LORD BYRON AND MR LANDOR. To the Editor of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. SIR,-In a poem, lately published by Lord Byron, named Christian, or the Island, occurs a note severely reflecting on Mr Landor. "If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text should appear obscure, he will find in "Geber" the same idea better expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, but have heard the lines quoted by a more recondite reader who seems to be of a different opinion from the Editor of the Quarterly Review, who qualified it, in his answer to the Critical Reviewer of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst and most insane description. It is to Mr Landor, the author of Geber, so qualified, and of some Latin poems, which vie with Martial or Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate Mr Southey addresses his declamation against impurity." To defend Mr Landor from the charge of indecency, brought by such a person as the author of Don Juan, and other works which dare not see the light, being more obscene than Don Juan, would be mere waste of words. I shall therefore only indicate the reason why Lord B. has attacked Mr Landor. It was not his, verse, but his prose, which excited the hostility of the peer-though his lordship slurs that circumstance altogether. In Mr Landor's elegant Quæstiuncula, the following passage occurs : "Summi poetæ in omni poetarum sæculo viri fuerunt probi: in nostris id vidimus et videmus; neque alius est error a veritate longius quam magna ingenia magnis necessario corrumpi vitiis. Secundo plerique posthabent primum, hi malignitate, illi ignorantia, et quum aliquem inveniunt styli morumque vitiis notatum, nec inficetum tamen nec in libris edendis parcum, eum stipant, prædicant, occupant, amplectuntur. Si mores aliquantulum vellet corrigere, si stylum curare paululum, si fervido ingenio temperare, si moræ tantillum interponere, tum ingens nescio quid et vere epicum, quadraginta annos natus, procuderet. Ignorant vero febriculis non indicari vires, impatientiam ab imbecillitate non differre; ignorant a levi homine et inconstante multa fortasse scribi posse plusquam mediocria, nihil compositum, arduum, æternum." VOL. XIV. The application is plain, and hence the anger of Lord B. Mr L. might have written worse than Petronius, without stirring the indignation of the great moralist of Don Juan; but the aliquis styli morumque vitiis notatus," the "levis homo et inconstans," and the low appreciation of Lord Byron's admirers, were not to be forgiven. Libelled, of course, Mr Landor must be, and, of course, the first opportunity was taken for the purpose. The lines about the shell in Christian were obviously written to bring him in by the head and shoulders. Will you permit me to quote the following passage, as a specimen of sound Latinity, and as a just castigation of the Reviewers of Mr Wordsworth-his Lordship's quondam butts, though now his most honourable friends and allies? "Habebant antiqui Ruvidos, Casios, Aquinos, Suffenos, ut habemus in Britannia nostra Brogamos, Jefrisios, et centum alios librariorum vernas, cum venenis et fuligine prostantes, bonis omnibus et scriptoribus et viris ipsa rerum natura infensos. At quibus ego te vocibus compellem, vir, civis, philosophe, poeta, præstantissime, qui sæculum nostrum ut nullo priore minus gloriosum sit effeceris; quem nec domicilium longinquum, nec vita sanctissi ma, neque optimorum voluntas, charitas, propensio, neque hominum fere universorum reverentia, inviolatum conservavit ; cujus sepulchrum, si mortuus esses anteaquam nascerentur, ut voti rei inviserent, et laudi sibi magnæ ducerent vel aspici vel credi ibidem ingemiscere. In eorum ingeniis observandum est quod Narniensi agro evenisse meminit Cicero, siccitate lutum fieri. Floces et fraces, ut veteres dicerent, literarum, discant illud utinam quod exemplo docent, nihil afferre opis vesanientem animum ingenii malacia. Commode se haberent res mortalium si unum quisque corrigeret: de facto universi consentiunt, de homine plerique dissident." Leaving this to the consideration of the Brogami, Jefrisii, and the other "librariorum verne," I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, London, July 4, 1823. Noctes Ambrosianak. No. X. A FRAGMENT. ODOHERTY. Chorus then.-Buller, awake, man.-Chorus, all of you, I say. Chorus of Contributors. So triumph to the Tories, and woe to the Whigs, And to all other foes of the nation; Let us be through thick and thin caring nothing for the prigs DR MULLION. Bravo, Odoherty, Bravissimo!