Chapter XI: Introduction: To English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers (2)

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, [158]
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight: 1020
Thence shall I stray through Beauty's native clime, [159]
Where Kaff [160] is clad in rocks, and crowned with snows sublime.
But should I back return, no tempting press [lxxix]
Shall drag my Journal from the desk's recess;
Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far,
Snatch his own wreath of Ridicule from Carr;
Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN [161] still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of Virtù;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Misshapen monuments and maimed antiques; 1030
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 [162] GELL; [163]
And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun the public ear--at least with Prose. [lxxx]

Thus far I've held my undisturbed career,
Prepared for rancour, steeled 'gainst selfish fear;
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own--
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown: 1040
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavowed;
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, [164]
By LAMB'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:" 1050
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 crawled beneath my eyes:
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learned to think, and sternly speak the truth;
Learned to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me; 1060
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss:
Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown,
I too can hunt a Poetaster down;
And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay [lxxx]
Hath wronged these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. [165] 1070

[Footnote 1: "The 'binding' of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents. 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."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 2: IMITATION.

"Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam,
Vexatus toties, rauci Theseide Codri?"

JUVENAL, 'Satire I'.l. 1.]

[Footnote 3: "'Hoarse Fitzgerald'.--"Right enough; but why notice such a mountebank?"--B., 1816.

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.

[William Thomas Fitzgerald (circ. 1759-1829) played the part of unofficial poet laureate. His loyal recitations were reported by the newspapers. He published, 'inter alia', 'Nelson's Triumph' (1798), 'Tears of Hibernia, dispelled by the Union' (1802), and 'Nelson's Tomb' (1806). He owes his fame to the first line of 'English Bards', and the famous parody in 'Rejected Addresses'. The following 'jeux désprits' were transcribed by R. C. Dallas on a blank leaf of a copy of the Fifth Edition:--

"Written on a copy of 'English Bards' at the 'Alfred' by W. T. Fitzgerald, Esq.--

I find Lord Byron scorns my Muse,
Our Fates are ill agreed;
The Verse is safe, I can't abuse
Those lines, I never read.

Signed W. T. F."

Answer written on the same page by Lord Byron--

"What's writ on me," cries Fitz, "I never read"!
What's writ 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. [A]]

{Sub-Footnote 0.1: Compare 'Hints from Horace', l. 808, 'note' 1.}

[Footnote 4: 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!]

[Footnote 5: "This must have been written in the spirit of prophecy." (B., 1816.)]

[Footnote 6: "He's a very good fellow; and, except his mother and sister, the best of the set, to my mind."--B., 1816. [William (1779-1848) and George (1784-1834) Lamb, sons of Sir Peniston Lamb (Viscount Melbourne, 1828), by Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, were Lady Byron's first cousins. William married, in 1805, Lady Caroline Ponsonby, the writer of 'Glenarvon'. George, who was one of the early contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review', married in 1809 Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules. At the time of the separation, Lady Caroline Lamb and Mrs. George Lamb warmly espoused Lady Byron's cause, Lady Melbourne and her daughter Lady Cowper (afterwards Lady Palmerston) were rather against than for Lady Byron. William Lamb was discreetly silent, and George Lamb declaimed against Lady Byron, calling her a d----d fool. Hence Lord Byron's praises of George. Cf. line 517 of 'English Bards'.]

[Footnote 7: This ingenuous youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place. ('Vide post', l. 516.)

"Spurious Brat" [see variant ii. p. 300], that is the farce; the ingenuous youth who begat it is mentioned more particularly with his offspring in another place. ['Note. MS. M.'] [The farce 'Whistle for It' was performed two or three times at Covent Garden Theatre in 1807.]

[Footnote 8: In the 'Edinburgh Review'.]

[Footnote 9: The proverbial "Joe" Miller, an actor by profession (1684-1738), was a man of no education, and is said to have been unable to read. His reputation rests mainly on the book of jests compiled after his death, and attributed to him by John Mottley. (First Edition. T. Read. 1739.)]

[Footnote 10: Messrs. Jeffrey and Lamb are the alpha and omega, the first and last of the 'Edinburgh Review'; the others are mentioned hereafter.

[The MS. Note is as follows:--"Of the young gentlemen who write in the 'E.R.', I have now named the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the best and the worst. The intermediate members are designated with due honour hereafter."]

"This was not just. Neither the heart nor the head of these gentlemen are at all what they are here represented. At the time this was written, I was personally unacquainted with either."--B., 1816.

[Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) founded the 'Edinburgh Review' in conjunction with Sydney Smith, Brougham, and Francis Horner, in 1802. In 1803 he succeeded Smith as editor, and conducted the 'Review' till 1829. Independence of publishers and high pay to contributors ("Ten guineas a sheet," writes Southey to Scott, June, 1807, "instead of seven pounds for the 'Annual'," 'Life and Corr'., iii. 125) distinguished the new journal from the first. Jeffrey was called to the Scottish bar in 1794, and as an advocate was especially successful with juries. He was constantly employed, and won fame and fortune. In 1829 he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and the following year, when the Whigs came into office, he became Lord Advocate. He sat as M.P. twice for Malton (1830-1832), and, afterwards, for Edinburgh. In 1834 he was appointed a Judge of the Court of Sessions, when he took the title of Lord Jeffrey. Byron had attacked Jeffrey in British Bards before his 'Hours of Idleness' had been cut up by the 'Edinburgh', and when the article appeared (Jan. 1808), under the mistaken impression that he was the author, denounced him at large (ll. 460-528) in the first edition of 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers'. None the less, the great critic did not fail to do ample justice to the poet's mature work, and won from him repeated acknowledgments of his kindness and generosity. (See 'Edinburgh Review', vol. xxii. p. 416, and Byron's comment in his 'Diary' for March 20,1814; 'Life', p. 232. See, too, 'Hints from Horace', ll. 589-626; and 'Don Juan', canto x. st. 11-16, and canto xii. st. 16. See also Bagehot's 'Literary Studies', vol. i. article I.)]

