The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 90

He had sung against all battles, and again In their high praise and glory; he had called Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then[559]

Became as base a critic as e'er crawled-- Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men By whom his muse and morals had been mauled: He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose, And more of both than any body knows.

XCIX.

He had written Wesley's[560] life:--here turning round To Satan, "Sir, I'm ready to write yours, In two octavo volumes, nicely bound, With notes and preface, all that most allures The pious purchaser; and there's no ground For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers: So let me have the proper doc.u.ments, That I may add you to my other saints."

C.

Satan bowed, and was silent. "Well, if you, With amiable modesty, decline My offer, what says Michael? There are few Whose memoirs could be rendered more divine.

Mine is a pen of all work;[561] not so new As it was once, but I would make you shine Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own Has more of bra.s.s in it, and is as well blown.[hs]

CI.

"But talking about trumpets, here's my 'Vision!'

Now you shall judge, all people--yes--you shall Judge with my judgment! and by my decision Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall.

I settle all these things by intuition, Times present, past, to come--Heaven--h.e.l.l--and all, Like King Alfonso[562]. When I thus see double, I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."

CII.

He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no Persuasion on the part of Devils, Saints, Or Angels, now could stop the torrent; so He read the first three lines of the contents: But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show Had vanished, with variety of scents, Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang, Like lightning, off from his "melodious tw.a.n.g."[563]

CIII.

Those grand heroics acted as a spell; The Angels stopped their ears and plied their pinions; The Devils ran howling, deafened, down to h.e.l.l; The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominions-- (For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell, And I leave every man to his opinions); Michael took refuge in his trump--but, lo!

His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!

CIV.

Saint Peter, who has. .h.i.therto been known For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys, And at the fifth line knocked the poet down;[564]

Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease, Into his lake, for there he did not drown; A different web being by the Destinies Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er Reform shall happen either here or there.

CV.

He first sank to the bottom--like his works, But soon rose to the surface--like himself; For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks,[565]

By their own rottenness, light as an elf, Or wisp that flits o'er a mora.s.s: he lurks, It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf, In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or "Vision,"[ht]

As Welborn says--"the Devil turned precisian."[566]

CVI.

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion Of this true dream, the telescope is gone[hu]

Which kept my optics free from all delusion, And showed me what I in my turn have shown; All I saw farther, in the last confusion, Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one; And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm.[567]

R^a^ Oct. 4, 1821.

FOOTNOTES:

[492] {481}["Aye, he and the count's footman were jabbering French like two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond; and I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly."--Farquhar, _The Beaux' Stratagem_, act iii. sc. 2.]

[493] {482}[These were not the expressions employed by Lord Eldon. The Chancellor laid down the principle that "damages cannot be recovered for a work which is in its nature calculated to do an injury to the public,"

and a.s.suming _Wat Tyler_ to be of this description, he refused the injunction until Southey should have established his right to the property by an action. _Wat Tyler_ was written at the age of nineteen, when Southey was a republican, and was entrusted to two booksellers, Messrs. Ridgeway and Symonds, who agreed to publish it, but never put it to press. The MS. was not returned to the author, and in February, 1817, at the interval of twenty-two years, when his sentiments were widely different, it was printed, to his great annoyance, by W. Benbow (see his _Scourge for the Laureate_ (1825), p. 14), Sherwood, Neely and Jones, John Fairburn, and others. It was reported that 60,000 copies were sold (see _Life and Correspondence of R. Southey_, 1850, iv. 237, 241, 249, 252).]

[494] [William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, attacked Southey in the House of Commons on the 14th of March, 1817, and the Laureate replied by a letter in the _Courier_, dated March 17, 1817, and by a letter "To William Smith, Esq., M.P." (see _Essays Moral and Political_, by R. Southey, 1832, ii. 7-31). The exact words used were, "the determined malignity of a renegade" (see Hansard's _Parl. Debates_, x.x.xv. 1088).]

