The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 90

Both publishers eagerly accepted the proposal."

"A severe and unjust review of 'Marmion' by Jeffrey appeared in [the 'Edinburgh Review' for April] 1808, accusing Scott of a mercenary spirit in writing for money. ... Scott was much nettled by these observations."

('Memoirs of John Murray', i. 76, 95). In his diary of 1813 Byron wrote of Scott,

"He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parna.s.sus, and the most 'English' of Bards."

'Life', p. 206.]]

[Footnote 23: It was the suggestion of the Countess of Dalkeith, that Scott should write a ballad on the old border legend of 'Gilpin Horner', which first gave shape to the poet's ideas, and led to the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'.]

[Footnote 24: In his strictures on Scott and Southey, Byron takes his lead from Lady Anne Hamilton's (1766-1846, daughter of Archibald, ninth Duke of Hamilton, and Lady-in-waiting to Caroline of Brunswick) 'Epics of the Ton' (1807), a work which has not shared the dubious celebrity of her 'Secret Memories of the Court', etc. (1832). Compare the following lines (p. 9):--

"Then still might Southey sing his crazy Joan, Or feign a Welshman o'er the Atlantic flown, Or tell of Thalaba the wondrous matter, Or with clown Wordsworth, chatter, chatter, chatter.

Good-natured Scott rehea.r.s.e, in well-paid lays, The marv'lous chiefs and elves of other days."

(For Scott's reference to "my share of flagellation among my betters,"

and an explicit statement that he had remonstrated with Jeffrey against the "offensive criticism" of 'Hours of Idleness', because he thought it treated with undue severity, see Introduction to 'Marmion', 1830.)]]

[Footnote 25: Lines 179, 180, in the Fifth Edition, were subst.i.tuted for variant i. p. 312.--'Leigh Hunt's annotated Copy of the Fourth Edition'.]

[Footnote 26: "Good night to Marmion"--the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.]

[Footnote 27: As the 'Odyssey' is so closely connected with the story of the 'Iliad', they may almost be cla.s.sed as one grand historical poem. In alluding to Milton and Ta.s.so, we consider the 'Paradise Lost' and 'Gerusalemme Liberata' as their standard efforts; since neither the 'Jerusalem Conquered' of the Italian, nor the 'Paradise Regained' of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems.

Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive?]

[Footnote 28: 'Thalaba', Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. 'Joan of Arc' was marvellous enough, but 'Thalaba' was one of those poems "which," in the word of PORSON, "will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but--<>

[Footnote 29: The hero of Fielding's farce, 'The Tragedy of Tragedies', 'or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great', first played in 1730 at the Haymarket.]

[Footnote 30: Southey's 'Madoc' is divided into two parts--Part I., "Madoc in Wales;" Part II., "Madoc in Aztlan." The word "cacique"

("Cacique or cazique... a native chief or 'prince' of the aborigines in the West Indies:" 'New Engl. Dict'., Art. "Cacique") occurs in the translations of Spanish writers quoted by Southey in his notes, but not in the text of the poem.]

[Footnote 31: We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degraded t.i.tle of Epic." See his Preface. ["It a.s.sumes not the degraded t.i.tle of Epic."--Preface to 'Madoc' (1805), Southey's 'Poetical Works' (1838), vol. v. p. xxi.] Why is Epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late Romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole,[A] and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the Epic Muse; but, as Mr. SOUTHEY'S poem "disdains the appellation," allow us to ask--has he subst.i.tuted anything better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE in the quant.i.ty as well as quality of his verse?

[Sub-Footnote A: For "Hole," the 'MS'. and 'British Bards' read "Sir J.

B. Burgess; c.u.mberland."] ]

[Footnote 32: See 'The Old Woman of Berkeley', a ballad by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high trotting horse."]

[Footnote 33: The last line, "G.o.d help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the 'Anti-Jacobin' to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics:--

"G.o.d help thee, silly one!"

'Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin', p. 23.]

[Footnote 34: In the annotated copy of the Fourth Edition Byron has drawn a line down the margin of the pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sages from beginning to end.

"'Unjust'."--B., 1816. (See also Byron's letter to S. T. Coleridge, March 31, 1815.)]

[Footnote 35: 'Lyrical Ballads', p. 4.--"The Tables Turned," Stanza 1.

"Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks, Why all this toil and trouble?

Up, up, my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you'll grow double."]

[Footnote 36: 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 c.o.c.k did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo, And the sun did s.h.i.+ne so cold.'"

'Lyrical Ballads', p. 179. [Compare 'The Simpliciad', II. 295-305, and 'note'.]]

[Footnote 37: "He has not published for some years."--'British Bards'.

(A marginal note in pencil.) [Coleridge's 'Poems' (3rd edit.) appeared in 1803; the first number of 'The Friend' on June 1, 1809.]]

[Footnote 38: COLERIDGE'S 'Poems', p. 11, "Songs of the Pixies," 'i. e.'

Devons.h.i.+re Fairies; p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady;" and, p. 52, "Lines to a Young a.s.s." [Compare 'The Simpliciad', ll. 211, 213--

"Then in despite of scornful Folly's pother, Ask him to live with you and hail him brother."]]

[Footnote 39: Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), known as "Monk" Lewis, was the son of a rich Jamaica planter. During a six months' visit to Weimar (1792-3), when he was introduced to Goethe, he applied himself to the study of German literature, especially novels and the drama. In 1794 he was appointed 'attache' to the Emba.s.sy 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'. In the same year he published the 'Castle Spectre' (first played at Drury Lane, Dec. 14, 1797), in which, to quote the postscript "To the Reader," he meant (but Sheridan interposed) "to have exhibited a whole regiment of Ghosts." 'Tales of Terror' were printed at Weybridge in 1801, and two or three editions of 'Tales of Wonder', to which Byron refers, came out in the same year. Lewis borrowed so freely from all sources that the collection was called "Tales of Plunder." In the first edition (two vols., printed by W. Bulmer for the author, 1801) the first eighteen poems, with the exception of 'The Fire King' (xii.) by Walter Scott, are by Lewis, either original or translated. Scott also contributed 'Glenfinlas, The Eve of St. John, Frederick and Alice, The Wild Huntsmen (Der Wilde Jager). Southey contributed six poems, including 'The Old Woman of Berkeley' (xxiv.). 'The Little Grey Man' (xix.) is by H.

Bunbury. The second volume is made up from Burns, Gray, Parnell, Glover, Percy's 'Reliques', and other sources.

A second edition, published in 1801, which consists of thirty-two ballads (Southey's are not included), advertises "'Tales of Terror'

printed uniform with this edition of 'Tales of Wonder'." 'Romantic Tales', in four volumes, appeared in 1808. Of his other works, 'The Captive, A Monodrama', was played in 1803; the 'Bravo of Venice, A Translation from the German', in 1804; and 'Timour the Tartar' in 1811.

His 'Journal of a West Indian Proprietor' was not published till 1834.

He sat as M.P. for Hindon (1796-1802).

He had been a favourite in society before Byron appeared on the scene, but there is no record of any intimacy or acquaintance before 1813. When Byron was living at Geneva, Lewis visited the Maison Diodati in August, 1816, on which occasion he "translated to him Goethe's 'Faust' by word of mouth," and drew up a codicil to his will, witnessed by Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, and Polidori, which contained certain humane provisions for the well-being of the negroes on his Jamaica estates. He also visited him at 'La Mira' in August, 1817. Byron wrote of him after his death: "He was a good man, and a clever one, but he was a bore, a d.a.m.ned bore--one may say. But I liked him."