[Footnote 11: IMITATION.

"Stulta est dementia, cum tot ubique
------occurras perituræ parcere chartæ."

JUVENAL, 'Sat. I.' ll. 17, 18.]

[Footnote 12: IMITATION.

"Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo,
Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus,
Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam."

JUVENAL, 'Sat. I'. ll. 19-21.]

[Footnote 13: William Gifford (1756-1826), a self-taught scholar, first a ploughboy, then boy on board a Brixham coaster, afterwards shoemaker's apprentice, was sent by friends to Exeter College, Oxford (1779-81). In the 'Baviad' (1794) and the 'Maeviad' (1795) he attacked many of the smaller writers of the day, who were either silly, like the Della Cruscan School, or discreditable, like Williams, who wrote as "Anthony Pasquin." In his 'Epistle to Peter Pindar' (1800) he laboured to expose the true character of John Wolcot. As editor of the 'Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner' (November, 1797, to July, 1798), he supported the political views of Canning and his friends. As editor of the 'Quarterly Review', from its foundation (February, 1809) to his resignation in September, 1824, he soon rose to literary eminence by his sound sense and adherence to the best models, though his judgments were sometimes narrow-minded and warped by political prejudice. His editions of 'Massinger' (1805), which superseded that of Monck Mason and Davies (1765), of 'Ben Jonson' (1816), of 'Ford' (1827), are valuable. To his translation of 'Juvenal' (1802) is prefixed his autobiography. His translation of 'Persius' appeared in 1821. To Gifford, Byron usually paid the utmost deference. "Any suggestion of yours, even if it were conveyed," he writes to him, in 1813, "in the less tender text of the 'Baviad', or a Monck Mason note to Massinger, would be obeyed." See also his letter (September 20, 1821, 'Life', p.531): "I know no praise which would compensate me in my own mind for his censure." Byron was attracted to Gifford, partly by his devotion to the classical models of literature, partly by the outspoken frankness of his literary criticism, partly also, perhaps, by his physical deformity.]

[Footnote 14: Henry James Pye (1745-1813), M.P. for Berkshire, and afterwards Police Magistrate for Westminster, held the office of poet laureate from 1790 till his death in 1813, succeeding Thomas Warton, and succeeded by Southey. He published 'Farringdon Hill' in 1774, The 'Progress of Refinement' in 1783, and a translation of Burger's 'Lenore' in 1795. His name recurs in the 'Vision of Judgment', stanza xcii. Lines 97-102 were inserted in the Fifth Edition.]

[Footnote 15: The first edition of the Satire opened with this line; and Byron's original intention was to prefix the following argument, first published in 'Recollections', by R. C. Dallas (1824):--

"ARGUMENT.

"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 ballad-mongering, with notable remarks
on Master Southey--complaineth that Master Southey had 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 Lord Strangford--recommendeth Mr. Hayley to turn
his attention to prose--and exhorteth the Moravians to glorify Mr.
Grahame--sympathiseth with the Rev. [William Bowles]--and deploreth
the melancholy fate of James Montgomery--breaketh 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, Firth of Forth [and Arthur's Seat],
severally shocked; descent of a goddess to save Jeffrey; incorporation
of the bullets with his sinciput and occiput.--Edinburgh Reviews 'en
masse'.--Lord Aberdeen, Herbert, Scott, Hallam, Pillans, Lambe,
Sydney Smith, Brougham, etc.--Lord Holland applauded for dinners and
translations.--The Drama; Skeffington, Hook, Reynolds, Kenney, Cherry,
etc.--Sheridan, Colman, and Cumberland called upon [requested, MS.] to
write.--Return to poesy--scribblers of all sorts--lords 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--Poetaloquitur--Conclusion."]

[Footnote 16: Lines 115, 116, were a MS. addition to the printed text of 'British Bards'. An alternative version has been pencilled on the margin:--

"Otway and Congreve mimic scenes had wove
And Waller tuned his Lyre to mighty Love."]

[Footnote 17: Thomas Little was the name under which Moore's early poems were published, 'The Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little, Esq.' (1801). "Twelves" refers to the "duodecimo." Sheets, after printing, are pressed between cold or hot rollers, to impart smoothness of "surface." Hot rolling is the more expensive process.]

[Footnote 18: Eccles. chapter i. verse 9.]

[Footnote 19: At first sight Byron appears to refer to the lighting of streets by gas, especially as the first shop lighted with it was that of Lardner & Co., at the corner of the Albany (June, 1805), and as lamps were on view at the premises of the Gas Light and Coke Company in Pall Mall from 1808 onwards. But it is almost certain that he alludes to the "sublimating gas" of Dr. Beddoes, which his assistant, Davy, mentions in his 'Researches' (1800) as nitrous oxide, and which was used by Southey and Coleridge. The same four "wonders" of medical science are depicted in Gillray's caricatures, November, 1801, and May and June, 1802, and are satirized in Christopher Caustic's 'Terrible Tractoration! A Poetical Petition against Galvanising Trumpery and the Perkinistit Institution' (in 4 cantos, 1803).

