While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes
To Holland's hirelings and to learning's foes.
Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest blundering Brougham* destroy the sale,
Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail."
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kist
Her son, and vanished in a Scottish mist.t

Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of the train
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery gain!
Whatever blessing waits a genius Scot,
In double portion swells thy glorious lot;
For thee Edina culls her evening sweets,
And showers their odors on thy candid sheets,
Whose hue and fragrance to thy work adhere→
This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear.§
Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamor'd grown,
Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone;
And, too unjust to other Pictish men,
Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen!

Illustrious Holland! || hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot!
Holland, with Henry Petty at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,
Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse!
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof
Shall Grub street dine, while duns are kept aloof,
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork,
Resume his pen, review his Lordship's work,
¶And, grateful for the dainties on his plate,
Declare his lordship can at least translate!**
Dunedin! view thy children with delight,
They write for food-and feed because they write;
And lest, when heated with the unusual grape,
Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape,
And tinge with red the female reader's cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique;

• Mr. Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Elingburgh being so Incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subsbrip

tions.⚫

It seems that Mr. Brougham is not a Pict, as I supposed, but a Borderer, and his name is pronounced Broom, from Trent to Tay :-So be it.

↑ I ought to apologize to the worthy deities for introducing a new goddess with short petticoats to their notice: but alas! what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's genius, it being well known there is no such genius to be found from Clackmannan to Cathness; yet without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "kelpies" are too unpoetical, and the "brownies," and "gude neighbors" (spirits of a good dispostion) refused to extricate him. A goddess, therefore, has been called for the purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with any thing heavenly.

Then prosper, Jeffrey! &c.-This paragraph was introduced in the fifth

dition.

§ See the color of the back binding of the Edlingburgh Review.

Illustrious Holland! hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot!

Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds too.—MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

And, grateful for the dainties, &c.—In all editions before the fifth, this touplet was printed,

"And grateful to the founder of the feast,

Declare his landlord can translate at least."

** Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author? both are bepraised by his disinterested guests.

• Their subscriptions.-Here followed in the first edition, "The name of dain personage is pronounced Broom in the south, but the truly northern and musical pronunciation is Brough-am, in two syllables."

Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul,
Reforms each error, and refines the whole.

What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite!
Now to the drama turn-oh! motley sight!
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,t
And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete content.
Though now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania's o'er
And full-grown actors are endured once more;
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these?
While Reynolds vents his "dammees!" "poohs!"
and" zounds!"

And common-place and common sense confounds?
While Kenny's "World"-ah! where is Kenny's
wit?-

Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit; §
And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords
A tragedy complete in all but words? ||

Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage,
The degradation of our vaunted stage!
Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit ?-none!
Awake, George Colman! Cumberland, awake!
Ring th' alarum bell! let folly quake!
Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen.
Let Comedy assume her throne again;
Abjure the mummery of German schools;
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;
Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread?¶
On those shall Farce display buffoon'ry's mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?
Shall sapient managers new scenes produce
While Shakspeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot,
From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose,
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim
The rival candidates for Attic fame!
In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise,
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize.
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise,
Renown'd alike; whose genius ne'er confines
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays
Nor sleeps with "Sleeping Beauties," but anon
Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs; **
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,tt

wit in the Edinburgh Review. However that may be, we know, from good
• Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless
rection.
authority, that the manuscripts are submitted to her perusal-no doubt, for cor

↑ In the melo-drama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage; a new asylum for distressed heroes.

All these are favorite expressions of Mr. Reynolds, and prominent in his comedies, living and defunct.

"While Kenny's "World,"-ah ! where is Kenny's wit ?-
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit."

Thus corrected in the fifth edition. The lines were originally printed,
"While Kenny's "World," just suffered to proceed,
Proclaims the audience very kind indeed."

I Mr. T. Sheridan, the new manager of Drury-lane theatre, stripped the
of Caractacus.-Was this worthy of his sire, or of himself?
tragedy of Bonduca of the dialogue, and exhibited the scenes as the spectacio

¶ Siddons lives to tread.-In all editions previous to the fifth, "Kemble lives to tread."

such, Mr. Skeffington is much indebted to him.
• Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, scene-painter to Drury-lane theatre-19

↑ Mr. Skeffington is the illustrious author of the "Sleeping Beauty;"

The conclusion of the note was substituted for the above in the second and some comedies, particularly Maids and Bachelors:" Baculauri baedition.

culo magis quam lauro digni.

Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil; Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught;

And every brother rake will smile to see
That miracle, a moralist in me.

BYRON'S WORKS.

No matter when some bard in virtue strong,
Gifford perchance, shall raise the chastening song,
Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice
Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice;
Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I
May feel the lash that Virtue must apply.

As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals
From silly Hafiz* up to simple Bowles,
Why should we call them from their dark abode,
In broad St. Giles's or in Tottenham-road?
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare
To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square?
If things of ton their harmless lays indite,
Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight,
What harm? In spite of every critic elf,
Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself;
Miles Andrews still his strength in couplets try,
And live in prologues, though his dramas die;
Lords too are bards, such things at times befall,
And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all.
Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times,
Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes?
Roscommon! Sheffield! with your spirits fled,
No future laurels deck a noble head;

No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The parylytic puling of Carlisle.

The puny schoolboy and his early lay
Men pardon, if his folly's pass away,

But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse,
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse?
What heterogenous honors deck the peer!
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer!§
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age,

His scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage,
But managers for once cried, "Hold, enough!"
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff.
Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh,
And case his volumes in congenial calf;

• What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, Hafiz, could he ise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz, where he reposes with Ferdousi and Sadi, the oriental Homer and Catullus, and behold his name assumed by one Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers for the daily prints.

