part vi
.--
"Let him shave his head: Where's Dr. Willis?"
(See, too, 'Bland-Burges Papers' (1885), pp. 113-115, and 'Life of George IV'., by Percy Fitzgerald (1881), ii. 18.)]]
[Footnote 37: Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion.
"Highwaymen and housebreakers," he says, in his Life of Gay, "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."
'Lives of the Poets', by Samuel Johnson (1890), ii. 266. It was asserted, on the other hand, by Sir John Fielding, the Bow-street magistrate, that on every run of the piece, 'The Beggar's Opera', an increased number of highwaymen were brought to his office; and so strong was his conviction, that in 1772 he remonstrated against the performance with the managers of both the houses.]
[Footnote 38: Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, etc., on the subject of the drama, is too well known to require further comment.
[Jeremy Collier (1650-1756), non-juring bishop and divine. The occasion of his controversy with Congreve was the publication of his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage' (1697-8). Congreve, who had been attacked by name, replied in a tract entitled 'Amendments upon Mr. Collier's false and imperfect citations from the' OLD BATCHELEUR, etc.]]
[Footnote 39: A few months after lines 370-381 were added to 'The Hints', in September, 1812, Byron, at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the address delivered on the opening of the theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Committee of Management]
[Footnote 40: 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 (1758-1836) was the leader of the evangelical movement in Cambridge. The reference may be to the rigour with which he repelled a charge brought against him by Dr. Edwards, the Master of Sidney Sussex, that a sermon which he had preached in November, 1809, savoured of antinomianism. It may be noted that a friend (the Rev. W. Parish), to whom he submitted the MS. of a rejoinder to Pearson's 'Cautions, etc.', advised him to print it, "especially if you should rather keep down a lash or two which might irritate." Simeon was naturally irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had mildly reproved him for some display of temper, signed himself, in humorous penitence, "Charles proud and irritable." (See 'Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Mr. Simeon', by Rev. W. Carus (1847), pp. 195, 282, etc.)]]
[Footnote 41: 'Baxter's Shove to heavy-a--d Christians', the veritable title of a book once in good repute, and likely enough to be so again.
["Baxter" is a slip of the pen. The tract or sermon, 'An Effectual Shove to the heavy-arse Christian', was, according to the title-page, written by William Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, and "printed for the author" in London in 1768.]]
[Footnote 42: Ambrose Philips (1675?-1749) published his 'Epistle to the Earl of Dorset' and his 'Pastorals' in 1709. It is said that Pope attacked him in his satires in consequence of an article in the 'Guardian', in which the 'Pastorals' were unduly extolled. His verses, addressed to the children of his patron, Lord Carteret, were parodied by Henry Carey, in 'Namby Pamby, or a Panegyric on the New Versification'.]
[Footnote 43: See letters to Murray, Sept. 15, 1817; Jan. 25, 1819; Mar. 29, 1820; Nov. 4, 1820; etc. See also the two 'Letters' against Bowles, written at Ravenna, Feb. 7 and Mar. 21, 1821, in which Byron's enthusiastic reverence for Pope is the dominant note.]
[Footnote 44: As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid [and may be like him a senator, one day or other: no disparagement to the High Court of Parliament.--'MS.L.(b)'], and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.--Independence.
[According to the Scholiast, Cassar made his barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pompeium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820) was, presumably, Benjamin Blake, a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.]]
[Footnote 45: There was some foundation for this. When Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on Daniel Stuart, editor of the 'Courier', at his fine new house in Harley Street, the butler would not admit them further than the hall, and was not a little taken aback when he witnessed the deference shown to these strangely-attired figures by his master.--Personal Reminiscence of the late Miss Stuart, of 106, Harley Street.]
[Footnote 46:
"'Bayes'. 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."
'Rehearsal', act ii. sc. 1.
This passage is instanced by Johnson as a proof that "Bayes" was a caricature of Dryden.
"Bayes, when he is to write, is blooded and purged; this, as Lamotte relates, ... was the real practice of the poet."
'Lives of the Poets' 1890), i. 388.]]
[Footnote 47: Cant term for £100,000.]
[Footnote 48: I have not the original by me, but the Italian translation runs as follows:--
"E una cosa a mio credere molto stravagante, che un Padre desideri, o permetta, che suo figliuolo coltivi e perfezioni questo talento."
A little further on:
"Si trovano di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' oro e d' argento,"
'Educazione dei Fanciulli del Signer Locke' (Venice, 1782), ii. 87.
["If the child have a poetic vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world, that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved."--"It is very seldom seen, that any one discovers mines of gold or silver on Parnassus."
'Some Thoughts concerning Education', by John Locke (1880), p. 152.]]
[Footnote 49: "Iro pauperior:" a proverb: this is the same beggar who boxed with Ulysses for a pound of kid's fry, which he lost and half a dozen teeth besides. (See 'Odyssey', xviii. 98.)]
[Footnote 50: The Irish gold mine in Wicklow, which yields just ore enough to swear by, or gild a bad guinea.]
[Footnote 51: As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he was under great obligations--"'And Homer (damn him!) calls'"--it may be presumed that anybody or anything may be damned in verse by poetical licence [I shall suppose one may damn anything else in verse with impunity.--'MS. L. (b)']; and, in case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a precedent.]
[Footnote 52: For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see Davies's 'Life of Garrick'. I believe it is 'Regulus', or 'Charles the First' [Lincoln's Inn Fields, March 1, 1737]. The moment it was known to be his the theatre thinned, and the book-seller refused to give the customary sum for the copyright. [See 'Life of Garrick', by Thomas Davies (1808), ii. 205.]
[Footnote 53: Thomas Erskine (third son of the fifth Earl of Buchan) afterwards Lord Erskine (1750-1823), Lord Chancellor (1806-7), an eloquent orator, a supremely great advocate, was, by comparison, a failure as a judge. His power over a jury, "his little twelvers," as he would sometimes address them, was practically unlimited. (See 'Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers' (1856), p. 126.)]]
