Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse, Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, Manhood declines-age palsies every limb; Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper, Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda; vel quod wish that the devil had the book; not from dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public school penance of "Long and Short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage. (1) "Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." I dare say Mr. Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether any one else does or no.-To the above events, "quæque ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui," all times and terms bear testimony. (2) The Rev. G. F. Tavell was a fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, during Lord Byron's residence, and owed this notice to the zeal with which he had protested against some juvenile vagaries, sufficiently explained in Mr. Moore's Life.-L. E. (3) "Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal. "Club," a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all. (4) “Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring But from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less. Though woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd, When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in history's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, And horror thus subsides to sympathy. True Briton all beside, I here am FrenchBloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench; The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow In tragic scene disgusts, though but in show; We hate the carnage while we see the trick And find small sympathy in being sick. Not, on the stage the regicide Macbeth Appals an audience with a monarch's death; To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or nature bear? A halter'd heroine (4) Johnson sought to slayWe saved Irene, but half damn'd the play, And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times Stint metamorphoses to pantomimes; And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake! Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, We loathe the action which exceeds belief: And yet, God knows! what may not authors do, Whose postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue?”(5) Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can, Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man; Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape Must open ten trap-doors for your escape. Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, I loathe an opera worse than Dennis did; (6) Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, Rage, love, and aught but moralise, in song. Semper in adjunctis ævoque morabimur aptis. Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu round her neck; but the audience cried out Murder ! and she was obliged to go off the stage alive." Boswell's Johnson. These two lines were afterwards struck out, and Irene was carried off, to be put to death behind the scenes. "This shows," says Mr. Malone, "how ready modern asdiences are to condemn, in a new play, what they have fre quently endured very quietly in an old one. Rowe has made Moneses, in Tamerlane, die by the bowstring withom offence." Davies assures us, in his Life of Garrick, that the strangling Irene, contrary to Horace's rule, coram populo, was suggested by Garrick. See Croker's Boswell, vol. i. p. 172.-L. E.] (5) In the postscript to the Castle Spectre, Mr. Lewis. tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the ef fect "by making his heroine blue," I quote him- blue be would have made her!" (6) In 1706, Dennis, the critic, wrote an Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are ubout to be esta Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends On whores, spies, singers wisely shipp'd away. · It scorns amusements which are not of price. So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; blished on the English Stage; in which he endeavours to show, that it is a diversion of more pernicious consequence than the most licentious play that ever appeared upon the stage.-L. E. (1) " The first theatrical representations, entitled ، Mys teries and Moralities,' were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personae were usually Adam, Pater Cœlestis, Faith, Vice," etc. etc.-See Warton's History of English Poetry. (These, to modern eyes, wild, uncouth, and generally profane performances, were thought to contribute so much to the information and instruction of the people, that one of the popes granted a pardon of one thousand days to every person who resorted peaceably to the plays acted in the Whitsun-week at Chester, beginning with the Creation, and eading with the General Judgment. These were performed at the expense of the different trading companies of that city. The Creation was performed by the drapers; the Deluge by the dyers ; Abraham, Melchisedec, and Lot by the barbers, the Purification by the blacksmiths; the Last Supper by the bakers; the Resurrection by the skinners; and the Ascension by the tailors. In Mr. Payne Collier's recent work on English Dramatic Poetry, the reader will find an abstract of the several collections of these mystery-plays, which is not only interesting for the light it throws on the early days of our drama, but instructive and valuable for the curious information it preserves with respect to the strangely debased notions of Scripture history that prevailed, almost universally, before translations of the Bible were See also the Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. in common use. p. 477.—L., E.] (2) Here follows in the original MS.— "Who did what Vestris-yet, at least, cannot, And cut his kingly capers sans culotte."