Against vaccination, or cow-pox, a brisk war was still being carried on. Gillray has a likeness of Jenner vaccinating patients.

Metallic "Tractors" were a remedy much advertised at the beginning of the century by an American quack, Benjamin Charles Perkins, founder of the Perkinean Institution in London, as a "cure for all Disorders, Red Noses, Gouty Toes, Windy Bowels, Broken Legs, Hump Backs."

In Galvanism several experiments, conducted by Professor Aldini, nephew of Galvani, are described in the 'Morning Post' for Jan. 6th, Feb. 6th, and Jan. 22nd, 1803. The latter were made on the body of Forster the murderer.

For the allusion to Gas, compare 'Terrible Tractoration', canto 1--

"Beddoes (bless the good doctor) has
Sent me a bag full of his gas,
Which snuff'd the nose up, makes wit brighter,
And eke a dunce an airy writer."]

[Footnote 20: Stott, better known in the 'Morning Post' by the name of Hafiz. This personage is at present the most profound 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 thundering Ode, commencing as follows:--

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

Lord have mercy on us! the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" was nothing to this. [The lines "Princely Offspring," headed "Extemporaneous Verse on the expulsion of the Prince Regent from Portugal by Gallic Tyranny," were published in the 'Morning Post', Dec. 30, 1807. (See 'post', l. 708, and 'note'.)] ]

[Footnote 21: See p. 317, note 1.]

[Footnote 22: 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 [('vide The Rehearsal'), 'British Bards'], 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," videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction 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, "'twas his neckverse at Harribee," 'i. e.' the gallows.

The biography of Gilpin 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'oeuvre' in the improvement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, but 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.

[Constable paid Scott a thousand pounds for 'Marmion', and

"offered one fourth of the copyright to Mr. Miller of Albemarle
Street, and one fourth to Mr. Murray of Fleet Street (see line 173).
Both publishers eagerly accepted the proposal."
...
"A severe and unjust review of 'Marmion' by Jeffrey appeared in [the
'Edinburgh Review' for April] 1808, accusing Scott of a mercenary
spirit in writing for money. ... Scott was much nettled by these
observations."

('Memoirs of John Murray', i. 76, 95). In his diary of 1813 Byron wrote of Scott,

"He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most 'English' of
Bards."

'Life', p. 206.]]

[Footnote 23: It was the suggestion of the Countess of Dalkeith, that Scott should write a ballad on the old border legend of 'Gilpin Horner', which first gave shape to the poet's ideas, and led to the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'.]

[Footnote 24: In his strictures on Scott and Southey, Byron takes his lead from Lady Anne Hamilton's (1766-1846, daughter of Archibald, ninth Duke of Hamilton, and Lady-in-waiting to Caroline of Brunswick) 'Epics of the Ton' (1807), a work which has not shared the dubious celebrity of her 'Secret Memories of the Court', etc. (1832). Compare the following lines (p. 9):--

"Then still might Southey sing his crazy Joan,
Or feign a Welshman o'er the Atlantic flown,
Or tell of Thalaba the wondrous matter,
Or with clown Wordsworth, chatter, chatter, chatter.
* * * * *
Good-natured Scott rehearse, in well-paid lays,
The marv'lous chiefs and elves of other days."

(For Scott's reference to "my share of flagellation among my betters," and an explicit statement that he had remonstrated with Jeffrey against the "offensive criticism" of 'Hours of Idleness', because he thought it treated with undue severity, see Introduction to 'Marmion', 1830.)]]

[Footnote 25: Lines 179, 180, in the Fifth Edition, were substituted for variant i. p. 312.--'Leigh Hunt's annotated Copy of the Fourth Edition'.]

[Footnote 26: "Good night to Marmion"--the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.]

[Footnote 27: 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 '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?]

[Footnote 28: 'Thalaba', Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. 'Joan of Arc' was marvellous enough, but 'Thalaba' was one of those poems "which," in the word of PORSON, "will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but--<i<not till then'." ["Of 'Thalaba" the wild and wondrous song"--Proem to 'Madoc', Southey's 'Poetical Works' (1838), vol. v. 'Joan of Arc' was published in 1796, 'Thalaba the Destroyer' in 1801, and 'Madoc' in 1805.]

[Footnote 29: The hero of Fielding's farce, 'The Tragedy of Tragedies', 'or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great', first played in 1730 at the Haymarket.]

[Footnote 30: Southey's 'Madoc' is divided into two parts--Part I., "Madoc in Wales;" Part II., "Madoc in Aztlan." The word "cacique" ("Cacique or cazique... a native chief or 'prince' of the aborigines in the West Indies:" 'New Engl. Dict'., Art. "Cacique") occurs in the translations of Spanish writers quoted by Southey in his notes, but not in the text of the poem.]

[Footnote 31: We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degraded title of Epic." See his Preface. ["It assumes not the degraded title of Epic."--Preface to 'Madoc' (1805), Southey's 'Poetical Works' (1838), vol. v. p. xxi.] Why is Epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late Romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole,[A] 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 anything better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE in the quantity as well as quality of his verse?

[Sub-Footnote A: For "Hole," the 'MS'. and 'British Bards' read "Sir J. B. Burgess; Cumberland."] ]

[Footnote 32: See 'The Old Woman of Berkeley', a ballad by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high trotting horse."]

[Footnote 33: The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the 'Anti-Jacobin' to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics:--

"God help thee, silly one!"

'Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin', p. 23.]

[Footnote 34: In the annotated copy of the Fourth Edition Byron has drawn a line down the margin of the passage on Wordsworth, lines 236-248, and adds the word "Unjust." The first four lines on Coleridge (lines 255-258) are also marked "Unjust." The recantation is, no doubt, intended to apply to both passages from beginning to end. "'Unjust'."--B., 1816. (See also Byron's letter to S. T. Coleridge, March 31, 1815.)]

[Footnote 35: 'Lyrical Ballads', p. 4.--"The Tables Turned," Stanza 1.

"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."]

[Footnote 36: Mr. W. in his preface labours hard to prove, that prose and verse are much the same; and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable:--

"And thus to Betty's questions he
Made answer, like a traveller bold.
'The cock did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo,
And the sun did shine so cold.'"

'Lyrical Ballads', p. 179. [Compare 'The Simpliciad', II. 295-305, and 'note'.]]

[Footnote 37: "He has not published for some years."--'British Bards'. (A marginal note in pencil.) [Coleridge's 'Poems' (3rd edit.) appeared in 1803; the first number of 'The Friend' on June 1, 1809.]]

[Footnote 38: COLERIDGE'S 'Poems', p. 11, "Songs of the Pixies," 'i. e.' Devonshire Fairies; p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady;" and, p. 52, "Lines to a Young Ass." [Compare 'The Simpliciad', ll. 211, 213--

"Then in despite of scornful Folly's pother,
Ask him to live with you and hail him brother."]]

[Footnote 39: Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), known as "Monk" Lewis, was the son of a rich Jamaica planter. During a six months' visit to Weimar (1792-3), when he was introduced to Goethe, he applied himself to the study of German literature, especially novels and the drama. In 1794 he was appointed 'attaché' to the Embassy at the Hague, and in the course of ten weeks wrote 'Ambrosio, or The Monk', which was published in 1795. In 1798 he made the acquaintance of Scott, and procured his promise of co-operation in his contemplated 'Tales of Terror'. In the same year he published the 'Castle Spectre' (first played at Drury Lane, Dec. 14, 1797), in which, to quote the postscript "To the Reader," he meant (but Sheridan interposed) "to have exhibited a whole regiment of Ghosts." 'Tales of Terror' were printed at Weybridge in 1801, and two or three editions of 'Tales of Wonder', to which Byron refers, came out in the same year. Lewis borrowed so freely from all sources that the collection was called "Tales of Plunder." In the first edition (two vols., printed by W. Bulmer for the author, 1801) the first eighteen poems, with the exception of 'The Fire King' (xii.) by Walter Scott, are by Lewis, either original or translated. Scott also contributed 'Glenfinlas, The Eve of St. John, Frederick and Alice, The Wild Huntsmen (Der Wilde Jäger). Southey contributed six poems, including 'The Old Woman of Berkeley' (xxiv.). 'The Little Grey Man' (xix.) is by H. Bunbury. The second volume is made up from Burns, Gray, Parnell, Glover, Percy's 'Reliques', and other sources.

A second edition, published in 1801, which consists of thirty-two ballads (Southey's are not included), advertises "'Tales of Terror' printed uniform with this edition of 'Tales of Wonder'." 'Romantic Tales', in four volumes, appeared in 1808. Of his other works, 'The Captive, A Monodrama', was played in 1803; the 'Bravo of Venice, A Translation from the German', in 1804; and 'Timour the Tartar' in 1811. His 'Journal of a West Indian Proprietor' was not published till 1834. He sat as M.P. for Hindon (1796-1802).

He had been a favourite in society before Byron appeared on the scene, but there is no record of any intimacy or acquaintance before 1813. When Byron was living at Geneva, Lewis visited the Maison Diodati in August, 1816, on which occasion he "translated to him Goethe's 'Faust' by word of mouth," and drew up a codicil to his will, witnessed by Byron, Shelley, and Polidori, which contained certain humane provisions for the well-being of the negroes on his Jamaica estates. He also visited him at 'La Mira' in August, 1817. Byron wrote of him after his death: "He was a good man, and a clever one, but he was a bore, a damned bore--one may say. But I liked him."

To judge from his letters to his mother and other evidence (Scott's testimony, for instance), he was a kindly, well-intentioned man, but lacking in humour. When his father condemned the indecency of the 'Monk', he assured him "that he had not the slightest idea that what he was then writing could injure the principles of any human being." "He was," said Byron, "too great a bore to lie," and the plea is evidently offered in good faith. As a writer, he is memorable chiefly for his sponsorship of German literature. Scott said of him that he had the finest ear for rhythm he ever met with--finer than Byron's; and Coleridge, in a letter to Wordsworth, Jan., 1798 ('Letters of S. T. C.' (1895), i. 237), and again in 'Table Talk' for March 20, 1834, commends his verses. Certainly his ballad of "Crazy Jane," once so famous that ladies took to wearing "Crazy Jane" hats, is of the nature of poetry. (See 'Life', 349, 362, 491, etc.; 'Life and Correspondence' of M. G. Lewis (1839), i. 158, etc.; 'Life of Scott', by J. G. Lockhart (1842), pp. 80-83, 94.)] ]

[Footnote 40: "For every one knows little Matt's an M.P."--See a poem to Mr. Lewis, in 'The Statesman', supposed to be written by Mr. Jekyll.

