Hare made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.

Give me again a faithful few,

In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist'rous joy is but a name.
And woman! lovely woman, thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall.
Without a sigh would I resign

This busy scene of splendid wo,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which virtue knows, or seems to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men-
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,

Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given

Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.*

STANZAS.*

I WOULD I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark-blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxont pride

Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound,
I hate the touch of servile hands,

I hate the slaves that cringe around.

Place me along the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;

I ask but this-again to rove

LINES+

WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD
OF HARROW ON THE HILL, SEPTEMBER 2, 1807.
SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm' beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine.
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,

Through scenes my youth hath known before. And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,

Few are my years, and yet I feel

The world was ne'er design'd for me:
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,

A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth!-wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?

I loved-but those I loved are gone;
Had friends-my early friends are fied:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,

When all its former hopes are dead?
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart is lonely still.

How dull to hear the voice of those

Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power,

• First published in the second edition of Hours of Idleness.

"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!"
When fate shall chill. at length, this fever'd breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest.
Oft have I thought 'twould soothe my dying hour,
If aught may soothe when life resigns ner power,
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell :
With this fond dream methinks 'twere sweet to die-
And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose;
For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade,
Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd;
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,
Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved;
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear,
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here;
Deplored by those, in early days allied,
And unremember'd by the world beside.

• Psalm iv. ver. 6.-" And I said, Oh! that I had wings like a dove; fon then would I fly away, and be at rest." This verse also constitutes a past

Baasenage, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or of the most beautiful anthem in our language. English.

† First published in the second edition of the Hours of Idleness.

CRITIQUE,

EXTRACTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, FOR JANUARY, 1808.

Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and however, does allude frequently to his family and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a ancestors-sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807. and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's

THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, which neither gods nor men are said to permit. his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity truth, it is this consideration only that induces us of verse with so few deviations in either direction to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, from that exact standard. His effusions are spread beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forth over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below with abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which the level, than if they were so much stagnant water are considerable, and his opportunities, which are As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author great, to better account. is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We With this view, we must beg leave seriously to have it in the titlepage, and on the very back of the assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final volume; it follows his name like a favorite part of syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the pre- a certain number of feet,-nay, although (which face; and the poems are connected with this general does not always happen) those feet should scan statement of his case, by particular dates, substan-regularly, and have been all counted accurately tiating the age at which each was written. Now, upon the fingers,-is not the whole art of poetry. the law upon the point of minority we hold to be We would entreat him to believe, that a certain perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necesdefendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplement- sary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the ary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be present day, to be read, must contain as least one brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of thought, either in a little degree different from the compelling him to put into court a certain quantity ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, We put it to his candor, whether there is any thing it is highly probable that an exception would be so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the taken, were he to deliver for poetry the contents of following, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth this volume. To this he might plead minority; of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it: 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 Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were better than these stanzas in the whole compass of written by a youth from his leaving school to his the noble minor's volume.

"Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing

From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu !
Abroad or at home, your remen brance imparting
New courage, he'll think upon glory and you.
"Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,
"Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret:
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation ;
The fame of his father's he ne'er can forget.
"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 he mingle his dust with your own."

leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting be the most common of all occurrences; that it what the greatest poets have done before him, for happens in the life of nine men in ten who are comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see educated in England; and that the tenth man at his writing-master's) are odious.-Gray's Ode on writes better verse than Lord Byron. Eton College should really have kept out the ten His other plea of privilege our author rather hobbling stanzas “On a distant View of the Village brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, 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-facing 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 clear;
Compassion will melt
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a
a Tear.

"The man doom'd to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlautic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave,

Which may soon be his grave,

[bard,"-("The artless Helicon I boast is youth') -should either not know, or should seem not te know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same had no intention of inserting it," but really "the subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly particular request of some friends," &c. &c. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learned that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle.

As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and at college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these And so of instances in which former poets had ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was called Granta, we have the following magnificent

The green sparkles bright with a Tear."

made for translating, during his nonage, "Adrian's stanzas:

Address to his Soul," when Pope succeeded so

indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, how

ever, are of another opinion, 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 humor gay,

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn."

"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."

"Our choir would hardly be excused
Even as a band of raw beginuers;
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 is psalms had ne'er descended:

In furious mood he would have tore 'em!"

