English Bards

PREFACE.(2)

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, (3) 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

(1) The first edition of this satire, which then began with what is now the ninety-seventh line ("Time was, ere yet," etc.), appeared in March, 1809. A second, to which the author prefixed his name, followed in October of that year; and a third and fourth were called for during his first pilgrimage, in 1810 and 1811. On his return to England, a fifth edition was prepared for the press by himself, with considerable care, but suppressed, and, except one copy, destroyed, when on the eve of publication. The text is now printed from the copy that escaped; on casually meeting with which, in 1816, he re-perused the whole, and wrote on the margin some annotations, which also we shall preserve, distinguishing them, by the insertion of their date, from those affixed to the prior editions.

The first of these MS. notes of 1816, appears on the flyleaf, and runs thus:-"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."-L. E.

(2) 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 edition, and is not yet

any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.

With (4) 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 bere 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, (5) it would indeed require a 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.(6)

returned. Note to the fourth edition, 1811.-[“ He is, and gone again." B. 1816.-L. E.]

(3) Mr. Hobhouse. See p. 54, note g, col. 2. .-L. E. (4) Here the preface to the first edition commenced.

L. E.

(5) "I well recollect," said Lord Byron, in 1821, "the effect which the critique of the Edinburgh Reviewers, on my first poems had upon me-it was rage, and resistance, and redress; but not despondency nor despair. A savage review is hemlock to a sucking author, and the one on me (which produced the English Bards) knocked me down--but I got up again. That critique was a master-piece of low wit, a tissue of scurrilous abuse. I remember there was a great deal of vulgar trash, about people being thankful for what they could get.'-'not looking a gift horse in the mouth,' and such stable expressions. But so far from their bullying me, or deterring me from writing, I was bent on falsifying their raven predictions, and determined to show them, croak as they would, that it was not the last time they should hear from me."-L. E.

(6) "The severity of the criticism," as Sir Egerton Brydges | has well observed, “touched Lord Byron in the point where his original strength lay: it wounded his pride, and roused

1

ENGLISH BARDS,(1)

etc. etc.

When Vice triumphant holds her sovereign

sway,

Obey'd by all who nought beside obey; When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;

bawl

His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, (4)

| And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse? Prepare for rhyme-I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Oh! nature's noblest gift-my grey goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!

The pen! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover's solace, and the author's pride.
What wits, what poets, dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's (5) shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream (6)
Inspires our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.

his bitter indignation. He published English Bards, and bowed down those who had hitherto held a déspotic victory over the public mind. There was, after all, more in the boldness of the enterprise, in the fearlesness of the attack, than in its intrinsic force. But the moral effect of the gallantry of the assault, and of the justice of the cause, made it victorious and triumphant. This was one of those lucky developments which cannot often occur, and which fixed Lord Byron's fame. From that day he engaged the public notice as a writer of undoubted talent and energy, both of intellect and temper."- L. E.

(I) The title of this Satire was originally intended to be The British Bards, but the author afterwards substituted the word English for British, and made the addition as it now stands. See Dallas.-P. E.

Semper ego auditor tantum ? nunquamne reponam,

Vexatus toties ranci Theseide Codri ?"

Juv. Sat. I. (3) Hoarse Fitzgerald.”—“Right enough; but why notice sach a mountebank?" B. 1816.-L. E.

