats.
To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,
Neglected genius! let me turn to you.
Come forth, oh Campbell! give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last,
Recall the pleasing memory of the past;
Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre;
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country's honor and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns!
No though contempt hath mark'd the spurious
The race who rhyme from folly, or for food, [brood,
Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast,
Who least affecting, still affect the most:
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel-
Bear witness Gifford, Sotheby, Macneil.||

Shall peers or princes tread pollution's path,
And 'scape alike the law's and muse's wrath?
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time
Eternal beacons of consummate crime?
Arouse thee, Gifford! be thy promise claim'd,
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

Unhappy White!* while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
+The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away,
Which else had sounded an immortal lay.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science' self destroyed her favorite son;
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart;
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel,
He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel;
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be, who say, in these enlighten'd days,
That splendid lies are all the poet's praise;
That strain'd invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern bard to sing:
'Tis true, that all who rhyme, nay, all who write,
Shrink from that fatal word to genius-trite;
Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in V.rtue's name let Crabbet attest;
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.
And here let Sheel and genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,

Why slumbers Gifford?" once was ask'd in vain;¶ And trace the poet's or the painter's line;

Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again.

Are there no follies for his pen to purge?

Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge?
Are there no sins for satire's bard to greet?
Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street?

Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow:
While honors, doubly merited, attend
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend.

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower

• See Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, elegy, or whatever he or any one else Where dwelt the muses at their natal hour: accses to call it, on the enclosure of "Honington Green."

↑ Vide Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlants of Staffordshire."

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 eautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope's "Essay on ds:" but so many poetaera have started up, that even the names of

Campbeli and Rogers are become strange.

Beneath this note Lord Byron has written, in the copy of this satire which be read in 1816.

Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has mark'd
afar,

The clime that nursed the sons of song and war,
The scenes which glory still must hover o'er,
Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore.

Shall these approach the muse? ah, no! she flies,
Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize;
Though printers condescend the press to soil
With rhyme by Hoare, and epic blank by Hoyle:
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.
Yc. who in Granta's honors would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass;
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.

For me, who, thus unask'd,* have dared to tell
My country, what her sons should know too well.
+Zeal for her honor bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age;
No just applause her honor'd name shal. lose,
As first in freedom, dearest to the muse.
Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name!
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour,
"Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been

There Clarke, still striving piteously "to please," Earth's chief dictatress, ocean's lovely queen. Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees,

A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,

A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind;
Himself a living libel on mankind.||
Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race !¶

At once the boast of learning, and disgrace:
**So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson'stt verse
Can make thee better, or poor Hewson's‡‡ worse.
But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath she§§ wove,
To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove;
Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires,
And modern Britons glory in their sires.||||

• Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize. Thus corrected, in 1816, by Lord Byron. In former editions:

"And even spurns the great Seatonian prize.”

↑ Thus in the original manuscript:

With odes by Smyth, and epic songs by Hoyle;
Hoyle whose learn'd page if still upheld by whist,
Required no sacred theme to bid us list.

▲ The "Games of Hoyle," well known to the votaries of whist, chess, &c.

But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main;
Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl'd,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate.
With warning ever scoff'd at, till too late;
To themes less lofty still my lay confine,
And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine.

Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest,
The senate's oracles, the people's jest!
Still hear thy motley orators dispense
The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense,
While Canning's colleagues hate him for his wit,
And old dame Portland fills the place of Pitt.

Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale;
And Afric's coast and Calpe's¶ adverse height,
And Stamboul's** minarets must greet my sight:
Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime,Ħ
Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd with

snows sublime.

But should I back return, no tempting press$$ Shall drag my journal from the desk's recess Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far, Snatch his own wreath of ridicule from Car; Let Aberdeen and Elgin || still pursue The shade of fame through regions of vertú; Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks, Right enough; this was well deserved, and well laid on.-MS. note by Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques;

are not to be superseded by the vagaries of his poetical namesake, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated in the advertisement, all the "plagues of Egypt."