↑ Here followed in the original manuscript,

On one alone Apollo deigns to smile,

And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle.

Yes! doff that covering, where morocco shines,
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines.

With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily scribble for your daily bread;
With you I war not: Gifford's heavy hand
Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band
On "all the talents" vent your venal spleen
Want is your plea, let pity be your screen.
Let monodies on Fox regale your crew,
And Melville's Mantlet prove a blanket too!
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard,
And, peace be with you! 'tis your best rewari.
But now at once your fleeting labors close,
Such damning fame as Dunciads only give
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;
With names of greater note in blest repose.
Far be 't from me unkindly to upbraid
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade,
Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.‡
Though Crusca's bards no more our journals fill,
Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still;
Last of the howling host which once was Bell's,§
And Merry's metaphors appear anew,
Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells;
Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q.||

When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,
St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse,
Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds ap-
plaud!

How ladies read, and literati laud!

If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest,
'Tis sheer ill-nature-don't the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And Capel Lofft** declares 'tis quite sublime.
Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade!
Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade!
Lo! Burns and Bloomfield, nay, a greater far,
Gifford was born beneath an adverse star,
Forsook the labors of a servile state,
Stemm'd the rude storm and triumph'd over fate:

"Doff that lion's hide,

And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs." Shak. King John, Lord Carlisle's works, most resplendently bound, form a conspicacem ornament to his bookshelves: "The rest is all but leather and prunella."

The provocation alluded to in Lord Byron's note, page 262, took place while the satire was in press. These lines were erased in consequence, and all those down to, "With you, ye Druids," &c., substituted in their place. The following additional lines were written, but suppressed before publication: be a follower of the Della Crusca school, and has puldished two volumes of

In these our times, with daily wonders big,

A lettered peer is like a lettered pig;
Both know their alphabet, but who, from thence,
Infers that peers or pigs have manly sense?
Still less that such should woo the graceful nine?
Parnassus was not made for lords and swine,

No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.

This couplet stood in the first edition,

"Nor e'en a hackney'd muse will deign to smile

On minor Byron, or mature Carlisle."

Opposite these lines on Lord Carlisle, Lord Byron has written, in the copy which he perused in 1816, "Wrong also-the provocation was not sufficient to justify the acerbity."

The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan of building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be permitte i to bring forward any thing for the stage-except his own traged s.

↑ "Melville's Mantle," a parody on "Elijah's Mantle," a poem.
This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew K-, seems to

very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in the style of the first edition of the Monk.

To the above, Lord Byron added, in 1816: "She since married the Morning Post-an exceeding good match-and is since dead-which i better."

From this line the paresage in the first edition stood thus:
Though Bell has lost his nightingales and owls,
Matikla snivels still, and Hafiz howls,

And Crusca's spirit, rising from the dead,

Revives in Laura, Quiz, and X. Y. Z.

These are the signatures of various worthies who figure in the poetical departments of the newspapers.

the second edition.
When some brisk youth, &c.—The following paragraph was inserted in

This was meant for poor Blackett, who was then patronized by A. J. B.,
not.- MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.
but that I did not know, or this would not have been written, at least I think

eral to distressed versemen; a kind of gratis accoucheur to those who wish ta Capel Loft, Esq., the Mecenas of shoemakers, and preface-writer-gen be delivered of rhyme, but do not know how to bring forth.

Then why no more? if Phobus 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 duc,
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 Virtue'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: chooses to call it, on the enclosure of "Honington Green,"

↑ Vide "Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands 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 beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope's "Essay on Man: " but so many poetasters have started up, that even the nanies

Campbell and Rogers are become strange.

of

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

"Pretty Miss Jacqueline

Had a nose aquiline,
And would nesert rudo

Things of Miss Gertrude,

While Mr. Marmion
Led a great army on,
Making Kehama look
Like a fierce Mameluke."

Melodious Rogers.-Rogers has not fulfilled the promise of his first poems, but has still very great merit.-MS. note by Lord Byron, 1816. Gifford, author of the Baviad and Moviad, the first satires of the day, and translator of Juvenal.

Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon and Virgil's Georgics, and author of "Saul," an epic poem.

Machell, whose poems are deservedly popular, particularly "Scotland's Scaith, or the Ways of War," of which ten thousand copies were sold in

ne mouth.

Mr. Gifford promised publicly that the Baviad and Mæviad should not be his last original works: let him remember, "Mox in reluctantes draiones."

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.

• Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies which would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was alotted to talents which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume.

t

The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away,
Which else had sounded an immortal lay.

So altered by Lord Byron on reperusing the satire in 1818. In former edi tions, the lines stood,

"The spoiler carne; and all thy promise fair

Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there." Crabbe.-1 consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the first of these tires in point of power and genius.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

5 And here let Shee, &c.-The ensuing twenty-two lines were inserted in the second edition.

Mr. Shee, author of "Rhymes on Art," and "Element Art"

It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to whom I delicated a volume of puerile poems a few year ago?-The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been she is discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it; but as his lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burden my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brother scrittder; but I sen no reason why they should act as a preventive when the author, noble of ignoble, has, for a series of years, beguiled a "discerning public" (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate the earl: no—his works come fairly in review with those of other patrician literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said any thing in favor of his lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and 1 seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obligations to Lord Carlisle: if so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly appreciated and publicly acknowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion ca his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, by quotations from elegies, odes, eulogies, episodes, and certain facetious and daiuty trags dies bearing his name and mark:

"What can ennoble knaves, or fools or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards."
Amen!

Much too savage, whatever the foundation might be.-M.S. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

This note first appeared in the second edition.
In the first edition," Outlaw'd Sherwood's,"

Yet what avails, &c.-The following twelve lines were introduced in the second edition.