—L. E. (3) Benvolio does not bet; but every man who maintains rate-horses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an ex calpation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for chastity because she herself did not commit fornication, (4) For Benvolio we have, in the original MS., "Earl Grosvenor;" and for the next couplet : Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Save gambling-for his Lordship loves a race." But we cannot trace the exact propriety of the allusions. Lord Grosvenor, now Marquis of Westminster, no doubt dis Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Oaths, boxing, begging,―all, save rout and race. Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time: Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers: “ Alas, poor Yorick !" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la bagatelle!" Which charm'd our days in each Egean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. (5) Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last; But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed, (6) Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead. Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes, Where fetter'd by whig Walpole low she lies; (7) tinguished himself by some attack on the Sunday newspapers, or the like, at the same time that he was known to keep a stud at Newmarket-but why a long note on a subject certainly insignificant and perhaps mistaken?-L. E. (5) In dedicating the fourth canto of Childe Harold to his fellow-traveller, Lord Byron describes him as "one to whom he was indebted for the social advantages of enlightened friendship; one whom he had long known, and accompanied far, whom he had found wakeful over his sickness and kind in his sorrow, glad in his prosperity and firm in his adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril: " -while Mr. Hobhouse, in describing a short tour to Negropont, in which his noble friend was unable to accompany him, regrets the absence of a companion, "who to quickness of observation and ingenuity of remark, united that gay good humour which keeps alive the attention under the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspect of every difficulty and danger."-L, E. (6) Under Plato's pillow a volume of the Mimes of Sophron was found the day he died.-Vide Barthélemi, De Pauw, or Diogenes Laërtius, if agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book, Cumberland, in his Observer, terms it moral, like the sayings of Publius Syrus. (7) The following is a brief sketch of the origin of the Playhouse Bill:-In 1735, Sir John Barnard brought in a bill "to restrain the number of houses for playing of interludes, and for the better regulating of common players." The minister, Sir Robert Walpole, conceiving this to be a favourable opportunity of checking the abuse of theatrical representation, proposed to insert a clause to ratify and confirm, if not enlarge, the power of the Lord Chamberlain in licensing plays; and at the same time insinuated, that unless this addition was made the King would not pass it. But Sir John Barnard strongly objected to this clause; contending that the power of that officer was already too great. and had been often wantonly exercised. He therefore withdrew his bill, rather than establish by law a power in a single officer so much under the direction of the crown. In the course, however, of the session of 1737, an opportunity offered, which Sir Robert did not fail to seize. The manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre having brought to him a farce called The Golden Rump, which had been proffered for exhibition, the minister paid the profits which might have accrued from the performance, and detained the copy. He then made extracts of the most exceptionable passages, abounding in profaneness, sedition, and blasphemy, read them to the House, and obtained leave to bring in a bill to Corruption foil'd her, for she fear'd her glance; limit the number of playhouses; to subject all dramatic writings to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain; and to compel the proprietors to take out a license for every prodaction before it could appear on the stage.-L. E. (I) His speech on the Licensing Act is one of his most eloquent efforts.-[Though the Playhouse Bill is generally said to have been warmly opposed in both Houses, this speech of the Earl of Chesterfield is the only trace of that opposition to be found in the periodical publications of the times. The following passage, which relates to the powers of the Lord Chamberlain, will show the style of the oration: -"The bill is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but it is likewise an encroachment on property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort of property: it is the property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on. Thank God! my Lords, we have a dependence of another kind; we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the inconveniencies of the bill now before us: but it is our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosesoever's property it may be. Those gentlemen who have any such property are all, hope, our friends: do not let us subject them to any unnecessary or arbitrary restraint. I must own, I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit; but by this bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised: for, if this bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a permit; and the Lord Chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief guager, supervisor, commis. sioner, judge, and jury. But, what is still more hard, though the poor author,-the proprietor, I should say,cannot, perhaps, dine till he has found out and agreed with a purchaser, yet, before he can propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit to have his goods rummaged at this new excise-office; where they may be detained for fourteen days, and even then he may find them returned as prohibited goods, by which his chief and best market will be for ever shut against him, without the least shadow of reason, either from the laws of his country or the laws of the stage. These hardships, this hazard, which every gentleman will be exposed to who writes any thing for the stage, must certainly prevent every man of a generous and free spirit from attempting any thing in that way; and as the stage has always been the proper channel for wit and humour, therefore, my Lords, when I speak against this bill, I must think I plead the cause of wit, I plead the cause of humour, I plead the cause of the British stage, and of every gentleman of taste in the kingdom. The stage and the press, my Lords, are two of our out-sentries: if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them in fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore, I must look upon the bill now before us as a step for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom."-L. E.] (2) "Repeal that act!"-After a lapse of nearly a century, the state of the laws affecting dramatic literature, and the performance of the drama, has again become the subject of parliamentary inquiry and report.-L. E. (3) Michael Perez, the "Copper Captain," in Rule a Wife and have a Wife. (4) Of this skill," Reynolde, in his Life and Times, re But why to brain-scorch'd bigots thus appeal? As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, Whom nature guides, so writes, that every dunce, Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope? Yet his and Phillips' faults, of different kind, For art too rude, for nature too refined, cords a remarkable instance. The doctor had, it seems, an "eye like Mars, to threaten and command." Threaten, in every sense of the word; for his numerous patients stood as much in awe of this formidable weapon as of bars, chains, or strait-waistcoats. After a few weeks' attendance on the King, he allowed his Majesty a razor to shave himself, and a penknife to cut his nails. For this he was one evening charged by the other physicians, before a committee of the House of Commons, with rashness and imprudence. Mr Burke was very severe on this point, and authoritatively demanded to know, "If the royal patient had become out rageous at the moment, what power the doctor possessed of instantaneously terrifying him into obedience?" “Place the candles between us, Mr. Burke," replied the doctor, in an equally authoritative tone, "and I'll give you an an swer. There, Sir! by the eye. I should have looked at hira thus, Sir-thus!" Mr. Burke instantaneously averted his bead; and, making no reply, evidently acknowledged this basilisk authority. This story was often related by the doctor himself.-L. E. (5) Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion. Of the Beggar's Opera he says, in his Life of Gay: "The play, like many others, was plainly written only to divert, without any mo ral purpose, and is, therefore, not likely to do good; ner can it be conceived, without more speculation than life requires or admits, to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage." On another occasion, the common question with regard to this opera having been introduced, he said:" As to this matter, which has been very much contested, I myself am of opinion, that more influence has been ascribed to it than in reality it ever had; for I do not believe that any man was ever made a rogue by being present at that representation." See Croker's Boswell, vol. iii. p. 242.—L. E. (6) Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, etc. on the subject of the drama is too well known to require further comment. (7) "If it rise again."-When Lord Byron penned this couplet at Athens, he little imagined that he should so soon be called on to write an address to be spoken on the opening of New Drury, and become one of the committee for managing its concerns. L. E. (8) Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of "good works." He is ably supported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same vineyard:-but I say no more, for, according to Johnny in full congregation, “No hopes for them as laughs."-[The Rev. Charles Simeon, fellow of King's College, Cambridge,-a zealous Calvinist, who, in conse quence of his zeal, has been engaged in sundry warm dis- ! putations with other divines of the university. Besides many single sermons, he has published Helps to Composi tion, or 500 Skeleton Sermons, in five volumes; and Hora Homileticæ, or Discourses (in the form of skeletons) upon the whole Scripture, in eleven volumes.-L. E.] (9) Baxter's Shove to heavy-a-d Christians-the veri Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them pass, But many a skilful judge abhors to see, And must the bard his glowing thoughts confine, Lest censure hover o'er some faulty line? Remove whate'er a critic may suspect, To gain the paltry suffrage of "correct?" Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, To fly from error, not to merit praise? Ye, who seek finish'd models, never cease, By day and night, to read the works of Greece. Ex noto fictum carnem sequar, ut sibi quivis Speret idem: sudet multum, frustraque laboret Ansus idem. Tantum series juncturaque pollet: Tantum de medio sumtis accedit honoris. Silvis deducti caveant, me judice, Fauni, Ne velut innati triviis, ac pene forenses, Aut nimium teneris juvenentur versibus unquam ; Aut immanda crepent, ignominiosaque dicta. Offenduntur enim quibus est equus, et pater, et res: Nec, si quid fricti ciceris probat et nucis emtor, Equis accipiunt animis, donantve corona. Syllaba longa brevi subjecta vocatur iambus, In scenam missus magno cum pondere versus, But our good fathers never bent their brains In sooth I do not know, or greatly care Without high heels, white plume, and Bristol stone. Old comedies still meet with much applause, Whate'er their follies, and their faults beside, If all our bards, more patient of delay, Lords of the quill, whose critical assaults O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults, Idcircone vager, scribamque licenter; an omnes Visuros peccata putem mea, tutus, et intra Spem veniæ cautus? Vitavi denique culpam, Non laudem merui. Vos exemplaria Græca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurnà. "At vestri proavi Plautinos et numeros et Nil intentatum nostri liquere poetæ, writings were never mended, his controversial seldom confuted." On Boswell's asking Johnson which of them he should read, the Doctor replied, "Any of them; they are all good."