[Footnote 54: Lines 589-626 are not in the 'Murray MS'., nor in either of the 'Lovelace MSS'.]]
[Footnote 55: To the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I have to return thanks for the fervour of that charity which, in 1809, induced them to express a hope that a thing then published by me might lead to certain consequences, which, although natural enough, surely came but rashly from reverend lips. I refer them to their own pages, where they congratulated themselves on the prospect of a tilt between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, from which some great good was to accrue, provided one or both were knocked on the head. Having survived two years and a half those "Elegies" which they were kindly preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, Hal;" but if, as David says in 'The Rivals', it should come to "bloody sword and gun fighting," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" [Byron, writing at Athens, away from his books, misquotes 'The Rivals'. The words, "Sir Lucius, we--we--we--we won't run," are spoken by Acres, not by David.] I do not know what I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my works are their lawful perquisite, to be hewn in pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them: but why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have "smote me on one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the "recording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon or Ramsden should be engaged in such a conflict as that in which they requested me to fall, I hope they may escape with being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may be at hand to extract the ball.
["If, however, the noble Lord and the learned advocate have the courage requisite to sustain their mutual insults, we shall probably soon hear the explosions of another kind of 'paper' war, after the fashion of the ever-memorable duel which the latter is said to have fought, or seemed to fight, with 'Little' Moore. We confess there is sufficient provocation, if not in the critique, at least in the satire, to urge a 'man of honour' to defy his assailant to mortal combat, and perhaps to warrant a man of law to 'declare' war in Westminster Hall. Of this we shall no doubt hear more in due time"
('Eclectic Review', May, 1809). Byron pretends to believe that the "Christian" Reviewers, actuated by stern zeal for piety, were making mischief in sober earnest. "Heaviside" (see last line of Byron's note) was the surgeon in attendance at the duel between Lord Falkland and Mr. A. Powell. (See 'English Bards', 1. 686, note 2.)]]
[Footnote 56: _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 7.]
[Footnote 57: See the critique of the 'Edinburgh Review' on 'Hours of Idleness', January, 1808.]
[Footnote 58: "Invenies alium, si te hic fastidit, Alexin."]
[Footnote 59: Here 'MS. L.' (a) recommences.]
[Footnote 60: John Jackson (1769-1845), better known as "Gentleman" Jackson, was champion of England from 1795 to 1803. His three fights were against Fewterel (1788), George Ingleston, nicknamed "the Brewer" (1789), and Mendoza (1795). In 1803 he retired from the ring. His rooms at 13, Bond Street, became the head-quarters of the Pugilistic Club. (See Pierce Egan's 'Life in London', pp. 252-254, where the rooms are described, and a drawing of them by Cruikshank is given.) Jackson's character stood high.
"From the highest to the lowest person in the Sporting World, his 'decision' is law."
He was Byron's guest at Cambridge, Newstead, and Brighton; received from him many letters; and is described by him, in a note to 'Don Juan' (xi. 19), as:
"my old friend and corporeal pastor and master."]
[Footnote 61: Mr. Southey has lately tied another canister to his tail in 'The Curse of Kehama', maugre the neglect of 'Madoc', etc., and has in one instance had a wonderful effect. A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of "one in jeopardy:" he rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on butter-milk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel-spear and a landing net, and at last ('horresco referens') pulled out--his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. Its "alacrity of sinking" was so great, that it has never since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry premises, Cornhill. Be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of "'Felo de bibliopolâ'" against a "quarto unknown;" and circumstantial evidence being since strong against 'The Curse of Kehama' (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in Grub-street--Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the bell-man of St. Sepulchre's.
The same advocates, pro and con, will be employed as are now engaged in Sir F. Burdett's celebrated cause in the Scotch courts. The public anxiously await the result, and all 'live' publishers will be subpoenaed as witnesses.--But Mr. Southey has published 'The Curse of Kehama',--an inviting title to quibblers. By the bye, it is a good deal beneath Scott and Campbell, and not much above Southey, to allow the booby Ballantyne to entitle them, in the 'Edinburgh Annual Register' (of which, by the bye, Southey is editor) "the grand poetical triumvirate of the day." But, on second thoughts, it can be no great degree of praise to be the one-eyed leaders of the blind, though they might as well keep to themselves "Scott's thirty thousand copies sold," which must sadly discomfort poor Southey's unsaleables. Poor Southey, it should seem, is the "Lepidus" of this poetical triumvirate. I am only surprised to see him in such good company.
"Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil 'he' came there."
The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition of Euclid:--
"Because, in the triangles D B C, A C B; D B is equal to A C; and B C common to both; the two sides D B, B C, are equal to the two A C, C B, each to each, and the angle D B C is equal to the angle A C B: therefore, the base D C is equal to the base A B, and the triangle D B C (Mr. Southey) is equal to the triangle A C B, the less to the greater, which is absurd" etc.
The editor of the 'Edinburgh Register' will find the rest of the theorem hard by his stabling; he has only to cross the river; 'tis the first turnpike t' other side 'Pons Asinorum.'[A]
['The Curse of Kehama', by Robert Southey, was published 1810; 'Arthur, or The Northern Enchantment', by the Rev. Richard Hole, in 1789; 'Alfred', by Joseph Cottle, in 1801; 'Davideis`', by Abraham Cowley, in 1656; 'Richard the First', by Sir James Bland Surges, in 1801; 'Exodiad', by Sir J. Bland Surges and R. Cumberland, in 1808; 'Exodus', by Charles Hoyle, in 1802; 'Epigoniad', by W. Wilkie, D.D., in 1757; 'Calvary', by R. Cumberland, in 1792; 'Fall of Cambria', by Joseph Cottle, in 1809; 'Siege of Acre', by Hannah Cowley, in 1801; 'The Vision of Don Roderick', by Sir Walter Scott, in 1811; 'Tom Thumb the Great', by Henry Fielding, in 1730.
