The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 104

POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

I have been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, 'unresisting'

Muse, whom they have already so be-deviled with their unG.o.dly ribaldry;

"Tantaene animis coelestibus Irae!"

I suppose I must say of JEFFREY as Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK saith, "an I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him d.a.m.ned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has pa.s.sed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia. [1]

My Northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary Anthropophagus, Jeffery; but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking"? I have adduced facts already well known, and of JEFFREY's mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury:--what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;"

but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears, literary or personal: those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days.

There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subaudi 'esquire'), a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the 'Satirist' for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name, till coupled with the 'Satirist'. He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather 'pleased' than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the 'Satirist', who, it seems, is a gentleman--G.o.d wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr. JERNINGHAM[1] is about to take up the cudgels for his Maecenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, "pour on, I will endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers, and, in the words of SCOTT, I wish

"To all and each a fair good night, And rosy dreams and slumbers light."

[Footnote 1: The article never appeared, and Lord Byron, in the 'Hints from Horace', taunted Jeffrey with a silence which seemed to indicate that the critic was beaten from the field.]

[Footnote 2: Edward Jerningham (1727-1812), third son of Sir George Jerningham, Bart., was an indefatigable versifier. Between the publication of his first poem, 'The Nunnery', in 1766, and his last, 'The Old Bard's Farewell', in 1812, he sent to the press no less than thirty separate compositions. As a contributor to the 'British Alb.u.m', Gifford handled him roughly in the 'Baviad' (lines 21, 22); and Mathias, in a note to 'Pursuits of Literature', brackets him with Payne Knight as "ecrivain du commun et poete vulgaire." He was a dandy with a literary turn, who throughout a long life knew every one who was worth knowing.

Some of his letters have recently been published (see 'Jerningham Letters', two vols., 1896).]

HINTS FROM HORACE: [i]

BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE "AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETICa,"

AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS."

----"Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi."

HOR. 'De Arte Poet'., II. 304 and 305.

"Rhymes are difficult things--they are stubborn things, Sir."

FIELDING'S 'Amelia', Vol. iii. Book; and Chap. v.

[Footnote i:

Hints from Horace (Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1811); being an Imitation in English Verse from the Epistle, etc.

[MS, M.]

Hints from Horace: being a Partial Imitation, in English Verse, of the Epistle 'Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica'; and intended as a sequel to 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers'.

Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 12, 1811.

['Proof b'.]]

INTRODUCTION TO HINTS FROM HORACE

Three MSS. of 'Hints from Horace' are extant, two in the possession of Lord Lovelace (MSS. L. a and b), and a third in the possession of Mr.

Murray ('MS. M'.).

Proofs of lines 173-272 and 1-272 ('Proofs a, b'), are among the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum. They were purchased from the Rev. Alexander Dallas, January 12, 1867, and are, doubtless, fragments of the proofs set up in type for Cawthorn in 1811. They are in "book-form," and show that the volume was intended to be uniform with the Fifth Edition of 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', of 1811. The text corresponds closely but not exactly with that adopted by Murray in 1831, and does not embody the variants of the several MSS. It is probable that complete proofs were in Moore's possession at the time when he included the selections from the 'Hints' in his 'Letters and Journals', pp. 263-269, and that the text of the entire poem as published in 1831 was derived from this source. Selections, numbering in all 156 lines, had already appeared in 'Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron', by R. C. Dallas, 1824, pp. 104-113. Byron, estimating the merit by the difficulty of the performance, rated the 'Hints from Horace' extravagantly high. He only forbore to publish them after the success of 'Childe Harold', because he felt, as he states, that he should be "heaping coals of fire upon his head" if he were in his hour of triumph to put forth a sequel to a lampoon provoked by failure. Nine years afterwards, when he resolved to print the work with some omissions, he gravely maintained that it excelled the productions of his mature genius. "As far," he said, "as versification goes, it is good; and on looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on.

I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times" [September 23, 1820]. The opinion of J. C. Hobhouse that the 'Hints' would require "a good deal of slashing" to adapt them to the pa.s.sing hour, and other considerations, again led Byron to suspend the publication. Authors are frequently bad judges of their own works, but of all the literary hallucinations upon record there are none which exceed the mistaken preferences of Lord Byron. Shortly after the appearance of 'The Corsair' he fancied that 'English Bards' was still his masterpiece; when all his greatest works had been produced, he contended that his translation from Pulci was his "grand performance,--the best thing he ever did in his life;" and throughout the whole of his literary career he regarded these 'Hints from Horace' with a special and unchanging fondness.

HINTS FROM HORACE

ATHENS: CAPUCHIN CONVENT, March. 12, 1811. [i]

Who would not laugh, if Lawrence [1], hired to grace [ii]

His costly canvas with each flattered face, Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush?

Or, should some limner join, for show or sale, A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid's tail? [iii]

Or low Dubost [2]--as once the world has seen-- Degrade G.o.d's creatures in his graphic spleen?

Not all that forced politeness, which defends Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. 10 Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems [iv]

The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet.

Poets and painters, as all artists know, [v]