(4) Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed, by Cobbett, the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts 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.[For the long period of thirty-two years, this harmless poetaster was an attendant at the anniversary dinners of the Literary Fund, and constantly honoured the occasion with an ode, which he himself recited with most comical dignity of emphasis. He was fortunate in having for his patron the late Viscount Dudley and Ward, on whose death without a will, his benevolent intentions towards the bard were fulfilled by the present Earl Dudley, who generously sent him a draft for £5000. Fitzgerald died in 1829. Of his sumerous loyal effusions only a single line has survived its author; but the characteristics of his style have been so happily hit off in the Rejected Addresses-(a work which Lord Byron has pronounced to be "by far the best thing of the kind since the Rolliad")-that we cannot resist the temptation of an extract :

And weigh their justice in a golden scale;
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

Such is the force of wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase,
And yield at least amusement in the race.
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame;
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game.
Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small,
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.
'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 name
Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from
shame. (7)

"Who burnt (confound his soul!) the houses twain Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane? Who, while the British squadron lay off Cork, (God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!) With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas, And raised the price of dry-goods and tobaccos? Who makes the quartern-loaf and Luddites rise? Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies? Who thought in flames St. James's court to pinch? Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch?Why he, who forging for this isle a yoke, Reminds me of a line I lately spoke'The tree of freedom is the British Oak.' Bless every man possess'd of aught to give! Long inay Long Tilney Wellesley Long Pole live! God bless the army, bless their coats of scarlet! God bless the navy, bless the Princess Charlotte! God bless the Guards, though worsted Gallia scoff! God bless their pig-tails, though they 're now cut off! And oh! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel, England's prime minister, then bless the Devil!"-L. E.] The following smart epigram was written by Mr. Fitzgerald in a copy of English Bards :

"I find Lord Byron scorns my muse

Our fates are ill agreed;

His verse is safe-I can't abuse
Those lines I never read."

Lord Byron accidentally met with the copy, and subjoined the following pungent reply:--

"What's writ on me, cried Fitz, I never read,
What's wrote by thee, dear Fitz, none will indeed.
The case stands simply thus, then, honest Fitz:-
Thou and thine enemies are fairly quits,

Or rather, would be, if, for time to come,
They luckily were deaf, or thou wert dumb-
But, to their pens while scribblers add their tongues,
The waiter only can escape their lungs."-P. E.

(5) 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. (6) "This must have been written in the spirit of prophecy." B. 1816.-L. E.

(7) This ingenuous youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place.

No matter, George continues still to write, (1)
Though now the name is veil'd from public sight.
Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet, like him, will be
Self-constituted judge of poesy.

A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure-critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie, 't will seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 't will pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

And shall we own such judgment? no-as soon
Seek roses in December-ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,

Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Boeotian head. (2)
To these young tyrants, (3) by themselves misplaced,
Combined usurpers on the throne of taste;
To these, when authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice as truth, their word as law-
While these are censors, 't would be sin to spare;
While such are critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
'Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our bards and censors are so much alike.

"The poet considereth times past, and their poesy-makes a sudden transition to times present-is incensed against book-makers-revileth Walter Scott for cupidity and balladmongering, with notable remarks on Master Southey-complaineth that Master Southey hath inflicted three poems, epic and otherwise, on the public-inveigheth against William Wordsworth, but laudeth Mister 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. Hayley to turn his atten

If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed: Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read. "But hold!" exclaims a friend, "here's some neglect:

"

This-that-and t'other line seem incorrect."
What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden-" Ay, but Pye has not:
Indeed! 'tis granted, faith!--but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days (5)
Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise,
When sense and wit with poesy allied,
No fabled graces, flourish'd side by side;
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, rear'd by taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew.
Then, in this happy isle, a Pope's (6) pure strain
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
A polish'd nation's praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people's as the poet's fame.
Like him great Dryden pour'd the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's
melt