[Joseph Jekyll (d. 1837) was celebrated for his witticisms and metrical 'jeux d'esprit' which he contributed to the 'Morning Chronicle' and the 'Evening Statesman'. His election as M.P. for Calne in 1787, at the nomination of Lord Lansdowne, gave rise to 'Jekyll, A Political Eclogue' (see 'The Rottiad' (1799), pp. 219-224). He was a favourite with the Prince Regent, at whose instance he was appointed a Master in Chancery in 1815.]]

[Footnote 41: The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may refer to "Strangford's Camoëns," p. 127, note to p. 56, or to the last page of the 'Edinburgh Review' of Strangford's Camoëns.

[Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, sixth Viscount Strangford (1780-1855), published 'Translations from the Portuguese by Luis de Camoens' in 1803. The note to which Byron refers is on the canzonet 'Naö sei quem assella', "Thou hast an eye of tender blue." It runs thus:

"Locks of auburn and eyes of blue have ever been dear to the sons of
song.... Sterne even considers them as indicative of qualities the
most amiable.... The Translator does not wish to deem ... this
unfounded. He is, however, aware of the danger to which such a
confession exposes him--but he flies for protection to the temple of
AUREA VENUS."

It may be added that Byron's own locks were auburn, and his eyes a greyish-blue.]]

[Footnote 42: It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the public as poems of Camoëns are no more to be found in the original Portuguese, than in the Song of Solomon.]

[Footnote 43: See his various Biographies of defunct Painters, etc. [William Hayley (1745-1820) published 'The Triumphs of Temper' in 1781, and 'The Triumph of Music' in 1804. His biography of Milton appeared in 1796, of Cowper in 1803-4, of Romney in 1809. He had produced, among other plays, 'The Happy Prescription' and 'The Two Connoisseurs' in 1784. In 1808 he would be regarded as out of date, "hobbling on" behind younger rivals in the race (see E.B., I. 923). For his life and works, see Southey's article in the 'Quarterly Review' (vol. xxxi. p. 263). The appeal to "tarts" to "spare the text," is possibly an echo of 'The Dunciad', i. 155, 156--

"Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size,
Redeemed from topers and defrauded pies."

The meaning of the appeal is fixed by such a passage as this from 'The Blues', where the company discuss Wordsworth's appointment to a Collectorship of Stamps--

"'Inkle'.
I shall think of him oft when I buy a new hat;
There his works will appear.

"'Lady Bluemount'.
Sir, they reach to the Ganges.

"'Inkle'.
I sha'n't go so far. I can have them at Grange's."

Grange's was a well-known pastry-cook's in Piccadilly. In Pierce Egan's 'Life in London' (ed. 1821), p. 70, 'note' 1, the author writes, "As I sincerely hope that this work will shrink from the touch of a pastry-cook, and also avoid the foul uses of a trunk-maker ... I feel induced now to describe, for the benefit of posterity, the pedigree of a Dandy in 1820."]

[Footnote 44: Hayley's two most notorious verse productions are 'Triumphs of Temper' and 'The Triumph of Music'. He has also written much Comedy in rhyme, Epistles, etc., etc. As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recommend POPE'S advice to WYCHERLEY to Mr. H.'s consideration, viz., "to convert poetry into prose," which may be easily done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet.]

[Footnote 45: Lines 319-326 do not form part of the original 'MS'. A slip of paper which contains a fair copy of the lines in Byron's handwriting has been, with other fragments, bound up with Dallas's copy of 'British Bards'. In the 'MS'. this place is taken by a passage and its pendant note, which Byron omitted at the request of Dallas, who was a friend of Pratt's:--

"In verse most stale, unprofitable, flat--
Come, let us change the scene, and ''glean'' with Pratt;
In him an author's luckless lot behold,
Condemned to make the books which once he sold:
Degraded man! again resume thy trade--
The votaries of the Muse are ill repaid,
Though daily puffs once more invite to buy
A new edition of thy 'Sympathy.'"

"Mr. Pratt, once a Bath bookseller, now a London author, has written as much, to as little purpose, as any of his scribbling contemporaries. Mr. P.'s 'Sympathy' is in rhyme; but his prose productions are the most voluminous."

Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814), actor, itinerant lecturer, poet of the Cruscan school, tragedian, and novelist, published a large number of volumes. His 'Gleanings' in England, Holland, Wales, and Westphalia attained some reputation. His 'Sympathy; a Poem' (1788) passed through several editions. His pseudonym was Courtney Melmoth. He was a patron of the cobbler-poet, Blacket] ]

[Footnote 46: Mr. Grahame has poured forth two volumes of Cant, under the name of 'Sabbath Walks' and 'Biblical Pictures'. [James Grahame (1765-1811), a lawyer, who subsequently took Holy Orders. 'The Sabbath', a poem, was published anonymously in 1804; and to a second edition were added 'Sabbath Walks'. 'Biblical Pictures' appeared in 1807.]

[Footnote 47: The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles (1768-1850). His edition of Pope's 'Works', in ten vols., which stirred Byron's gall, appeared in 1807. The 'Fall of Empires', Tyre, Carthage, etc., is the subject of part of the third book of 'The Spirit of Discovery by Sea' (1805). Lines "To a Withered Leaf," are, perhaps, of later date; but the "sear tresses" and "shivering leaves" of "Autumn's gradual gloom" are familiar images in his earlier poems. Byron's senior by twenty years, he was destined to outlive him by more than a quarter of a century; but when 'English Bards, etc.', was in progress, he was little more than middle-aged, and the "three score years" must have been written in the spirit of prophecy. As it chanced, the last word rested with him, and it was a generous one. Addressing Moore, in 1824, he says ('Childe Harold's Last Pilgrimage')--

"So Harold ends, in Greece, his pilgrimage!
There fitly ending--in that land renown'd,
Whose mighty Genius lives in Glory's page,--
He on the Muses' consecrated ground,
Sinking to rest, while his young brows are bound
With their unfading wreath!"