The 'Courier' of July 16, 1811, reports in full the first stage of the case Sir F. Burdett 'v.' William Scott ('vide supra'), which was brought before Lord Meadowbank as ordinary in the outer court. Jeffrey was counsel for the pursuer, who sought to recover a sum of £5000 lent under a bond. For the defence it was alleged that the money had been entrusted for a particular purpose, namely, the maintenance of an infant. Jeffrey denied the existence of any such claim, and maintained that whatever was scandalous or calumnious in the defence was absolutely untrue. The case, which was not included in the Scottish Law Reports, was probably settled out of court. Evidently the judge held that on technical grounds an
## action did not lie. Burdett's enemies were not slow in turning the
scandal to account. (See a contemporary pamphlet, 'Adultery and Patriotism', London, 1811.)] ]
[Sub-Footnote A: This Latin has sorely puzzled the University of Edinburgh. Ballantyne said it meant the "Bridge of Berwick," but Southey claimed it as half English; Scott swore it was the "Brig o' Stirling:" he had just passed two King James's and a dozen Douglasses over it. At last it was decided by Jeffrey, that it meant nothing more nor less than the "counter of Archy Constable's shop."]
[Footnote 62: Voltaire's 'Pucelle' is not quite so immaculate as Mr. Southey's 'Joan of Arc', and yet I am afraid the Frenchman has both more truth and poetry too on his side--(they rarely go together)--than our patriotic minstrel, whose first essay was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, whose title of witch would be correct with the change of the first letter.]
[Footnote 63: Like Sir Bland Burges's 'Richard'; the tenth book of which I read at Malta, on a trunk of Eyre's, 19, Cockspur-street. If this be doubted, I shall buy a portmanteau to quote from.
[Sir James Bland Burges (1752-1824), who assumed, in 1821, the name of Lamb, married, as his first wife, the Hon. Elizabeth Noel, daughter of Lord Wentworth, and younger sister of Byron's mother-in-law, Lady Milbanke. He was called to the bar in 1777, and in the same year was appointed a Commissioner in Bankruptcy. In 1787 he was returned M.P. for the borough of Helleston; and from 1789 to 1795 held office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1795, at the instance of his chief, Lord Grenville, he vacated his post, and by way of compensation was created a baronet with a sinecure post as Knight-Marshal of the Royal Household. Thenceforth he devoted himself to literature. In 1796 he wrote the 'Birth and Triumph of Love', by way of letter-press to some elegant designs of the Princess Elizabeth. (For 'Richard the First' and the 'Exodiad', see note, p. 436.) His plays, 'Riches and Tricks for Travellers', appeared in 1810, and there were other works. In spite of Wordsworth's testimony (Wordsworth signed, but Coleridge dictated and no doubt composed, the letter: see 'Thomas Poole and His Friends', ii. 27) "to a pure and unmixed vein of native English" in 'Richard the First (Bland-Burges Papers', 1885, p. 308), Burges as a poet awaits rediscovery. His diaries, portions of which were published in 1885, are lively and instructive. He has been immortalized in Person's Macaronics--
"Poetis nos lætamur tribus, Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus. Si ulterius ire pergis, Adde his Sir James Bland Burges!"]
[Footnote 64: [Charles Lamb, in "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago" (_Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 30), records his repeated visits, as a Blue Coat boy, "to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levée, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission."]
[Footnote 65: Lines 677, 678 are not in 'MS. L. (a)'.]
[Footnote 66: Lines 689-696 are not in 'MS. L. (a)' or 'MS. L. (b)'.]
[Footnote 67: 'MS. L.' ('a' and 'b') continue at line 758.]
[Footnote 68:
"Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, Gurgite cum medio portans OEagrius Hebrus, Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua; Ah, miseram Eurydicen! animâ fugiente vocabat; Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ."
'Georgic', iv. 523-527.]
[Footnote 69: I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; 'it' is a 'tailor', but begged Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta--psha!--of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to his country customers--Merry's "Moorfields whine" was nothing to all this. The "Delia Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession; but these Arcadians ("Arcades ambo"--bumpkins both) send out their native nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes and small-clothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures, and Pæans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shop-board, they describe the fields of battle, when the only blood they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced by the ninth part of a "poet;"
"And own that 'nine' such poets made a Tate."
Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if he did, why not take it as his motto?
['An Essay on War; Honington Green, a Ballad ... an Elegy and other Poems,' was published in 1803.]]
[Footnote 70: This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too (who once was wiser) has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of "Remains" utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; but the "tragedies" are as ricketty as if they had been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end; and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the least they have done: for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under the statute against "resurrection men." What does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort of éclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to provide for the child; now, might not some of this 'Sutor ultra Crepidaitis' friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription split into so many modicums!--"To the Duchess of Somuch, the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are," etc. etc.--why, this is doling out the "soft milk of dedication" in gills,--there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child, a book, and a dedication: send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil.
[For Robert Bloomfield, see 'English Bards', ll. 774-786, and note 2. For Joseph Blacket, see 'English Bards', ll. 765-770, and note 1. Blacket's 'Remains', with Life by Pratt, appeared in 1811. The work was dedicated "To Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author," etc.]]
[Footnote 71: Lines 737-758 are not in either of the three original MSS. of 'Hints from Horace', and were probably written in the autumn of 1811. They appear among a sheet of "alterations to 'English Bards, and S. Reviewers', continued with additions" ('MSS. L.'}, drawn up for the fifth edition, and they are inserted on a separate sheet in 'MS. M.' A second sheet ('MSS. L.') of "scraps of rhyme ... principally additions and corrections for 'English Bards', etc." (for the fifth edition), some of which are dated 1810, does not give the whole passage, but includes the following variants (erased) of lines 753-756:--
(i.)
