Hare made, though neither friends nor foes, Give me again a faithful few, In years and feelings still the same, This busy scene of splendid wo, Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind. Which bear the turtle to her nest! STANZAS.* I WOULD I were a careless child, Accords not with the freeborn soul, I hate the slaves that cringe around. Place me along the rocks I love, Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this-again to rove LINES+ WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD Through scenes my youth hath known before. And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, Few are my years, and yet I feel The world was ne'er design'd for me: A visionary scene of bliss: I loved-but those I loved are gone; When all its former hopes are dead? How dull to hear the voice of those Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, • First published in the second edition of Hours of Idleness. "Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!" • Psalm iv. ver. 6.-" And I said, Oh! that I had wings like a dove; fon then would I fly away, and be at rest." This verse also constitutes a past Baasenage, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or of the most beautiful anthem in our language. English. † First published in the second edition of the Hours of Idleness. CRITIQUE, EXTRACTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, FOR JANUARY, 1808. Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and however, does allude frequently to his family and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a ancestors-sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807. and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, which neither gods nor men are said to permit. his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity truth, it is this consideration only that induces us of verse with so few deviations in either direction to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, from that exact standard. His effusions are spread beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forth over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below with abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which the level, than if they were so much stagnant water are considerable, and his opportunities, which are As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author great, to better account. is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We With this view, we must beg leave seriously to have it in the titlepage, and on the very back of the assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final volume; it follows his name like a favorite part of syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the pre- a certain number of feet,-nay, although (which face; and the poems are connected with this general does not always happen) those feet should scan statement of his case, by particular dates, substan-regularly, and have been all counted accurately tiating the age at which each was written. Now, upon the fingers,-is not the whole art of poetry. the law upon the point of minority we hold to be We would entreat him to believe, that a certain perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necesdefendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplement- sary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the ary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be present day, to be read, must contain as least one brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of thought, either in a little degree different from the compelling him to put into court a certain quantity ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, We put it to his candor, whether there is any thing it is highly probable that an exception would be so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the taken, were he to deliver for poetry the contents of following, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth this volume. To this he might plead minority; of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it: article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the point, and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!" But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were better than these stanzas in the whole compass of written by a youth from his leaving school to his the noble minor's volume. "Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu ! He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting be the most common of all occurrences; that it what the greatest poets have done before him, for happens in the life of nine men in ten who are comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see educated in England; and that the tenth man at his writing-master's) are odious.-Gray's Ode on writes better verse than Lord Byron. Eton College should really have kept out the ten His other plea of privilege our author rather hobbling stanzas “On a distant View of the Village brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, and School of Harrow." "Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, "On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following: "Mild Charity's glow, To us mortals below, "The man doom'd to sail Which may soon be his grave, [bard,"-("The artless Helicon I boast is youth') -should either not know, or should seem not te know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same had no intention of inserting it," but really "the subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly particular request of some friends," &c. &c. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learned that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and at college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these And so of instances in which former poets had ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was called Granta, we have the following magnificent The green sparkles bright with a Tear." made for translating, during his nonage, "Adrian's stanzas: Address to his Soul," when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, how ever, are of another opinion, they may look at it. "Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, Friend and associate of this clay ! To what unknown region borne ; Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn." "There, in apartments small and damp, The candidate for college prizes "Who reads false quantities in Sele, "Renouncing every pleasing page, From authors of historic use, The square of the hypothenuse. Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, "Our choir would hardly be excused To such a set of croaking sinners. Had heard these blockheads sing before him, In furious mood he would have tore 'em!" However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favorites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them after they nave had their day and served their turn? And We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the why call the thing in p. 79* a translation, where college psalmody as is contained in the following two words (Jew λeyev) of the original are expanded Attic stanzas: into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81,† where μεσονυκτίαις ποθ' ώραις is rendered by means of six hobbling verses? As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a "Song of Bards" is But whatever judgment may be passed on the by his his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on them as we find them, and be content; for they are the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thoroughHe was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief" bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless some time, the bards conclude by giving him their mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, them on the arch of the rainbow;" and "to smile he expects no profit from his publication; and, through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbathing there are no less than nine pages; and we can ble, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that so far venture an opinion in their favor, that they he should again condescend to become an author. look very like Macpherson; and we are positive Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists: are well off to have got so much from a man of this but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but particularly one who piques himself (though indeed "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. • See page 431. ↑ Page 431. A FIFTH edition of the "English Bards and am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by review. Scotch 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 But my object is not to also corrected the text in several places, and added in mending their own. As the poem has met with far more success than 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 read, Lord Byron has written-"The binding of I expected, I have endeavored in this edition to this volume is considerably too valuable for the make some additions and alterations, to render it contents; and nothing but the consideration of its more worthy of public perusal. being the property of another prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames." PREFACE.t 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 ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged publish with my name any production which was me not to publish this satire with my name. If not entirely and exclusively my own composition. With regard to the real talents of many of the 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 or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of "pinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proseThis preface was written for the second edition, and printed with it. lytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults The noble author hadeft this country previous to the publication of that edi I In the original manuscript, the title was "THE BRITISH BARDS, A SATIRE." Lor, and is not yet returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811. * He is, and gone again. 1816.- MS. note by Lord Byron. • The preface to the first edition began here. overlooked, and his metrical canons received without | Inspires-our path, though full of horns, 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, there be no quackery in his treatment of the mal- Such is the force of wit! but not belong Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small, 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?-shall 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 sheet: • 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, Seek roses in December-ice in June; ↑ Hoarse Fitzgerald-Right enough; but why notice such a mante Believe a woman or an epitaph, Pank?-MS. note by Lord Byron. IMITATION. "Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, Juvenal, Satire I. Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the Small Beer Poet," nflicts his annual tribute of verse on the "Literary Fund: " not content 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 1 that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli. No eastern vision, no dištemper'd dream.-This must have been writ sen in the spirit of prophecy.-MS. note by Lord Byron. Or any other thing that's false, before |