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in 1811, he desired to be buried in the vault with his dog, and Joe Murray was to have the honour of making one of the party. When the poet was on his travels, a gentleman, to whom Murray showed the tomb, said, "Well, old boy, you will take your place here some twenty years hence." "I don't know that, sir." replied Joe; "if I was sure his lordship would come here I should like it well enough, but I should not like to lie alone with the dog."- Lije, pp. 73, 131.]

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ENGLISH BARDS,1

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS; 2

A SATIRE.

BY

LORD BYRON.

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers." SHAKESPEARE.

"Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true,

There are as mad, abandon'd Critics, too." -POPE.

PREFACE.3

ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turned

from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without Grms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his

1[A first draft of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, then entitled British Bards, was begun October, 1807. The First Edition was published anonymously, March 1, 1809. A Fifth Edition, printed in 1812, was suppressed, and was not published till 1831. The text of the present issue is based on that of the Fifth Edition.]

1. The binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents. Nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another, prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames." - B., 1816.

[The Preface, as it is here printed, was prefixed to the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The preface to the First Edition began with the words, With regard to the real talents," etc. (see next column, line 28). The text of the poem follows that of the suppressed Fifth Edition, which passed under Byron's own supervision, and was i have been issued in 1812. From that Edition he Preface was altogether excluded.]

H

opinion if he pleases; and the Authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.

As the Poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeav oured in this Edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal.

In the First Edition of this Satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend of mine,' who has now in the press a volume of Poetry. In the present Edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner, -a determination not to publish with my name any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.

With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the Author that there can be little difference of opinion in the Public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are over-rated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the Author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner 1 John Cam Hobhouse.

2 [Preface to the First Edition.]

may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. -As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require an Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the Author succeeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of the serpent," though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied.

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