"Then let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink, The dullest fattest weed on Lethe's brink. Down with that volume to the depths of hell! Oblivion seems rewarding it too well."
(ii.)
"Yet then thy quarto still may," etc.
A "Druid" (see 'English Bards', line 741) was Byron's name for a scribbler who wrote for his living. In 'MS. M.', "scribbler" has been erased, and "Druid" substituted. It is doubtful to whom the passage, in its final shape, was intended to apply, but it is possible that the erased lines, in which "ponderous quarto" stands for "lost songs," were aimed at Southey (see 'ante', line 657, 'note' 1).]
[Footnote 72: 'MS. L. (a)' recommences at line 758.]
[Footnote 73: Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the sole survivor, the "ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Cruscanti--"Edwin" the "profound" by our Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penultimate.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MORNING CHRONICLE."
"What reams of paper, floods of ink," Do some men spoil, who never think! And so perhaps you'll say of me, In which your readers may agree. Still I write on, and tell you why; Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, But may instruct or entertain Without the risk of giving pain, etc., etc.
ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS.
In tracing of the human mind Through all its various courses, Though strange, 'tis true, we often find It knows not its resources:
And men through life assume a part For which no talents they possess, Yet wonder that, with all their art, They meet no better with success, etc., etc.]
['A Familiar Epistle, etc.', by T. Vaughan, Esq., was published in the 'Morning Chronicle', October 7, 1811. Gifford, in the 'Baviad' (l. 350), speaks of "Edwin's mewlings," and in a note names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr. T. Vaughan." 'Love's Metamorphoses', by T. Vaughan, was played at Drury Lane, April 15, 1776. He also wrote 'The Hotel, or Double Valet', November 26, 1776, which Jephson rewrote under the title of 'The Servant with Two Masters.' Compare 'Children of Apollo', p. 49:--
"Jephson, who has no humour of his own, Thinks it no crime to borrow from the town; The farce (almost forgot) of 'The Hotel' Or 'Double Valet' seems to answer well. This and his own make 'Two Strings to his Bow'."]]
[Footnote 74: See Milton's 'Lycidas'.]
[Footnote 75: Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc.]
[Footnote 76:
"A crust for the critics."
'Bayes, in "the Rehearsal"' [act ii. sc. 2].
[Footnote 77: And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!"
[See 'English Bards', line 1 and 'note' 3.]]
[Footnote 78: Lines 813-816 not in 'MS. L. (a)' or 'MS. L. (b)'.]
[Footnote 79: On his table were found these words:--"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!
[Eustace Budgell (1686-1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape the dishonour which attached to him in connection with Dr. Tindal's will, and the immediate pressure of money difficulties. He was, more or less, insane.
"We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. I put the case of Eustace Budgell.
'Suppose, sir,' said I, 'that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society?'
JOHNSON. 'Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is 'not' known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he 'is' known.'"
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1886), p. 281.]]
[Footnote 80: If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.]
[Footnote i:
ATHENS, 'March 2nd, 1811'.
['MS. L.' (a).]
ATHENS, 'March 12th, 1811'.
['MS. L. (i), MS. M.']]
[Footnote ii:
'If [A] West or Lawrence, (take whichever you will) Sons of the Brush, supreme in graphic skill, Should clap a human head-piece on a mare, How would our Exhibition's loungers stare! Or should some dashing limner set to sale My Lady's likeness with a Mermaid's tail.'
['MS. L.' (a).]
'The features finished, should superbly deck My Lady's likeness with a Filly's neck; Or should some limner mad or maudlin group A Mermaid's tail and Maid of Honour's Hoop.'
['MS. L. '(b).] ]
[Sub-Footnote A: I have been obliged to dive into the "Bathos" for the simile, as I could not find a description of these Painters' merits above ground.
"Si liceat parvis Componere magna"--
"Like London's column pointing to the skies Like a 'tall Bully', lifts its head and lies"
I was in hopes might bear me out, if the monument be like a Bully. West's glory may be reduced by the scale of comparison. If not, let me have recourse to 'Tom Thumb the Great' [Fielding's farce, first played 1730] to keep my simile in countenance.--['MS. L. (b) erased]]
[Footnote iii: After line 6, the following lines (erased) were inserted:--
'Or patch a Mammoth up with wings and limbs, And fins of aught that flies or walks or swims'.
['MS. M'.]
Another variant ran--
'Or paint (astray from Truth and Nature led) A Judge with wings, a Statesman with a Head'!
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote iv:
'Believe me, Hobhouse'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote v:
'as we scribblers'.
['MSS. L'. ('a' and 'b'), 'MS. M'.]]
[Footnote vi:
'Like Wardle's'[A] 'speeches'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Sub-Footnote A: [Gwyllim Lloyd Wardle (1762-1834), who served in Ireland in 1798, as Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers, known as "Wynne's lambs," was M.P. for Okehampton 1807-12. In January, 1809, he brought forward a motion for a parliamentary investigation into the exercise of military patronage by the Duke of York, and the supposed influence of the Duke's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke.]]
[Footnote vii:
'As pertness lurks beneath a legal gown. And nonsense in a lofty note goes down'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
or,
'Which covers all things like a Prelate's gown'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
or,
'Which wraps presumption'.
['MS. M. erased'.]]
[Footnote viii:
'As when the poet to description yields Of waters gliding through the goodly fields; The Groves of Granta and her Gothic Halls, Oxford and Christchurch, London and St. Pauls, Or with a ruder flight he feebly aims To paint a rainbow or the River Thames. Perhaps you draw a fir tree or a beech, But then a landscape is beyond your reach; Or, if that allegory please you not, Take this--you'ld form a vase, but make a pot'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote ix:
'Although you sketch a tree which Taste endures, Your ill-daubed Shipwreck shocks the Connoisseurs.'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote x:
'The greater portion of the men of rhyme Parents and children or their Sires sublime'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote xi:
'But change the malady they strive to cure'.
