CRITIQUE

EXTRACTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, NO. 22, FOR JANUARY 1808.

Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and| translated. By GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807.

"Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu!
Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting
New courage, he 'll think upon glory and you.
"Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,
"T is nature, not fear, that excites his regret:
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation;
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget.

With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) THE poesy of this young Lord belongs to the class those feet should scan regularly, and have been all which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, counted accurately upon the fingers, it is not the we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, with so few deviations in either direction from that that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than the present day, to be read, must contain at least one if they were so much stagnant water. As an extenuation thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving and on the very back of the volume; it follows his the name of poetry in verses like the following, written name like a favourite part of his style. Much stress is in 1806; and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say laid upon it in the preface, and the poems are connected any thing so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of with this general statement of his case, by particular nineteen should publish it: dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minority; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the point, and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!"-But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron.

His other plea of privilege our author rather brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors— sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account.

"That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish,
He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown;
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish;
When decay'd, may be mingle his dust with your own."

Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble

minor's volume.

what the greatest poets have done before him, for Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see al his writing-master's,) are odious.-Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "On a distant view of the village and school of Harrow."

"Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied."

In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr Rogers " On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following:

"Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below
Shows the soul from barbarity char
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear.

"The man doom'd to sail.
With the biast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave,
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a ear

And so of instances in which former poets had failed. | last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for trans-deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on lating, during his non-age, Adnan's Address to his Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his Soul, when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the at- youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a tempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. they may look at it.

"Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!

To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn."

However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. Daly, why print them after they have had their day | and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. 79,' a translation, where two words (Ocλw deyɛiv) of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81, where poovuкriais no0' wpais, is rendered by means of six hobbling verses? As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a "Song of Bards" is by his Lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; 't is Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He was," etc. After detaining this "brown chief" some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow ;" and "to smile through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome.

As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas:

"There, in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college prizes
Sits poring by the midnight lamp,

Goes late to bed, yet early rises.
"Who reads false quantities in Sele

Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle,
Deprived of many a wholesome meal,

In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle:
"Renouncing every pleasing page,

From authors of historic use,
Preferring to the letter'd sage

The square of the hypothenuse.
"Still harmless are these occupations,

That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared with other recreations,

Which bring together the imprudent."
We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the col-
lege psalmody as is contained in the following Attic

stanzas:

"Our choir would scarcely be excused
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.
"If David, when his toils were ended,

Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended:

In furious mood he would have tore 'em!'

But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he they should use it as not abusing it;" and particu- once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of arly one who piques himself (though indeed at the Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant bard," Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; ("The artless Helicon I boast is youth;")—should either and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbanot know, or should seem not to know, so much about ble, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the should again condescend to become an author. Therefamily seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven fore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. What pages, on the selfsame subject, introduced with an right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting to have got so much from a man of this Lord's station, ," but really "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the

who does not live in a garret, but, "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankfu; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.

PREFACE.

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 ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nosbe "turned from the career of my humour by quibbles trum, to prevent the extension of so deplorable an quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatcomplied with their counsel. But I am not to be ter- ment of the malady. A caustic is here offered, as it is rified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or with- to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can reout arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none cover the numerous patients afflicted with the present personally who did not commence on the offensive. prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming.-As to An author's works are public property: he who pur- the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require a chases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate in merely "bruising one of the heads of the serpent," inay do by me as I have done by them: I dare say they though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, will succeed better in condemning my scribblings than he will be amply satisfied.

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 endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal.

ENGLISH BARDS,

etc. etc.

STILL must I hear?-shall hoarse FITZGERALD' baw In the first edition of this Satire, published anony- His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, mously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Reviews were written and inserted at the request of an inge-Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my Muse? nious friend of mine, who has now in the press a vol- Prepare for rhyme-I'll publish, right or wrong: ume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, Fools are my theme, let Satire be my song. and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that which I conceive would Oh! Nature's noblest gift-my gray goose-quill! operate with any other person in the same manner-a Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, determination not to publish with my name any pro- That mighty instrument of little men! Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, duction which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition. The pen! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes With regard to the real talents of many of the poet-Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride, Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose, ical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the The lover's solace, and the author's pride: author that there can be little difference of opinion in What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise! ine public at large; though, like other sectaries, each How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise! has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite, abilities are overrated, 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

1 This Preface was written for the second edition of this Toem, and printed with it.

With all the pages which 't was thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,

1 IMITATION.

"Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ?"-Juvenal. Sat. 1 Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "SmallBeer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the "Lierary Fund;" not content with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation.

3 The Biography of Gilpin Horner, and the marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of seven-leagued boots, are chefs-d'œuvre in 2 As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the improvement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical but by no means sparing, box on the ear bestowed on the poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the page, and the entrance of a Knight and Charger into the" Paradise Lost," and "Gierusalemme Liberata," as their castle, under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Mar-standard efforts, since neither the "Jerusalem Conquered" of mion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly what William the Italian, nor the "Paradise Regained" of the English Bard, of Deloraine would have been, had he been able to read or obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. write. The Poem was manufactured for Messrs. Constable. Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive? Murray, and Miller, worshipful Booksellers, in consideration 3 Thalaba, Mr Southey's second poem, is written in open of the receipt of a sum of money; and, truly, considering the defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce Inspiration, it is a very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan of Are write for hire, let him do his best for his paymasters, but not was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of those poems disgrace his genius, which is undoubtedly great, by a repeti-"which (in the words of Porson) will be read when Homer wn of black letter imitations.