The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 109

[Footnote 3:

"While pure Description held the place of Sense."--

Pope, _Prol. to the Sat.,_ L. 148.

"While Mr. Sol decked out all so glorious Shines like a Beau in his Birthday Embroidery."

[Fielding, _Tom Thumb_, act i. sc. I.]--[_MS. M._]

"_Fas est et ab Hoste doceri._" In the 7th Art. of the 31st No. of the _Edinburgh Review_ (vol. xvi. Ap. 1810) the "Observations" of an Oxford Tutor are compared to "Children's Cradles" (page 181), then to a "Barndoor fowl flying" (page 182), then the man himself to "a Coach-horse on the Trottoir" (page 185) etc., etc., with a variety of other conundrums all tending to prove that the ingenuity of comparison increases in proportion to the dissimilarity between the things compared.--[_MS. L. (b) erased._]]

[Footnote 4: Mere common mortals were commonly content with one Taylor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I speak of the beginning of 1809: what reform may have since taken place I neither know, nor desire to know.--[_MSS. L. (b), M_.]]

[Footnote 5: Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our Parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the 'Edinburgh Review'.

[The reference may be to financial terms, such as sinking fund (a phrase not introduced by Pitt), the English equivalent of 'caisse d'amortiss.e.m.e.nt', or income tax ('impot sur le revenu'), or to actual French words such as 'chouannerie, projet', etc. But Pitt's "additions"

are unnoticed by Frere and other reporters and critics of his speeches.

For a satirical description of Pitt's words, "which are finer and longer than can be conceived," see 'Rolliad', 1799; 'Political Miscellanies', p. 421; and 'Political Eclogues', p. 195.

"And Billy best of all things loves--a trope."

Compare, too, Peter Pindar, "To Sylva.n.u.s Urban," 'Works' (1812), ii. 259.

"Lycurgus Pitt whose penetrating eyes Behold the fount of Freedom in excise, Whose 'patriot' logic possibly maintains The 'ident.i.ty' of 'liberty' and 'chains'."]]

[Footnote 6: Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and Scotts!

[Richard Heber (1773-1833), book-collector and man of letters, was half-brother of the Bishop of Calcutta. He edited, 'inter alia', 'Specimens of the Early English Poets', by George Ellis, 3 vols., London: 1811.

W. H. Weber (1783-1818), a German by birth, was employed by Sir Walter Scott as an amanuensis and "searcher." He edited, in 1810, 'Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries', a work described by Southey ('Letters', ii. 308) as "admirably edited, exceedingly curious, and after my own heart." He also published editions of Ford, and Beaumont and Fletcher, which were adversely criticized by Gifford. For an account of his relations to Scott and of his melancholy end, see Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' (1871), p. 251.]]

[Footnote 7: 'Mac Flecknoe', the 'Dunciad', and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of the writers.]

[Footnote 8: 'Almanzor: or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards', a Tragedy by John Dryden. The bombastic character of the hero was severely criticized in Dryden's own time, and was defended by him thus:

"'Tis said that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to perform impossibilities. I must therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I took the character. The first image I had of him was from the Achilles of Homer: the next from Ta.s.so's Rinaldo, and the third from the Artaban of Mons. Calprenede.... He talks extravagantly in his pa.s.sion, but if I would take the trouble to quote from Ben Jonson's Cethegus, I could easily show you that the rhodomontades of Almanzor are neither so irrational as his nor so impossible to be put in execution."

'An Essay on Heroic Plays. Works of John Dryden' (1821), iv. 23-25.]

[Footnote 9: With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their side; who permits them to orators, and gives them consequence by a grave disquisition.

["Cicero also," says Addison, "has sprinkled several of his works with them; and in his book on Oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which, upon examination, prove arrant puns."--'Essay on Wit, Works' (1888), ii. 354.]]

[Footnote 10: In Vanbrugh and Gibber's comedy of The Provoked Husband, first played at Drury Lane, January 10, 1728.]]

[Footnote 11:

"And in his ear I'll holla--Mortimer!"

['I Henry IV'., act i. sc. 3.]]

[Footnote 12: Garrick's 'Lying Valet' was played for the first time at Goodman's Fields, November 30, 1741.]

["Peregrine" is a character in George Colman's 'John Bull', or 'An Englishman's Fire-Side', Covent Garden. March 5, 1803.] ]

[Footnote 13: I have Johnson's authority for making Lear a monosyllable--

"Perhaps where Lear rav'd or Hamlet died On flying cars new sorcerers may ride."

["Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet dy'd."

Prologue to 'Irene. Johnson's Works' (1806), i. 168.]

and (if it need be mentioned) the 'authority' of the epigram on Barry and Garrick.--[Note 'erased, Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote 14:

"'Johnson'. Pray, Mr. Bayes, who is that Drawcansir?

'Bayes'. Why, Sir, a great [fierce] hero, that frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard to numbers, good sense, or justice [good manners, justice, or numbers]."

'The Rehearsal', act iv. sc. I.

'The Rehearsal', by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham (1627-1688), appeared in 1671. Sprat and others are said to have shared the authorship. So popular was the play that "Drawcansir" pa.s.sed into a synonime for a braggadocio. It is believed that "Bayes" (that is, of course, "laureate") was meant for a caricature of Dryden: "he himself complains bitterly that it was so." (See 'Lives of the Poets' (1890), i.

386; and Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1876), p. 235, and 'note'.)]]

[Footnote 15:

"Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque Rectius Iliac.u.m carmen deducis in actus, Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus."

HOR: 'DE ARTE POET': 128-130.

Mons. Dacier, Mons. de Sevigne, Boileau, and others, have left their dispute on the meaning of this sentence in a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigne's Letters, edited by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806.

Presuming that all who can construe may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who _can't_ have taken the same liberty, I should have held "my farthing candle" as awkwardly as another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis 14th's Augustan "Siecle" induced me to subjoin these ill.u.s.trious authorities. I therefore offer:

firstly Boileau: "Il est difficile de trailer des sujets qui sont a la portee de tout le monde d'une maniere qui vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le tour qu'on y donne."