['MS. L. (a').]]
[Footnote xii:
'Fish in the woods and wild-boars in the waves'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote xiii:
'For Coat and waistcoat Slowshears is your man, But Breeches claim another Artisan; Now this to me I own seems much the same As one leg perfect and the other lame'.
['MSS. M., L. (a').]
'Sweitzer is your man'.
[MS. M. 'erased'.]]
[Footnote xiv:
'Him who hath sense to make a skilful choice Nor lucid Order, nor the Siren Voice Of Eloquence shall shun, and Wit and Grace (Or I'm deceived) shall aid him in the Race: These too will teach him to defer or join To future parts the now omitted line: This shall the Author like or that reject, Sparing in words and cautious to select: Nor slight applause will candid pens afford To him who well compounds a wanting word, And if, by chance, 'tis needful to produce Some term long laid and obsolete in use'.--
['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b'). 'The last line partly erased.']
[Footnote xv:
'The dextrous Coiner of a' wanting 'word'.--
['Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xvi:
'Adroitly grafted.'
['Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xvii:
'Since they enriched our language in their time In modern speeches or Black letter rhyme.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xviii:
'Though at a Monarch's nod, and Traffic's call Reluctant rivers deviate to Canal'.
['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b').]]
[Footnote xix:
'marshes dried, sustain'.
['Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xx:
'Thus--future years dead volumes shall revive'.
['Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xxi:
'As Custom fluctuates whose Iron Sway Though ever changing Mortals must obey'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote xxii:
'To mark the Majesty of Epic song'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote xxiii:
'But which is preferable rhyme or blank Which holds in poesy'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]
[Footnote xxiv:
--'ventures to appear.--'
['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]
[Footnote xxv:
'And Harry Monmouth, till the scenes require, Resigns heroics to his sceptred Sire.'
['MS. L'. (a).]]
[Footnote xxvi:
'To "hollaing Hotspur" and the sceptred sire.'--
['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xxvii:
'Dull as an Opera, I should sleep or sneer.'
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote xxviii:
'And for Emotion's aid 'tis said and sung'.
['MS. L, (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxix:
'or form a plot'.
['Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote xxx:
'Whate'er the critic says or poet sings 'Tis no slight task to write on common things'.
['MS. L. (a).']]
[Footnote xxxi:
'Ere o'er our heads your Muse's Thunder rolls.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxxii:
'Earth, Heaven and Hell, are shaken with the Song.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxxiii:
'Through deeds we know not, though already done,'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxxiv:
'What soothes the people's, Peer's, and Critic's ear.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxxv:
'And Vice buds forth developed with his Teens.'
[MS. M.]]
[Footnote xxxvi:
'The beardless Tyro freed at length from school.
[MSS. L. (b), M. erased'.]
'And blushing Birch disdains all College rule.
[MS. M. erased'.]
'And dreaded Birch.
[MS. L.' (a' and 'b').]]
[Footnote xxxvii:
'Unlucky Tavell! damned to daily cares By pugilistic Freshmen, and by Bears.'
['MS. M. erased'.]]
[Footnote xxxviii:
'Ready to quit whatever he loved before, Constant to nought, save hazard and a whore.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xxxix:
'The better years of youth he wastes away.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xl:
'Master of Arts, as all the Clubs proclaim.'
['MS. L. (b)'.]]
[Footnote xli:
'Scrapes wealth, o'er Grandam's endless jointure grieves.'
['MS. erased'.]
'O'er Grandam's mortgage, or young hopeful's debts.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
'O'er Uncle's mortgage.'
['MS. L. (b)'.]]
[Footnote xlii:
'Your plot is told or acted more or less.'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote xliii:
'To greater sympathy our feelings rise When what is done is done before our eyes.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xliv:
'Appalls an audience with the work of Death-- To gaze when Hubert simply threats to sere.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xlv:
'Nor call a Ghost, unless some cursed hitch Requires a trapdoor Goblin or a Witch.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xlvi:
'This comes from Commerce with our foreign friends These are the precious fruits Ausonia sends.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote xlvii:
'Our Giant Capital where streets still spread Where once our simpler sins were bred.'
['MS. L. (a).']
'Our fields where once the rustic earned his bread.'
['MS. L. (b)'.]]
[Footnote xlviii:
'Aches with the Orchestra he pays to hear.
[MS. M.']]
[Footnote xlix:
'Scarce kept awake by roaring out encore.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote l:
'Ere theatres were built and reverend clerks Wrote plays as some old book remarks.'
[MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote li:
'Who did what Vestris--yet, at least,--cannot, And cut his kingly capers "Sans culotte."'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote lii:
'Who yet squeaks on nor fears to be forgot If good Earl Grosvenor supersede them not'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]
'Who still frisk on with feats so vastly low 'Tis strange Earl Grosvenor suffers such a show'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote liii:
'Suppressing Peer! to whom all vice gives place, Save Gambling--for his Lordship loves a Race'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote liv:
'Hobhouse, since we have roved through Eastern climes, While all the Ægean echoed to our rhymes, And bound to Momus by some pagan spell Laughed, sang and quaffed to "Vive la Bagatelle!'"--
['MS. L'. ('a').]
'Hobhouse, with whom once more I hope to sit And smile at what our Stage retails for wit. Since few, I know, enjoy a laugh so well Sardonic slave to "Vive la Bagatelle" So that in your's like Pagan Plato's bed They'll find some book of Epigrams when dead'.
['MS. L'. ('b').]]
