- Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, p. 23: 2 [In the annotated copy of the Fourth Edition Byron has drawn a line down the margin of the passage on Wordsworth, lines 236-248, and adds the word "Unjust." The first four lines on Coleridge (lines 255-258) are also marked "Unjust." The recantation is, no doubt, intended to apply to both passages from beginning to end.] 8 Lyrical Ballads, p. 4."The Tables Turned," st. 1. "Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks, Mr W. in his preface labours hard to prove, that prose and verse are much the same; and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable: "And thus to Betty's questions he Made answer, like a traveller bold. 'The cock did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo, And the sun did shine so cold." - Lyrical Ballads, p. 179. 1 COLERIDGE'S Poems, p. 11, "Songs of the Pixies," i.e. Devonshire Fairies; p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady"; and, p. 52, "Lines to a Young Ass." [Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818). known as "Monk" Lewis, was the son of a rich Jamaica planter. In 1794 he was appointed attaché to the Embassy at the Hague, and in the course of ten weeks wrote Ambrosio, or The Monk, which was published in 1795. In 1798 he made the acquaintance of Scott, and procured his promise of co-operation in his contemplated Tales of Terror, which were printed at Kelso, in 1799. Two or three editions of Tales of Wonder, to which Byron refers, were published in 1801. Lewis borrowed so freely from all sources that the collection was called "Tales of Plunder." As a writer, he is memorable chiefly for his sponsorship of German literature. Scott said of him that he had the finest car for rhythm he ever met with finer than Byron's; and Coleridge, in Table Talk for March 20, 1834, commends his verses. Certainly his ballad of Crazy Jane, once so famous that ladies took to wearing "Crazy Jane" hats, is of the nature of poetry.] Behold - - - Ye Tarts!-one moment spare the text! HAYLEY'S last work, and worst - until his next; 310 Whether he spin poor couplets into plays, Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise, appointed a Master in Chancery in 1815. See his Correspondence, published in 1894.] 1 The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may refer to "Strangford's Camoëns," p. 127, note to p. 56, or to the last page of the Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Camoëns. [Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, sixth Viscount Strangford (1780-1855), published Poems from the Portuguese by Luis de Camoëns, in 1803. The note to which Byron refers runs thus: "Locks of auburn and eyes of blue have ever been dear to the sons of song," etc. It may be added that Byron's own locks were auburn, and his eyes a greyish-blue.] 2 It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the public as poems of Camoëns are no more to be found in the original Portuguese, than in the Song of Solomon. 3 See his various Biographies of defunct Painters. etc. [William Hayley (1745-1820) published a biography of Milton in 1796, of Cowper in 1803-4, of Romney in 1809. For his life and works, see Southey's article in the Quarterly Review (vol. xxxi. p. 263). The appeal to "tarts' to "spare the text," is, possibly, an echo of The Dunciad, 1. 155, 156"Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size, Redeemed from topers and defrauded pies."] 1 Hayley's two most notorious verse productions are Triumphs of Temper (1781) and The Triumph of Music (1804). He has also written much Comedy in rhyme, Epistles, etc., etc. As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recommend POPE's advice to WYCHERLEY to Mr H.'s consideration, viz., "to convert poetry into prose,' which may easily be done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet. [Lines 319-326 were substituted for a passage which reflected on Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814), a poet of the Cruscan School, author of Gleaning, and Sympathy, a Poem (1788): "In verse most stale, unprofitable, flat Come let us change the scene, and 'glean' with Pratt; In him an author's luckless lot behold, Condemned to make the books which once he sold: [The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) His edition of Pope's Works, in ten volumes which stirred Byron's gall, appeared in 1800 The Fall of Empires, Tyre, Carthage, etc., the subject of part of the third book of T Spirit of Discovery by Sea (1804). Lines T a Withered Leaf," are, perhaps, of later date but the "sear tresses," and shivering leaves of "Autumn's gradual gloom" are familia images in his earlier poems. Among his poem are a "Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stanzas o hearing the Bells of Ostend."] Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead, A meet reward had crowned thy glorious gains, And linked thee to the Dunciad for thy pains. 1 CURLL is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord HERVEY, author of Lines to the Imitator of Horace. 2 Lord BOLINGBROKE hired MALLET to traduce POPE after his decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord Bolingbroke the "Patriot King," which that splendid but malignant genius had ordered to be destroyed. DUNCIAD. "And [Book III. 11. 165, 166. Pope wrote, makes night," etc.] See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for which he received three hundred pounds. Thus Mr B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another, than to elevate his own. ["Too savage all this on Bowles," wrote Byron, in 1816, but he afterwards returned to his original sentiments, and regretted the omission of "fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope," what Hobhouse had contributed to the First Edition of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. The lines supplied by Hobhouse are here subjoined: Stick to thy Sonnets, man! - at least they sell: Another Epic! Who inflicts again More books of blank upon the sons of men? Boeotian COTTLE, rich Bristowa's boast, Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast, And sends his goods to market — all alive! Lines forty thousand, Cantos twentyfive! 390 Fresh fish from Hippocrene!1 who'll buy? who'll buy? The precious bargain's cheap - in faith, not I. Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs be flat, Though Bristol bloat him with the verdant fat; If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain, And AMOS COTTLE strikes the Lyre in vain. In him an author's luckless lot behold! Condemned to make the books which once he sold. Oh, AMOS COTTLE! - Phoebus! what On each alike employ the critic's knife, 1 "Helicon' is a mountain and not a fishpond. It should have been 'Hippocrene.'". B, 1816. [The correction was made in the Fifth Edition.] Mr Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books they do not sell, have published a pair of Epic - Alfred (poor Alfred! Pye has been at hin too! Alfred and the Fall of Cambria. All right. I saw some letters of this fellow (Jh. Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, whose pro ductions, which the poor woman by no mean thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly an bitterly, that I could hardly regret assailing him even were it unjust, which it is not for veril he is an ass." B., 1816. [Compare Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin —— But Joseph of Bristol, the brother of Amos. The identity of the brothers Cottle appear to have been a matter beneath the notice both c the authors of the Anti-Jacobin and of Byron Amos Cottle, who died in 1800, was the author o a Translation of the Edda of Sæmund, publishe in 1797. Joseph Cottle, inter alia, publishe Alfred in 1801, and The Fall of Cambria, 1807 The "unfortunate poetess" was, probably, Ani Yearsley, the Bristol milk-woman.] 1 Mr Maurice hath manufactured the com ponent parts of a ponderous quarto, upon th beauties of "Richmond Hill" and the like: it also takes in a charming view of Turnhan Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New and the parts adjacent. [The Rev. Thoma Maurice (1754-1824) published his RichmenHill in 1807. He was assistant keeper of MSS at the British Muscum from 1799 till his death. |