-L. E.] (1) "They support Pope, I see, in the Quarterly,"-wrote Lord Byron in 1820, from Ravenna-"it is a sin, and a shame, and a damnation, that Pope!! should require it: Those miserable mountebanks of the day, the but he does. Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail, And prove our marble with too nice a nail! Democritus himself was not so bad; He only thought, but you would make, us mad! But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard Against that ridicule they deem so hard; In person negligent, they wear, from sloth, Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth; Reside in garrets, fly from those they meet, And walk in alleys, rather than the street. With little rhyme, less reason, if you please, The name of poet may be got with ease, So that not tuns of helleboric juice Shall ever turn your head to any use; Write but like Wordsworth, live beside a lake,(1) And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake; (2) Then print your book, once more return to town, And boys shall hunt your bardship up and down. Quam lingua Latium, si non offenderet unum. The poets, disgrace themselves, and deny God, in running down Pope, the most faultless of poets." Again, in situ, same year:-"I have at last lost all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense about Pope with which our present are overflowing, and am determined to make such head against it as an individual can by prose or verse, and 1 will at least do it with good will. There is no bearing it any longer, and, if it goes on, it will destroy what little good writing or taste remains amongst us. I hope there are still a few men of taste to second me; but if not I'll battle it alone, convinced that it is in the best cause of English literature." Again, in 1821:-"Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) be may be the consolation of my age. His poetry is the book of life. Without canting, and yet without neglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, that of all the members of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story.' Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry; it is honourable to him and to the art. Such apoet of a thousand years' was Pope. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can want them: he is himself a litera. ture."-L. E. (1) “That this is the age of the decline of English poetry, will be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. That there are men of genius among the present poets, makes little against the fact; because it has been well said, that, next to him who forms the taste of his country, the greatest genius is he who corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius to Marini, who corrupted, not merely the taste of Italy, but that of all Europe, for nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state of English poetry is to be attributed to that absurd and systematic depreciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years, there has been a kind of epidemic concurrence. The Lakers and their school, and every body else with their Am I not wise, if such some poets' plight, To purge in spring-like Bayes (3)—before I write? If this precaution soften'd not my bile, I know no scribbler with a madder style; But since (perhaps my feelings are too nice) I cannot purchase fame at such a price, I'll labour gratis as a grinder's wheel, And, blunt myself, give edge to others' steel, Nor write at all, unless to teach the art To those rehearsing for the poet's part; From Horace show the pleasing paths of song, And from my own example-what is wrong. Though modern practice sometimes differs quite, 'Tis just as well to think before you write; Let every book that suits your theme be read, So shall you trace it to the fountain-head. He who has learn'd the duty which he owes To friends and country, and to pardon foes ; Qui pargor bilem sub verni temporis horam! Qui didicit patriæ qaid debeat, et quid amicis; school, and even Moore without a school, and dilettanti lecturers at institutions, and elderly gentlemen who translate and imitate, and young ladies who listen and repeat, and baronets who draw indifferent frontispieces for bad poets, and noblemen who let them dine with them in the country, the small body of the wits and the great body of the blues, have latterly united in a depreciation, of which their forefathers would have been as much ashamed as their children will be. In the mean time, what have we got instead? The Lake School, which began with an epic poem written in six weeks' (so Joan of Arc proclaimed herself), and finished with a ballad composed in twenty years, as Peter Bell's creator takes care to inform the few who will inquire. What have we got instead? A deluge of flimsy and unintelligible romances, imitated from Scott and myself, who have both made the best of our bad materials and erroneous system. What have we got instead? Madoc, which is neither an epic nor any thing else; Thalaba, Kehama, Gebir, and such gibberish, written in all metres, and in no language." B. Letters, 1819.-See also the two pamphlets against Mr. Bowles, written at Ravenna in 1821, | in which Lord Byron's. enthusiastic reverence for Pope is the principal feature.-L. E. (2) As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid, and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.-independence. (3) See the Rehearsal : “Bayes, Praz, Sir, how do you do when you write? "Smith. Faith, Sir, for the most part I'm in pretty good health. Bayes. I mean, what do you do when you write? "Smith. I take pen, ink, and paper, and sit down. “ Bayes. Now I write standing - that's one thing; and then another thing is, with what do you prepare yourself? "Smith. Prepare myself! what the devil does the fool mean? "Bayes. Why, I'll tell you what I do. If I am to write familiar things, as sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of stewed prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood: for when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge."-L. E. |