—that is decidedly one of your very best effusions. ODOHERTY. No blarney to me, mon ami. I have taken my degrees in that celebrated university. In candour, however, and equity, I am bound to say, that I do think it a pretty fairish song, as songs go now-a-days. NORTH. Why, it must be admitted, that there is an awful quantity of bad songs vented just now. TICKLER. It must be the case as long as they issue in such shoals; the bad must bear a huge proportion to the good at all times; for they are just the off-throwings of the ephemeral buoyancy of spirit of the day; and as actual buoyancy of spirit generally breeds nonsense, and affectation of it is always stupidity, you must e'en be content with your three grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff. NORTH. Yes, yes-they must be from their very nature ephemeral. Which of all our songs-I don't mean particularly those of the present company-but of all the songs now written and composed by all the song-writers now extant-will be alive a hundred years hence? ODOHERTY. Just as many as are now alive of those written and composed, as you most technically phrase it, a hundred years since. TICKLER. And that is but poor harvest indeed. Look over any of the song-books that contain the ditties of our grandmothers or great-grandmothers, and you will scarcely ever turn up a song familiar to anybody but professed readers. ODOHERTY. More's the pity. By all that's laughable, the reflection saddens me. "Pills to purge Melancholy," has become a melancholious book in itself. You read page after page, puzzling yourself to make out the possibility-how any human mouth could by any device have got through the melodies-the uncouth melodies BULLER. You know Tom D'Urféy's plan? He used to take a country dance, the more intricate the better; for, as you see by his dedication, he prided himself on that kind of legerdemain, and then put words to it as well as he could. ODOHERTY. I know I know-but I was saying that it is an unpleasant sort of feeling you have about you, when you peruse, like a groping student, songs that you are sure made palace and pot-house ring with jollity and fun in the days of merry King Charles, and warmed the gallantry of the grenadiers of Britain at the siege of Namur, under hooked-nose Oldglorious, or of Our countrymen in Flanders A hundred years ago, When they fought like Alexanders NORTH. Ay," the odour's fled." They are like uncorked soda-water. Honest Tom D'Urféy, I think I see him now in my mind's eye, Horatio, holding his song-book with a tipsy gravity, and trolling forth Joy to great Cæsar, Long life and pleasure, with old Rowley leaning on his shoulder, partly out of that jocular familiarity, which endeared him to the people in spite of all his rascalities, and partly to keep himself steady, humming the bass. BULLER. Have you seen Dr Kitchener's book? NORTH. I have, and a good, jovial, loyal book it is. The Doctor is, by all accounts, a famous fellow-great in cookery, medicine, music, poetry, and optics, on which he has published a treatise. I esteem the Doctor. ODOHERTY. NORTH. The devil you do!-after cutting him up so abominably in my Magazine, in an article, you know, inserted while I was in Glasgow, without my knowledge. ODOHERTY. Why are you always reminding a man of his evil-doings? Consider that I have been white-washed by the Insolvent Court since, and let all my sins go with that white-washing. To cut the matter short, I had a most excellent Cookerybook written, founded on the principles practised in the 99th mess, and was going to treat with Longman's folks about it, when Kitchener came out, and pre-occupied the market. You need not wonder, therefore, at my tickling up the worthy Doctor, who himself enjoyed the fun, being a loyal fellow to the back-bone; a Tory tough and true. We are now the best friends in the world. MULLION. Well, let that pass-What song-writer of our days, think you, will live? Moore? NORTH. Moore! No, he has not the stamina in him at all. His verses are elegant, pretty, glittering, anything you please in that line; but they have defects which will not allow them to get down to posterity. For instance, the querulous politics, on your local affairs, Odoherty, which make them now so popular with a very large class of your countrymen, are mere matters of the day, which will die with the day; for I hope you do not intend to be always fighting in Ireland ? ODOHERTY. I do not know how that will be-better fighting than stagnating; but, at all events, I hope we will change the grounds somewhat-I hate monotony; I trust that my worthy countrymen will get some new matter of tumult for the next generation. NORTH. It is probable that they will-and then, you know, Moore's" Oh! breathe not his name," " Erin, the tear," &c. &c. will be just as forgotten as any of the things in Hogg's Jacobite relics. TICKLER. Which will ever stand, or rather fall, as a memento of the utter perishableness of all party song-writing. |