208 CRITIQUE ON HOURS OF IDLENESS. "Renouncing every pleasing page, The square of the hypothenuse. "Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Which bring together the imprudent." We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas: "Our choir would scarcely be excused To such a set of croaking sinners. "If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, In furious mood he would have tore 'em!" But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and " though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, it is highly improbable, from his situation and pur. suits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. A SATIRE. "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! SHAKSPEARE. "Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true, A fifth edition of the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," in which Lord Byron introduced several alterations and corrections, was prepared in 1812, but was, at his desire, destroyed on the eve of publication. One copy of this edition alone escaped, from which the satire has been printed in the present volumes. The noble Author re-perused the poem in the latter part of the summer of 1816, after his final departure from England. He at that time also corrected the text in several places, and added a few notes and observations in the margin, which the reader will find inserted. On the blank leaf preceding the title-page of the copy from which he read, Lord Byron has written—“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."ED. PREFACE*. If I ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this satire with my name. 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 *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 returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811. He is, and gone again. 1816.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 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, 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 any production which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition. * With 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 overrated, 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 here 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 *The preface to the first edition began here.-ED. |