There Clarke, still striving, &c.-These eight lines were added in the econd edition.

Lord Byron. 1816.

This person, who has lately betrayed the most rabid symptoms of conArmed authorship, is writer of a poem denominated the "Art of Pleasing," "Jucus a non lucendo," containing little pleasantry and less poetry. He also acts as monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the "Satirist." If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines for the mathematice, and endeavor to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more servicealde than his present salary.

"Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals."-Gibbon's Decline and Fall, p. 83, vol. i. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; the breed is still in high perfeo

These four lines were substituted for the following in the original man. uscript:

Yet hold-as when by Heaven's supreme tehest,

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.

• Unask'd; in the first edition unknown.

↑ Zeal for her honor, &c.—In the first edition, this couplet ran,
"Zeal for her honor, no malignant rage,

Has bade me spurn the follies of her age."
And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine.—With this verse the sattre
ended in the original edition.

A friend of mine being asked why his grace of Portland was likened to His grace is now gathered to his grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as an old woman? replied, "he supposed it was because he was past bearing." ever; but even his sleep was better than his colleagues' waking. 1811.

1816.

Afric's coast. Saw it, August, 1809.—MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.
Gibraltar. Saw it, August, 1809.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.
Stamboul. Was there the summer of 1810.-MS. note by Lord Byron.

tt Georgia.

Mount Caucasus. Saw the distant ridge of, 1810, 1811. –MS, note baj

• So low to Phabus, that, &c.-This couplet, thus altered in the fifth Lord Byron. 1816. edition, was originally printed,

"So ank in dullness, and so lost in shame,

That Smyth and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame."

11 This gentleman's name requires no praise; the man who in translation displays unquestionable genius may well be expected to excel in orig. Inal composition, of which it is to be hoped we shall soon see a splendid specimen.

1 Hewson Clarke, Esq., as it is written. $5"is" in the first edition.

1 The "Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem, by Richards.

• The breed is still in high perfection.—In the first edition, "There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion, as a large stock of the same breed to be found there at this day."

But should I back return, no tempting pres
Shall drag, &c.

These four lines were altered in the fifth edition. They originally stood,
"But should I back return, no letter'd sage

Shall drag my common-place book on the stage!
Let vain Valencia rival luckless Carr,

And equal him whose work he sought to mar."

I Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of Phidias ! "Credat Judæus 1"

• Lord Valencia (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming with due decorations, graphical, topographical, typographical) posed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit, that Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of the "Stranger in Ireland."-Oh, fie, my lord? has your lordship no mart feeling for a fellow-tourist but "two of a trade," they say

And make their grand saloons a general mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art:
Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell,

I leave topography to rapid Gellt
And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun the public ear-at least with prose.

Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career,
Prepared for rancor, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear:
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own-
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown:
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavow'd;
And now at once I tear the veil away :-
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay,
Unscared by all the din of Melbourne house,*
By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse.

By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage
Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page.
Our men in buckram shall have blows enough,
And feel they too are "penetrable stuff;"
And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,
Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe.
The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall,
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise
The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes;
But now so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth:
Learr'd to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the whee¡ he meant for me;
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowd's applaud or hiss;
Nay more, though all my rival rhymsters frown.
I too can hunt a poetaster down;

• Rapid. Thus altered in the fifth edition. In all previous editions And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once

"classic."

↑ "Rapid," indeed! He topographized and typographized King Priam's

dominions in three days 1-1 called him "classic" before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack his name with what don't belong to

K-Note to the fifth edition.

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 informa.

tion Mr. Gell conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display.-Note to all the early editions..

Since seeing the plain of Troy, my opinions are somewhat changed as to the above note. Gell's survey was hasty and superficial.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

- Din of Melbourne house.-Singular enough, and din enough, God knows.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

To Scotch marauder, and to southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay
Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.+

Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay.
The reading of the fifth edition: originally printed,

"Thus much I've dared to do; how far my lay."