Among his poems are a "Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stanzas on hearing the Bells of Ostend."]

[Footnote 48: "Awake a louder," etc., 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," etc., etc.

That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss; very much astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon.

"Mis-quoted and misunderstood by me; but not intentionally. It was not
the 'woods,' but the people in them who trembled--why, Heaven only
knows--unless they were overheard making this prodigious smack."-B.,
1816.]

[Footnote 49: The episode above alluded to is the story of "Robert à Machin" and "Anna d'Arfet," a pair of constant lovers, who performed the kiss above mentioned, that startled the woods of Madeira. [See Byron's letter to Murray, Feb. 7, 1821, "On Bowies' Strictures," 'Life', p. 688.]]

[Footnote 50: CURLL is one of the Heroes of the 'Dunciad', and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord HERVEY, author of 'Lines to the Imitator of Horace'.]

[Footnote 51: Lord BOLINGBROKE hired MALLET to traduce POPE after his decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord Bolingbroke--the "Patriot King,"--which that splendid, but malignant genius had ordered to be destroyed.]

[Footnote 52: Dennis the critic, and Ralph the rhymester:--

"Silence, ye Wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
Making Night hideous: answer him, ye owls!"
DUNCIAD.

[Book III. II. 165, 166, Pope wrote, "And makes night," etc.]]

[Footnote 53: See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for which he received three hundred pounds. [Twelve hundred guineas.--'British Bards'.] Thus Mr. B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another, than to elevate his own. ["Too savage all this on Bowles," wrote Byron, in 1816, but he afterwards returned to his original sentiments. "Although," he says (Feb. 7, 1821), "I regret having published 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', the part which I regret the least is that which regards Mr. Bowles, with reference to Pope. Whilst I was writing that publication, in 1807 and 1808, Mr. Hobhouse was desirous that I should express our mutual opinion of Pope, and of Mr. Bowles's edition of his works. As I had completed my outline, and felt lazy, I requested that 'he' would do so. He did it. His fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope are in the first edition of 'English Bards', and are quite as severe, and much more poetical, than my own, in the second. On reprinting the work, as I put my name to it, I omitted Mr. Hobhouse's lines, by which the work gained less than Mr. Bowles.... I am grieved to say that, in reading over those lines, I repent of their having so far fallen short of what I meant to express upon the subject of his edition of Pope's works" ('Life', pp. 688, 689). The lines supplied by Hobhouse are here subjoined:--

"Stick to thy sonnets, man!--at least they sell.
Or take the only path that open lies
For modern worthies who would hope to rise:
Fix on some well-known name, and, bit by bit,
Pare off the merits of his worth and wit:
On each alike employ the critic's knife,
And when a comment fails, prefix a life;
Hint certain failings, faults before unknown,
Review forgotten lies, and add your own;
Let no disease, let no misfortune 'scape,
And print, if luckily deformed, his shape:
Thus shall the world, quite undeceived at last,
Cleave to their present wits, and quit their past;
Bards once revered no more with favour view,
But give their modern sonneteers their due;
Thus with the dead may living merit cope,
Thus Bowles may triumph o'er the shade of Pope."]]

[Footnote 54:

"'Helicon' is a mountain, and not a fish-pond. It should have been
'Hippocrene.'"--B., 1816.

[The correction was made in the Fifth Edition.]]

[Footnote 55: Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books they do not sell, have published a pair of Epics--'Alfred' (poor Alfred! Pye has been at him too!)--'Alfred' and the 'Fall of Cambria'.

"All right. I saw some letters of this fellow (Jh. Cottle) to an
unfortunate poetess, whose productions, which the poor woman by no
means thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and bitterly, that I
could hardly regret assailing him, even were it unjust, which it is
not--for verily he is an ass."--B., 1816.

[Compare 'Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin'--

"And Cottle, not he whom that Alfred made famous,
But Joseph of Bristol, the brother of Amos."

The identity of the brothers Cottle appears to have been a matter beneath the notice both of the authors of the 'Anti-Jacobin' and of Byron. Amos Cottle, who died in 1800 (see Lamb's Letter to Coleridge of Oct. 9, 1800; 'Letters of C. Lamb', 1888, i. 140), was the author of a 'Translation of the Edda of Soemund', published in 1797. Joseph Cottle, 'inter alia', published 'Alfred' in 1801, and 'The Fall of Cambria', 1807. An 'Expostulatory Epistle', in which Joseph avenges Amos and solemnly castigates the author of 'Don Juan', was issued in 1819 (see Lamb's Letter to Cottle, Nov. 5, 1819), and was reprinted in the Memoir of Amos Cottle, inserted in his brother's 'Early Recollections of Coleridge' (London, 1837, i. 119). The "unfortunate poetess" was, probably, Ann Yearsley, the Bristol milk-woman. Wordsworth, too (see 'Recollections of the Table-Talk of S. Rogers', 1856, p. 235), dissuaded her from publishing her poems. Roughness and bitterness were not among Cottle's faults or foibles, and it is possible that Byron misconceived the purport of the correspondence.]]