[Footnote lv:
'My wayward Spirit weakly yields to gloom, But thine will waft thee lightly to the Tomb, So that in thine, like Pagan Plato's, bed They'll find some Manuscript of Mimes, when dead'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote lvi:
'And spite of Methodism and Collier's curse'.
['MS. M'.]
'He who's seduced by plays must be a fool'
'If boys want teaching let them stay at school'.
[MS. L. (a).]]
[Footnote lvii:
'Whom Nature guides so writes that he who sees Enraptured thinks to do the same with ease'.
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote lviii:
'But after toil-inked thumbs and bitten nails Scratched head, ten quires--the easy scribbler fails'.--
['MS. L'. ('a').]
[Footnote lix:
'The one too rustic, t'other too refined'.
['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]
[Footnotes lx:
'Offensive most to men with house and land Possessed of Pedigree and bloody hand'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
Footnote lxi:
'Composed for any but the lightest strain'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
Footnote lxii:
'And must I then my'--
['MS.L'. ('a').]
[Footnote lxiii:
'Ye who require Improvement'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote lxiv:
'And Tragedy, whatever stuff he spoke Now wants high heels, long sword and velvet cloak'.--
['MS. L'. ('a') 'erased'.]]
[Footnote lxv:
'Curtail or silence the offensive jest'.
['MS. M'.]
'Curtail the personal or smutty jest'.
['MS. L'. ('a') 'erased'.]]
[Footnote lxvi:
'Overthrow whole books with all their hosts of faults'.--
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnotes lxvii:
'So that not Hellebore with all its juice'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote lxviii:
'I'll act instead of whetstone--blunted, but Of use to make another's razor cut'.
['MS. L.' ('a').]]
[Footnote lxix:
'From Horace show the better arts of song'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote lxx:
'To Trade, but gave their hours to arms and arts'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]
'With traffic'.
['MS. L'. ('b').]]
[Footnote lxxi:
'Babe of old Thelusson' [A]----.
['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]
[Sub-Footnote A: [Peter Isaac Thellusson, banker (died July 21, 1797), by his will directed that his property should accumulate for the benefit of the unborn heir of an unborn grandson. The will was, finally, upheld, but, meanwhile, on July 28, 1800, an act (39 and 40 Geo. III.c.98) was passed limiting such executory devises.]]
[Footnote lxxii:
'A groat--ah bravo! Dick's the boy for sums He'll swell my fifty thousand into plums'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]
[Footnote lxxiii:
'Are idle dogs and (damn them!) always poor'.--
['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]
[Footnote lxxiv:
'Unlike Potosi holds no silver mine'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]
'Keeps back his ingots like'} 'Is rather costive--like' } 'an Irish Mine'. 'Is no Potosi, but' }
['MS. L'. ('b').]]
[Footnote lxxv:
'Write but recite not, e'en Apollo's song Mouthed in a mortal ear would seem too long, Long as the last year of a lingering lease, When Revel pauses until Rents increase'.
['MS. M. erased'.]]
[Footnote lxxvi:
'To finish all'.
['MS. L'. ('b').]
'That Bard the mask will fit'.
['MS. L'. ('b').]]
[Footnote lxxvii:
'Revenge defeats its object in the dark And pistols (courage bullies!) miss their mark.'
['MS. L. (a).']
And pistols (courage duellists!) miss their mark.
['MS. L. (b)'.]]
[Footnote lxxviii:
'Though much displeased.'
['MS. L. (a and b)'.]]
[Footnote lxxix:
'The scrutiny.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote lxxx:
'Oh ye aspiring youths whom fate or choice.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
[Footnote lxxxi:
'All are not Erskines who adorn the bar.'
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote lxxxii:
'With very middling verses to offend The Devil and Jeffrey grant but to a friend.'
['MS. L. (a).']
'Though what "Gods, men, and columns" interdict, The Devil and Jeffrey [A] pardon--in a Pict.'
['MS. M.']]
[Sub-Footnote A: "The Devil and Jeffrey are here placed antithetically to gods and men, such being their usual position, and their due one--according to the facetious saying, 'If God won't take you, the Devil must;' and I am sure no one durst object to his taking the poetry, which, rejected by Horace, is accepted by Jeffrey. That these gentlemen are in some cases kinder,--the one to countrymen, and the other from his odd propensity to prefer evil to good,--than the 'gods, men, and columns' of Horace, may be seen by a reference to the review of Campbell's 'Gertrude of Wyoming'; and in No. 31 of the 'Edinburgh Review' (given to me the other day by the captain of an English frigate off Salamis), there is a similar concession to the mediocrity of Jamie Graham's 'British Georgics'. It is fortunate for Campbell, that his fame neither depends on his last poem, nor the puff of the 'Edinburgh Review'. The catalogues of our English are also less fastidious than the pillars of the Roman librarians. A word more with the author of 'Gertrude of Wyoming'. At the end of a poem, and even of a couplet, we have generally 'that unmeaning thing we call a thought;' so Mr. Campbell concludes with a thought in such a manner as to fulfil the whole of Pope's prescription, and be as 'unmeaning' as the best of his brethren:--
'Because I may not 'stain' with grief The death-song of an Indian chief.'
"When I was in the fifth form, I carried to my master the translation of a chorus in Prometheus, wherein was a pestilent expression about 'staining a voice,' which met with no quarter. Little did I think that Mr. Campbell would have adopted my fifth form 'sublime'--at least in so conspicuous a situation. 'Sorrow' has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 'wet' (in sonnets), this many a day; and now it ''stains',' and stains a sound, of all feasible things! To be sure, death-songs might have been stained with that same grief to very good purpose, if Outalissi had clapped down his stanzas on wholesome paper for the 'Edinburgh Evening Post', or any other given hyperborean gazette; or if the said Outalissi had been troubled with the slightest second sight of his own notes embodied on the last proof of an overcharged quarto; but as he is supposed to have been an improvisatore on this occasion, and probably to the last tune he ever chanted in this world, it would have done him no discredit to have made his exit with a mouthful of common sense. Talking of ''staining'' (as Caleb Quotem says) 'puts me in mind' of a certain couplet, which Mr. Campbell will find in a writer for whom he, and his school, have no small contempt:--
'E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art--the art to 'blot'!'"