For nature then an English audience felt.
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
When taste and reason with those times are past.
Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age!
This truth at least let satire's self allow,
No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now. (7)
The loaded press beneath her labour groans,
And printers' devils shake their weary bones;
While Southey's epics cram the creaking shelves,
And Little's lyrics shine in hot-press'd twelves.
Thus saith the preacher: "Nought beneath the sun
Is new;" yet still from change to change we run :
What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas,

tion to prose-and exhorteth the Moravians to glorify Mr. BowlesGrahame-sympathiseth with the Reverend -and deploreth the melancholy fate of James Montgomerybreaketh out into invective against the Edinburgh Reviewers -calleth them hard names, harpies and the like-apostrophiseth Jeffrey, and prophesieth.-Episode of Jeffrey and Moore, their jeopardy and deliverance; portents on the morn of the combat; the Tweed, Tolbooth, Frith of Forth. severally shocked; descent of a goddess to save Jeffrey ; incorporation of the bullets with his sinciput and occiput. -Edinburgh Reviewers en masse; Lord Aberdeen, Herbert, Scott, Hallam, Pillans. Lambe, Sydney Smith, Brougham, etc.-The Lord Holland applauded for dinners and translations. The Drama; Skeffington, Hook, Reynolds, Kenney, Cherry, etc.-Sheridan, Colman, and Cumberland called upon to write.- Return to poesy-scribblers of all sortsLords sometimes rhyme; much better not-Hafiz, Rosa Matilda, and X. Y. Z.-Rogers, Campbell, Gifford, etc., true poets Translators of the Greek Anthology-Crabbe-Darwin's style-Cambridge-Seatonian Prize- Smythe-Hodgson-Oxford-Richards-Poeta loquitur--Conclusion."--L.E.

(6) When Lord Byron, in the autumn of 1808, was occupied upon this Satire, he devoted a considerable portion of his time to a deep study of the writings of Pope, and from that period may be dated his enthusiastic admiration of this great poet.-L. E.

(7) "One of my notions is, that the present is not a high age of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than ever there were, and proportionately less poetry. This thesis I have maintained for some years; but, strange to say, it meeteth not with favour from my brethren of the shell." Diary, 1821.-L. E.

In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,
Till the swoln bubble bursts-and all is air!
Nor less new schools of poetry arise,
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize;
O'er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail;
Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal,
Ard, burling lawful genius from the throne,
Erects a shrine and idol of its own; (1)
Some leaden calf-but whom it matters not,
From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott.(2)

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review: Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race; Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode; And tales of terror jostle on the road; Immeasurable measures move along; For simpering folly loves a varied song, To strange mysterious dulness still the friend, Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.

Thus Lays of Minstrels (3) - may they be the last!

On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,

(1) With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced that we are all upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free. I am the more confirmed in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way :--I took Moore's poems, and my own, and some others, and went over them side by side with Pope's, and I was really astonished and mortified at the ineffable distance, in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, amoog as; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly." Diary, 1817.-L. E.

2 Stott, better known in the Morning Post by the name of Hafiz. This personage is at present the most profound I explorer of the bathos. I remember, when the reigning family left Portugal, a special Ode of Master Stott's, beginning thus:-(Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia),

"Princely offspring of Braganza,

"

Erin greets thee with a stanza," etc.

Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most thandering Ode, commencing as follows:-

"Oh! for a lay! load as the surge
That lashes Lapland's sounding shore."

-Lord have mercy on us! the Lay of the Last Minstrel was nothing to this.

3) 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, prologuising to Bayes' tragedy, unfortunately 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 amiable William of Deloraine, "a stark moss-trooper," ridelicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunefion not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledgment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, “'t was his neckverse at Harribee," i. e. the gallows. The biography of Galpin Horner, and the marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of seven-leagued boots, are chefs d'œuvre in the im provement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, bat by no means sparing, box on the ear bestowed on the page, and the entrance of a knight and charger into the castle, under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Marmion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly what William of Deloraine would have been, had he been able to read and write. The poem was manufactured for Messrs.

Constable, Murray, and Miller, worshipful booksellers, in consideration of the receipt of a sum of money; and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will write for hire, let him do his best for his paymasters, but not disgrace his genius, which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of black-letter ballad imitations.