†The greater part of this saire 1 most sincerely wish had never bosn 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 in Diodais, Geneva,

• Troy. Visited both in 1810 and 1811.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816. not approve.-Byron. July 14, 1818. 1 Ithica. Passed first in 1809.—MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

The poet considereth times past and their poesy-maketa a sudden transition to times present-is incensed against book-makers-revileth W. Scott for cupidity and hall ul-mongering, with notable remarks on Master Southey-complaineth that Master Southey hath inflicted three poems epic and otherwise on the pubic-inveigheth against Wm. Wordsworth; but lau leth Mr. Coleridge and his elegy on a young ass-is disposed to vituperate Mr. Lewis-and greatly rebuketh Thomas Little (the late), and the Lord Strangford-recommendeth Mr. Haley to turn his attrition to proseand exhorteth the Moravians to glorify Mr. Grahame-sympathizeth with the Rev. Bowles-and deploreth the melancholy fate of Montgomery -breaketh out into invective against the Edinburgh Reviewers-calleth them hard names, harpies, and the like-apostropluseth Jeffrey and prophesieth-Episode of Jeffrey and Moore. their jeopardy and deliverance; portents on the morn of combat; the Tweed, Tolbuuth, Frith or Porth severally shocked; descent of a goddess to save Jeffrey; incorporation of the bullets with his sinciput and occiput-Edinburgh Reviewers en maase -Lord Aberdeen, Hertert, Scot, Hallam, Pillans, Lambe, Sydney Smith, Brougham, &c.-The Lord Holland applauded for dinners and tranda tions.-The Drama; Skeffington, Hook, Reynolds, Kenney, Cherry, &c.-Sheridan, Colman, and Cumberland called upon to write-retum poesy-cribblere of all sorts-Lords sometimes rhyme; much better not-Hafiz, Rosa Matilda, and X Y. Z.-Rogers, Campbell, Glford, true poets-translators of the Greek Anthology-Crabbe-Darwin's style-Cambridge Seatonian Prize-Smyth-Hodgson-Oxford - Richards-Pu quitur conclusion.

POSTSCRIPT.❤

I HAVE been informed, since the presnet edition | cartels; but, alas, "the age of chivalry is over," went to press, that my trusty and well-beloved or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-aconsins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a days. most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so bedevilled with their ungodly ribal dry:

"Tantene animis celestibus iræ !"

There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (Subandi esquire), a sizer of Emmanuel 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, not

I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Ague- withstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason cheek saith, "an' I had known he was so cunning that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellow him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the ship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contem Bosphorus before the next number has passed the poraries prevented from success, has been abusing Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in me, and what is worse, the defenceless innocent

Persia.

above mentioned, in "The Satirist for one year My northern friends have accused me, with justice, and some months. I am utterly unconscious of of personality towards their great literary anthro- having given him any provocation; indeed, I am pophagus, Jeffrey; but what else was to be done with guiltless of having heard his name till coupled with "The Satirist." He has therefore no reason to him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speak- complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Pla ing?" I have adduced facts already well known, giary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion, now mentioned all who have done me the honor to nor has he thence sustained any injury ;-what notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with except the editor of "The Satirist," who, it seems mud? It may be said that I quit England because is a gentleman-God wot! I wish he could impart a I have censured there "persons of honor and wit little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. about town," but I am coming back again, and I hear that Mr. Jerningham is about to take up the their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle I hope who know me can testify that my motives for not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short leaving England are very different from fears, intercourse I had with him, treated me with kind literary or personal: those who do not, may one ness when a boy, and whatever he may say or do day be convinced. Since the publication of this pour on, I will endure." I have rothing further thing, my name has not been concealed; I have to add, save a general note of thanksgiving tc Deen mostly in London, ready to answer for my readers, purchasers, and publishers, and, in the transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry words of Scott, I wish

• Added to the second edition.

44

"To all and oach a fal good nigh,
And 1967 dreams and slumbers light.'