[Footnote 56: Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of "Richmond Hill," and the like:--it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent. [The Rev. Thomas Maurice (1754-1824) had this at least in common with Byron--that his 'History of Ancient and Modern Hindostan' was severely attacked in the 'Edinburgh Review'. He published a vindication of his work in 1805. He must have confined his dulness to his poems ('Richmond Hill' (1807), etc.), for his 'Memoirs' (1819) are amusing, and, though otherwise blameless, he left behind him the reputation of an "indiscriminate enjoyment" of literary and other society. Lady Anne Hamilton alludes to him in 'Epics of the Ton' (1807), p. 165--

"Or warmed like Maurice by Museum fire,
From Ganges dragged a hurdy-gurdy lyre."

He was assistant keeper of MSS. at the British Museum from 1799 till his death.]]

[Footnote 57: Poor MONTGOMERY, though praised by every English Review, has been bitterly reviled by the 'Edinburgh'. After all, the Bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius. His 'Wanderer of Switzerland' is worth a thousand 'Lyrical Ballads', and at least fifty 'Degraded Epics'.

[James Montgomery (1771-1854) was born in Ayrshire, but settled at Sheffield, where he edited a newspaper, the 'Iris', a radical print, which brought him into conflict with the authorities. His early poems were held up to ridicule in the 'Edinburgh Review' by Jeffrey, in Jan. 1807. It was probably the following passage which provoked Byron's note: "When every day is bringing forth some new work from the pen of Scott, Campbell,... Wordsworth, and Southey, it is natural to feel some disgust at the undistinguishing voracity which can swallow down these... verses to a pillow." The 'Wanderer of Switzerland', which Byron said he preferred to the 'Lyrical Ballads', was published in 1806. The allusion in line 419 is to the first stanza of 'The Lyre'--

"Where the roving rill meand'red
Down the green, retiring vale,
Poor, forlorn Alæcus wandered,
Pale with thoughts--serenely pale."

He is remembered chiefly as the writer of some admirable hymns. ('Vide ante', p. 107, "Answer to a Beautiful Poem," and 'note'.)]

[Footnote 58: Arthur's Seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh.]

[Footnote 59: Lines 439-527 are not in the 'MS.' The first draft of the passage on Jeffrey, which appears to have found a place in 'British Bards' and to have been afterwards cut out, runs as follows:--

"Who has not heard in this enlightened age,
When all can criticise the historic page,
Who has not heard in James's Bigot Reign
Of Jefferies! monarch of the scourge, and chain,
Jefferies the wretch whose pestilential breath,
Like the dread Simoom, winged the shaft of Death;
The old, the young to Fate remorseless gave
Nor spared one victim from the common grave?

"Such was the Judge of James's iron time,
When Law was Murder, Mercy was a crime,
Till from his throne by weary millions hurled
The Despot roamed in Exile through the world.

"Years have rolled on;--in all the lists of Shame,
Who now can parallel a Jefferies' name?
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black
With voice as willing to decree the Rack,
With tongue envenomed, with intentions foul
The same in name and character and soul."

The first four lines of the above, which have been erased, are to be found on p. 16 of 'British Bards.' Pages 17, 18, are wanting, and quarto proofs of lines 438-527 have been inserted. Lines 528-539 appear for the first time in the Fifth Edition.]]

[Footnote 60: "Too ferocious--this is mere insanity."--B., 1816. [The comment applies to lines 432-453.]]

[Footnote 61: "All this is bad, because personal."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 62: In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the Magistracy; and on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints. [The first four editions read, "the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants."]

[The following disclaimer to the foregoing note appears in the MS. in Leigh Hunt's copy of the Fourth Edition, 1811. It was first printed in the Fifth Edition:--]

"I am informed that Mr. Moore published at the time a disavowal of the
statements in the newspapers, as far as regarded himself; and, in
justice to him, I mention this circumstance. As I never heard of it
before, I cannot state the particulars, and was only made acquainted
with the fact very lately. November 4, 1811."

[As a matter of fact, it was Jeffrey's pistol that was found to be leadless.]]

[Footnote 63: The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; it would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of the river to have shown the smallest symptom of apprehension.]

[Footnote 64: This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the Edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish.]

[Footnote 65: Line 508. For "oat-fed phalanx," the Quarto Proof and Editions 1-4 read "ranks illustrious." The correction is made in 'MS'. in the Annotated Edition. It was suggested that the motto of the 'Edinburgh Review' should have been, "Musam tenui meditamur avenâ."]

[Footnote 66: His Lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and reviewer of Gell's 'Topography of Troy'. [George Gordon, fourth Earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860), published in 1822 'An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture'. His grandfather purchased Gight, the property which Mrs. Byron had sold to pay her husband's debts. This may have been an additional reason for the introduction of his name.]]

[Footnote 67: Mr. Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a 'Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer': the translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar tongue, and endeth thus:--

"Instead of money and rings, I wot,
The hammer's bruises were her lot.
Thus Odin's son his hammer got."

[William Herbert (1778-1847), son of the first Earl of Carnarvon, edited 'Musæ Etonenses' in 1795, whilst he was still at school. He was one of the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review'. At the time when Byron was writing his satire, he was M.P. for Hampshire, but in 1814 he took Orders. He was appointed Dean of Manchester in 1840, and republished his poetical works, and among them his Icelandic Translations or 'Horæ Scandicæ (Miscellaneous Works', 2 vols.), in 1842.]]