However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favorites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them after they nave had their day and served their turn? And We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the why call the thing in p. 79* a translation, where college psalmody as is contained in the following two words (Jew λeyev) of the original are expanded Attic stanzas: into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81,† where μεσονυκτίαις ποθ' ώραις 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 But whatever judgment may be passed on the by his his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on them as we find them, and be content; for they are the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thoroughHe was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief" bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless some time, the bards conclude by giving him their mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, them on the arch of the rainbow;" and "to smile he expects no profit from his publication; and, through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbathing there are no less than nine pages; and we can ble, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that so far venture an opinion in their favor, that they he should again condescend to become an author. look very like Macpherson; and we are positive Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We

It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists: are well off to have got so much from a man of this but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but particularly one who piques himself (though indeed "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.

• See page 431.

↑ Page 431.

A FIFTH edition of the "English Bards and am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by review. Scotch Reviewers," in which Lord Byron intro-ers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I duced several alterations and corrections, was pre- have attacked none personally who did not compared in 1812, but was, at his desire, destroyed on mence on the offensive. An author's works are the eve of publication. One copy of this edition public property: he who purchases may judge, and alone escaped, from which the satire has been printed publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors in the present volume. The Author re-perused the I have endeavored to commemorate may do by me poem in the latter part of the summer in 1816, after as I have done by them: I dare say they will his final departure from England. He at that time succeed better in condemning my scribblings than But my object is not to also corrected the text in several places, and added in mending their own.

As the poem has met with far more success than

a few notes and observations in the margin, which prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make the reader will find inserted. On the blank leaf others write better. preceding the title page of the copy from which he read, Lord Byron has written-"The binding of I expected, I have endeavored in this edition to this volume is considerably too valuable for the make some additions and alterations, to render it contents; and nothing but the consideration of its more worthy of public perusal. being the property of another prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames."

PREFACE.t

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 ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged publish with my name any production which was me not to publish this satire with my name. If not entirely and exclusively my own composition. With regard to the real talents of many of the were to be "turned from the career of my humor by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," poetical persons whose performances are mentioned I should have complied with their counsel. But I or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of "pinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proseThis preface was written for the second edition, and printed with it. lytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults The noble author hadeft this country previous to the publication of that edi

I

In the original manuscript, the title was "THE BRITISH BARDS,

A SATIRE."

Lor, and is not yet returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811.

*

He is, and gone again. 1816.- MS. note by Lord Byron.

• The preface to the first edition began here.

overlooked, and his metrical canons received without | Inspires-our path, though full of horns, is plain scruple and without consideration. But the unques- Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain. tionable possession of considerable genius by several

of the writers here censured renders their mental When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway,
prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be Obey'd by all who nought beside obey;
pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; per- When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
verted powers demand the most decided reprehension. Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;
No one can wish more than the author that some When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail,
known and able writer had undertaken their expos- And weigh their justice in a golden scale;
ure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massin- E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
ger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
country practitioner may, in cases of absolute neces-More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
sity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided

there be no quackery in his treatment of the mal- Such is the force of wit! but not belong
ady. A caustic is here offered, as it is to be feared To me the arrows of satiric song;
nothing short of actual cautery can recover the The royal vices of our age demand
numerous patients afflicted with the present preva- A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
lent and distressing rabies for rhyming.-As to the Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase,
Edinburgh Reviewers-it would indeed require an And yield at least amusement in the race:
Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame.
succeeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of The cry is up, and scribblers are my game.
the serpent," though his own hand should suffer in
the encounter, he will be amply satisfied.

Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small,
Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all!

I too can scrawl, and once upon a time

I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme,

A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame;

I printed-older children do the same.

STILL must I hear?-shall hoarse Fitzgerald+ bawlt 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse?
Prepare for rhyme-I'll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Oh! nature's noblest gift-my gray goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen foredoom'd to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labor, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover's solace, and the author's pride.
What wits! what poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's§ shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream||

A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
Not that a title's sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This Lambe must own, since his patrician name
Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from shame.
No matter, George continues still to write,
Though now the name is veil'd from public sight
Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet, like him, will be
Self-constituted judge of poesy.

A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade
Save censure-critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

sheet:

• The first ninety-six lines were prefixed to the second edition: the original And shall we own such judgment? no as soon

opened with

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days,
Ignoble themes, &c.-Line 97.

Seek roses in December-ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;

↑ Hoarse Fitzgerald-Right enough; but why notice such a mante Believe a woman or an epitaph, Pank?-MS. note by Lord Byron.

IMITATION.

"Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam,
Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri?"

Juvenal, Satire I.

Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the Small Beer Poet," nflicts his annual tribute of verse on the "Literary 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.

§ Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh 1 that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli.

No eastern vision, no dištemper'd dream.-This must have been writ sen in the spirit of prophecy.-MS. note by Lord Byron.

Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore,
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey's heart or Lambe's Baotian head.§