(4) "When Byron wrote his famous satire, I had my share of flagellation among my betters. My crime was having written a poem for a thousand pounds; which was no otherwise true, than that I sold the copyright for that sum. Now, not to mention that an author can hardly be censured for accepting such a sum as the booksellers are willing to give him, especially as the gentlemen of the trade made no complaints of their bargain, I thought the interference with my private affairs was rather beyond the limits of literary satire. I was, however, so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remonstrated against it with the editor, because I thought the Hours of Idleness treated with undue severity. They were written, like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what had pleased the author in others, than what had been suggested by his own imagination; but, nevertheless, I thought they contained passages of noble promise." Sir Walter Scott.-L. E.

On this subject Lord Byron, at a later period, altered his opinion considerably. On one occasion he writes thus to Mr. Murray:-"I see no reason why a man should not profit by the sweat of his brain, as well as that of his brow," etc.-P. E.

(5) Lord Byron, as is well known, set out with the determination never to receive money for his writings. For the liberty to republish this satire, he refused four hundred guineas; and the money paid for the copyright of the first and second canto of Childe Harold, and of the Corsair, he presented to Mr. Dallas. In 1816, to a letter enclosing a draft of 1,000 guineas, offered by Mr. Murray for the Siege of Corinth and Parisina, the noble poet sent this answer : -"Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth - but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome to them, as additions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part whatever. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the way. I wish you would not throw temptation in mine; it is not from a disdain of the universal idol- nor from a present superfluity of his treasures-1 can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances." The poet was afterwards induced, at Mr. Murray's earnest persuasion, to accept the thousand guineas. The subjoined statement of the sums paid by him,

Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,
And bid a long "good night to Marmion.” (1)

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow!
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.

The time has been, when yet the muse was young. When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung, An epic scarce ten centuries could claim, While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name: The work of each immortal bard appears The single wonder of a thousand years: (2) 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 As even in ruin bids the language live. Not so with us, though minor bards, content, On one great work a life of labour spent: With eagle pinion soaring to the skies, Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise! To him let Camoëns, Milton, Tasso yield, Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,

(1) Good night to Marmion"-the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.

[Notwithstanding these harsh lines, Byron has, in many passages of his poems and journals, evinced his profound regard and veneration for the character and talents of Sir Walter Scott, whom he elsewhere designates as "the Monarch of Parnassus and most English of Bards," and in Childe Harold, canto iv., stanza 40, his Lordship pays a well-merited compliment to his gifted friend, styling him

"the minstrel who called forth

A new creation with his magic line, And, like the Ariosto of the north, Sang ladye love and war, romance and knightly worth."-P. E.] (2) As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand his torical poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider

The scourge of England and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on, (3)
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son; (4)
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true.
Oh, Southey! Southey! (5) cease thy varied song!
A bard may chant too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare!
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil, (6)
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
"God help thee," Southey,(7) and thy readers too! (8)

the Paradise Lost, and Gerusalemme 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?

(3) Thalaba, Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan of Are was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of those poems "which," in the words of Porson, "will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but not till then." (4) "Of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous song.”—Madoc. -L. E.

(5) We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degrading title of epic." See his preface. Why is epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogylvy, Hoole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr. Southey's poem "disdains the appellation," allow us to ask -has he substituted any thing better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of his verse?

(6) See The Old Woman of Berkley, a ballad, by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high-trotting horse."

(7) The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the Anti-jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics. -[Lord Byron here alludes to Mr. Gifford's parody on Mr. Southey's Dactylics, which ends thus :--

"Ne'er talk of ears again! look at thy spelling-book; Dilworth and Dyche are both mad at thy quantities-Dactylics, call'st thou 'em? God help thee! silly one."-L. E.] (8) Lord Byron, on being introduced to Mr. Southey in 1813, at Holland House, describes him "as the best-looking bard he had seen for a long time."-" To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would," he says, 1 "almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, a man of talent, and all that, and there is his eulogy." In his Journal, of the same year, he says-"Southey I have not seen much of. His appearance is epic, and he is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship. His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation-posterity will probably select. lle