[Footnote 68: The Rev. SYDNEY SMITH, the reputed Author of 'Peter Plymley's Letters', and sundry criticisms. [Sydney Smith (1771-1845), the "witty Canon of St. Paul's," was one of the founders, and for a short time (1802) the editor, of the 'Edinburgh Review'. His 'Letters on the Catholicks, from Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham', appeared in 1807-8.]

[Footnote 69: Mr. HALLAM reviewed PAYNE KNIGHT'S "Taste," and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein. It was not discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity.--['Note added to Second Edition':

Hallam is incensed because he is falsely accused, seeing that he never
dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorry--not for having
said so, but on his account, as I understand his Lordship's feasts are
preferable to his compositions. If he did not review Lord HOLLAND'S
performance, I am glad; because it must have been painful to read, and
irksome to praise it. If Mr. HALLAM will tell me who did review it,
the real name shall find a place in the text; provided, nevertheless,
the said name be of two orthodox musical syllables, and will come into
the verse: till then, HALLAM must stand for want of a better.]

[Henry Hallam (1777-1859), author of 'Europe during the Middle Ages', 1808, etc.

"This," said Byron, "is the style in which history ought to be
written, if it is wished to impress it on the memory"

('Lady Blessington's Conversations with Lord Byron', 1834, p. 213). The article in question was written by Dr. John Allen, Lord Holland's domestic physician, and Byron was misled by the similarity of sound in the two names (see H. C. Robinson's 'Diary', i. 277), or repeated what Hodgson had told him (see Introduction, and Letter 102, 'note' i).

For a disproof that Hallam wrote the article, see 'Gent. Mag'., 1830, pt. i. p. 389; and for an allusion to the mistake in the review, compare 'All the Talents', p. 96, and 'note'.

"Spare me not 'Chronicles' and 'Sunday News',
Spare me not 'Pamphleteers' and 'Scotch Reviews'"

"The best literary joke I recollect is its [the 'Edin. Rev'.] attempting to prove some of the Grecian Pindar rank non sense, supposing it to have been written by Mr. P. Knight."]

[Footnote 70: Pillans is a [private, 'MS'.] tutor at Eton. [James Pillans (1778-1864), Rector of the High School, and Professor of Humanity in the University, Edinburgh. Byron probably assumed that the review of Hodgson's 'Translation of Juvenal', in the 'Edinburgh Review', April, 1808, was by him.]]

Footnote 71: The Honourable G. Lambe reviewed "BERESFORD'S Miseries," and is moreover Author of a farce enacted with much applause at the Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great expedition at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It was entitled 'Whistle for It'. [See note, 'supra', on line 57.] His review of James Beresford's 'Miseries of Human Life; or the Last Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive', appeared in the 'Edinburgh Review 'for Oct. 1806.]

[Footnote: 72: 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 Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions.--[Here followed, in the First Edition: "The name of this personage is pronounced Broom in the south, but the truly northern and 'musical' pronunciation is BROUGH-AM, in two syllables;" but for this, Byron substituted in the Second Edition: "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."

The title of the work was "Exposition of the Practices and Machinations which led to the usurpation of the Crown of Spain, and the means adopted by the Emperor of the French to carry it into execution," by Don Pedro Cevallos. The article, which appeared in Oct. 1808, was the joint composition of Jeffrey and Brougham, and proved a turning-point in the political development of the 'Review'.]]

[Footnote 73: I ought to apologise 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 genius to be found from Clackmannan to Caithness; yet without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "Kelpies" are too unpoetical, and the "Brownies" and "gude neighbours" (spirits of a good disposition) 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 anything heavenly.]

[Footnote 74: Lines 528-539 appeared for the first time in the Fifth Edition.]

[Footnote 75: See the colour of the back binding of the 'Edinburgh Review'.]

[Footnote 76: "Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds too."--B., 1816. [The comment applies to the whole passage on Lord Holland.]

[Henry Richard Vassall, third Lord Holland (1773-1840), to whom Byron dedicated the 'Bride of Abydos' (1813). His 'Life of Lope de Vega' (see note 4) was published in 1806, and 'Three Comedies from the Spanish', in 1807.]]

[Footnote 77: Henry Petty (1780-1863) succeeded his brother as third Marquis of Lansdowne in 1809. He was a regular attendant at the social and political gatherings of his relative, Lord Holland; and as Holland House was regarded as one of the main rallying-points of the Whig party and of the Edinburgh Reviewers, the words, "whipper-in and hunts-man," probably refer to their exertions in this respect.]

[Footnote 78: See note 1, p. 337. (Footnote 69--Text Ed.)]

[Footnote 79: Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author. Both are bepraised by his 'disinterested' guests.]

[Footnote 80: Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless wit in the 'Edinburgh Review'. However that may be, we know from good authority, that the manuscripts are submitted to her perusal--no doubt, for correction.]

[Footnote 81: In the melo-drama of 'Tekeli', that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage; a new asylum for distressed heroes.--[In the 'MS'. and 'British Bards' the note stands thus:--"In the melodrama of 'Tekeli', that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage, and Count Everard in the fortress hides himself in a green-house built expressly for the occasion. 'Tis a pity that Theodore Hook, who is really a man of talent, should confine his genius to such paltry productions as 'The Fortress, Music Mad', etc. etc." Theodore Hook (1788-1841) produced 'Tekeli' in 1806. 'Fortress' and 'Music Mad' were played in 1807. He had written some eight or ten popular plays before he was twenty-one.]]

[Footnote 82: 'Vide post', 1. 591, note 3.]