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote lxxxiii:
'And mustard rarely pleases in a pie.'
['MS. L. '(a).]]
[Footnote lxxxiv:
'At the Sessions'.
['MS. L.' (b), 'in pencil'.] ]
[Footnote lxxxv: Lines 647-650--
Whose character contains no glaring fault... Shall I, I say.
[MS. L. (a).]]
[Footnote lxxxvi: After 660--
'But why this hint-what author e'er could stop His poems' progress in a Grocers shop.'
['MS. L. (a).'] ]
[Footnote lxxxvii:
'As lame as I am, but a better bard.'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote lxxxviii:
'Apollo's song the fate of men foretold.'
['MS. L. (a).']]
[Footnote lxxxix:
'Have studied with a Master day and night'.
['MS. L. (a, b).']]
[Footnote xc:
'They storm Bolt Court, they publish one and all'.--
['MS. M. erased.']]
[Footnote xci:
'Rogers played this prank'.
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote xcii:
'There see their sonnets first--but Spring--hot prest Beholds a Quarto--Tarts must tell the Rest.'
['MS. M. erased.']]
[Footnote xciii:
'To fuddled Esquires or to flippant Lords.'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote xciv:
'Till lo! that modern Midas of the swains-- Feels his ears lengthen--with the lengthening strains'.--
['MS. M. erased'.]]
[Footnote xcv:
'Adds a week's growth to his enormous ears'.
['MS. M. erased.']]
[Footnote xcvi:
'But what are these? Benefits might bind Some decent ties about a manly mind'.
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote xcvii:
'Our modern sceptics can no more allow.'
['MS. L. (a).']]
[Footnote xcviii:
'Some rhyming peer--Carlisle or Carysfort.'[A]
['MS. M.']]
[Sub-Footnote A: [To variant ii. (p. 444) (this footnote) is subjoined this note:
"Of 'John Joshua, Earl of Carysfort,' I know nothing at present, but from an advertisement in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by his Lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morea. Being a rhymer himself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the close of that couplet; and as for what follows and goes before, let him place it to the account of the other Thane; since I cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con the contents of his 'foolscap crown octavos.'"
[John Joshua Proby, first Earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-general in 1805, envoy to Berlin in 1806, and ambassador to Petersburgh in 1807. Besides his poems ('Dramatic and Miscellaneous Works', 1810), he published two pamphlets (1780,1783), to show the necessity of universal suffrage and short parliaments. He died in 1828.]]
[Footnote xcix:
'Hoarse with bepraising, and half choaked with lies, Sweat on his brow and tear drops in his eyes.'
['MS. L. (a).']]
[Footnote c:
'Then sits again, then shakes his piteous head As if the Vicar were already dead.'
['MS. L. (a).']]
[Footnote ci:
'But if you're too conceited to amend.'
['MS. L. (a).]']
[Footnote cii:
'On pain of suffering from their pen or tongues.'
['MS. M. erased.']
'--fly Fitzgerald's lungs.'
['MS. M.']]
[Footnote ciii:
'Ah when Bards mouth! how sympathetic Time Stagnates, and Hours stand still to hear their rhyme.'
['MS. M. erased'.]]
[Footnote civ:
'Besides how know ye? that he did not fling Himself there--for the humour of the thing.'
['MS. M'.]]
[Footnote cv:
'Small thanks, unwelcome life he quickly leaves; And raving poets--really should not lose.'
['MS. M'.]
[Footnote cvi:
'Nor is it clearly understood that verse Has not been given the poet for a curse; Perhaps he sent the parson's pig to pound, Or got a child on consecrated ground; But, be this as it may, his rhyming rage Exceeds a Bear who strives to break his cage. If free, all fly his versifying fit; The young, the old, the simpleton and wit.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]
THE CURSE OF MINERVA.
--"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."
_Aeneid_, lib. xii, 947, 948.
NOTE I.
In 'The Malediction of Minerva (New Monthly Magazine', vol. iii. p. 240) additional footnotes are appended
(1) to line 106, recording the obliteration of Lord Elgin's name, "which had been inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples," while that of Lady Elgin had been left untouched; and
(2) to line 196, giving quotations from pp. 158, 269, 419 of Eustace's 'Classical Tour in Italy'.
After line 130, which reads, "And well I know within that murky land" ('i.e'. Caledonia), the following apology for a hiatus was inserted:
"Here follows in the original certain lines which the editor has exercised his discretion by suppressing; inasmuch as they comprise national reflections which the bard's justifiable indignation has made him pour forth against a people which, if not universally of an amiable, is generally of a respectable character, and deserves not in this case to be censured 'en masse' for the faults of an individual."
NOTE II.
The text of 'The Curse of Minerva' is based on that of the quarto printed by T. Davison in 1813. With the exception of the variants, as noted, the text corresponds with the MS. in the possession of Lord Stanhope. Doubtless it represents Byron's final revision. The text of an edition of 'The Curse, etc'., Philadelphia, 1815, 8vo [printed by De Silver and Co.], was followed by Galignani (third edit., 1818, etc.). The same text is followed, but not invariably, in the selections printed by Hone in 1816 (111 lines); Wilson, 1818 (112 lines); and Knight and Lacy, 1824 (111 lines). It exhibits the following variants from the quarto of 1813:--
Line. Variant.