[495] [One of Southey's juvenile poems is an "Inscription for the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Martin, the Regicide, was imprisoned thirty years" (see Southey's _Poems_, 1797, p. 59). Canning parodied it in the _Anti-jacobin_ (see his well-known "Inscription for the Door of the Cell in Newgate, where Mrs. Brownrigg, the 'Prentice-cide, was confined, previous to her Execution," _Poetry of the Anti-jacobin_, 1828, p. 6).]

[496] {484}[See "_The Vision, etc._, made English by Sir R. Lestrange, and burlesqued by a Person of Quality:" _Visions, being a Satire on the corruptions and vices of all degrees of Mankind_. Translated from the original Spanish by Mr. Nunez, London, 1745, etc.

The Suenos or Visions of Francisco Gomez de Quevedo of Villegas are six in number. They were published separately in 1635. For an account of the "_Visita de los Chistes_," "A Visit in Jest to the Empire of Death," and for a translation of part of the "Dream of Skulls," or "Dream of the Judgment," see _History of Spanish Literature_, by George Ticknor, 1888, ii. 339-344.]

[497]

["Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, Now Serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground, In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join, And G.o.d the Father turns a School-divine."

Pope's _Imitations of Horace_, Book ii. Ep. i. lines 99-102.]

[498] [Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) had recently published a volume of Latin poems (_Idyllia Heroica Decem. Librum Phaleuciorum Unum_.

Partim jam primum Partim iterum atque tertio edit Savagius Landor.

Accedit Quaestiuncula cur Poetae Latini Recentiores minus leguntur, Pisis, 1820, 410). In his Preface to the _Vision of Judgement_, Southey ill.u.s.trates his denunciation of "Men of diseased hearts," etc. (_vide ante_, p. 476), by a quotation from the Latin essay: "Summi poetae in omni poetarum saeculo viri fuerunt probi: in nostris id vidimus et videmus; neque alius est error a veritate longius quam magna ingenia magnis necessario corrumpi vitiis," etc. (_Idyllia_, p. 197). It was a cardinal maxim of the Lake School "that there can be no great poet who is not a good man.... His heart must be pure" (see Table Talk, by S. T.

Coleridge, August 20, 1833); and Landor's testimony was welcome and consolatory. "Of its author," he adds, "I will only say in this place, that, to have obtained his approbation as a poet, and possessed his friendship as a man, will be remembered among the honours of my life."

Now, apart from the essay and its evident application, Byron had probably observed that among the _Phaleucia_, or Hendecasyllables, were included some exquisite lines _Ad Sutheium_ (on the death of Herbert Southey), followed by some extremely unpleasant ones on _Taunto_ and his tongue, and would naturally conclude that "Savagius" was ready to do battle for the Laureate if occasion arose. Hence the side issue. With regard to the "Ithyphallics," there are portions of the Latin poems (afterwards expunged, see _Poemata et Inscriptiones_, Moxon, 1847) included in the Pisa volume which might warrant the description; but from a note to _The Island_ (Canto II. stanza xvii. line 10) it may be inferred that some earlier collection of Latin verses had come under Byron's notice. For Landor's various estimates of Byron's works and genius, see _Works_, 1876, iv. 44-46, 88, 89, etc.]

[499] {485}[The words enclosed in brackets were expunged in later editions.]

[500] {487}[Ra[venna] May 7^th^, 1821.]

[fz] {487}_Or break a runaway_--[MS., alternative reading.]

[ga] _Finding their patients past all care and cure._--[MS. erased.]

[gb] {488}

_To turn him here and there for some resource_ {_And found no better counsel from his peers_, {_And claimed the help of his celestial peers_.--[MS. erased.]

[gc] _By the immense extent of his remarks_.--[MS. erased.]

[gd] _The page was so splashed o'er_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ge] _Though he himself had helped the Conqueror's sword_.--[MS.

erased.]

[gf] {489}_'Tis that he has that Conqueror in reversion_.--[MS. erased.]

[501] [Napoleon died May 5, 1821, two days before Byron began his _Vision of Judgment_, but, of course, the news did not reach Europe till long afterwards.]

[gg] _They will be crushed yet_----.--[MS. erased.]

[gh] _Not so gigantic in the head as horn_.--[MS. erased.]