56.----'lands and main.' 81. 'Her helm was deep indented and her lance.' 94. 'Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around.' 102. 'That Hadrian----' 116. 'The last base brute----' 143. 'Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride.' 152. '----victors o'er the grave.' 162. '----Time shall tell the rest.' 199. 'Loath'd throughout life--scarce pardon'd in the dust.' 203. 'Erostratus and Elgin, etc.' 206. '----viler than the first. 222. 'Shall shake your usurpation to its base.' 233. 'While Lusitania----' 273. 'Then in the Senates----' 290. '----decorate his fall.'
The following variants may also be noted:--
Line. Variant. Publisher
1. 'Slow sinks now lovely, etc.' Hone
110. 'The Gothic monarch and the British----.' Wilson '----and his fit compeer.'
131. 'And well I know within that murky land. ... Dispatched her reckoning children far and wide. Hone
And well I know, albeit afar, the land, Where starving Avarice keeps her chosen band; Or sends their hungry numbers eager forth. ... And aye accursed, etc.' Wilson
INTRODUCTION TO _THE CURSE OF MINERVA_
'The Curse of Minerva', which was written at Athens, and is dated March 17, 1811, remained unpublished, as a whole, in this country, during Byron's life-time. The arrangement which had been made with Cawthorn, to bring out a fifth edition of 'English Bards', included the issue of a separate volume, containing 'Hints from Horace' and 'The Curse of Minerva;' and, as Moore intimates, it was the withdrawal of the latter, in deference to the wishes of Lord Elgin or his connections, which led to the suppression of the other satires.
The quarto edition of The 'Curse of Minerva', printed by T. Davison in 1812, was probably set up at the same time as Murray's quarto edition of 'Childe Harold', and reserved for private circulation. With or without Byron's consent, the poem as a whole was published in Philadelphia by De Silver and Co., 1815, 8vo (for variants, see p. 453, 'note'). In a letter to Murray, March 6, 1816, he says that he "disowns" 'The Curse, etc.', "as stolen and published in a miserable and villainous copy in the magazine." The reference is to 'The Malediction of Minerva, or The Athenian Marble-Market', which appeared in the 'New Monthly Magazine' for April, 1818, vol. iii. 240. It numbers 111 lines, and is signed "Steropes" (The Lightner, a Cyclops). The text of the magazine, with the same additional footnotes, but under the title of 'The Curse', etc., was republished in the eighth edition of 'Poems on His Domestic Circumstances', W. Hone, London, 1816, 8vo, and, thenceforth, in other piratical issues. Whatever may have been his feelings or intentions in 1812, four years later Byron was well aware that 'The Curse of Minerva' would not increase his reputation as a poet, while the object of his satire--the exposure and denunciation of Lord Elgin--had been accomplished by the scathing stanzas (canto ii. 10-15), with their accompanying note, in 'Childe Harold'. "Disown" it as he might, his words were past recall, and both indictments stand in his name.
Byron was prejudiced against Elgin before he started on his tour. He had, perhaps, glanced at the splendid folio, 'Specimens of Ancient Sculpture', which was issued by the Dilettanti Society in 1809. Payne Knight wrote the preface, in which he maintains that the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon were not the actual work of Phidias, "but ... architectural studies ... probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists." So judged the leader of the 'cognoscenti', and, in accordance with his views, Elgin and Aberdeen are held up to ridicule in 'English Bards' (second edition, October, 1809, 1. 1007, and 'note') as credulous and extravagant collectors of "maimed antiques." It was, however, not till the first visit to Athens (December, 1809-March, 1810), when he saw with his own eyes the "ravages of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers" (Lord Broughton's 'Travels in Albania', 1858, i. 259), that contempt gave way to indignation, and his wrath found vent in the pages of 'Childe Harold'.
Byron cared as little for ancient buildings as he did for the authorities, or for patriotic enterprise, but he was stirred to the quick by the marks of fresh and, as he was led to believe, wanton injury to "Athena's poor remains." The southern side of the half-wrecked Parthenon had been deprived of its remaining metopes, which had suffered far less from the weather than the other sides which are still in the building; all that remained of the frieze had been stripped from the three sides of the cella, and the eastern pediment had been despoiled of its diminished and mutilated, but still splendid, group of figures; and, though five or six years had gone by, the blank spaces between the triglyphs must have revealed their recent exposure to the light, and the shattered edges of the cornice, which here and there had been raised and demolished to permit the dislodgment of the metopes, must have caught the eye as they sparkled in the sun. Nor had the removal and deportation of friezes and statues come to an end. The firman which Dr. Hunt, the chaplain to the embassy, had obtained in 1801, which empowered Elgin and his agents to take away 'qualche pezzi di pietra', still ran, and Don Tita Lusieri, the Italian artist, who remained in Elgin's service, was still, like the 'canes venatici' (Americané, "smell-dogs") employed by Verres in Sicily (see 'Childe Harold', canto ii. st. 12, 'note'), finding fresh relics, and still bewailing to sympathetic travellers the hard fate which compelled him to despoil the temples 'malgré lui'. The feelings of the inhabitants themselves were not much in question, but their opinions were quoted for and against the removal of the marbles. Elgin's secretary and prime agent, W.R. Hamilton, testifies, from personal knowledge, that, "so far from exciting any unpleasant sensations, the people seemed to feel it as the means of bringing foreigners into the country, and of having money spent there" ('Memoir on the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece', 1811). On the other hand, the traveller, Edward Daniel Clarke, with whom Byron corresponded (see 'Childe Harold', canto ii. st. 12, 'note'), speaks of the attachment of the Turks to the Parthenon, and their religious veneration for the building as a mosque, and tells a pathetic story of the grief of the Disdar when "a metope was lowered, and the adjacent masonry scattered its white fragments with thundering noise among the ruins" ('Travels in Various Countries',