ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. A SATIRE. "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."-SHAKSPEARE. PREFACE. ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I an not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or with out arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better. As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I nave endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal. In the first edition of this satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowle'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 publish with my name any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.† Sir John Hobhouse, Bart. The preface, up to this point, was written for the second edition. The preface to the first edition commenced with what follows. With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are over-rated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution the more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger; and, in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared that nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming.-As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require an Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds in merely "bruising one of the heads of the serpent," though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied. ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.* STILL must I hear ?t-shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse? Oh! nature's noblest gift--my gray goose-quill! When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, Written at Newstead in 1805. + IMIT. "Semper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ?"-Juv. Sat. I.-B. I Mr Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts 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.-B. § Cid Hamet Benengell promises repose to his pen, in the last chapter of Don Quixotte. Oh! that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli.-B. E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, And shrink from ridicule, though not from law. Such is the force of wit! but not belong I too can scrawl, and once upon a time The self-same road, but make my own review: A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade And shall we own such judgment? no-as soon Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Or any other thing that's false, before You trust in critics, who themselves are sore; Or yield one single thought to be misled *This ingenuous youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, ir Another place.-B. In the Edinburgh Review.-B. By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Boeotian head.* Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er And, rear'd by taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew. Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain; And raised the people's, as the poet's fame. Like him great Dryden pour'd the tide of song, In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's melt-†† No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now. The loaded press beneath her labour groans, Messrs Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the first and the last of the Edinburgh Review; the others are mentioned hereafter.-B. †IMIT. "Stulta est Clementia, cum tot ubique IMIT. occurras perituræ parcere chart."-Juv. Sat 1.-B. "Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo Per quem magnus equos Aurunca flexit alumnus: Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam."-Juv. Sat. 1.-h SWilliam Gifford, founder and first editor of the Quarterly Review, and author of the Baviad, the Mæviad, &c. Poet Laureate from 1790 till 1813. William Congreve, author of Love for Love," "The Mourning Bride," &c it Thomas Otway, author of "The Orphan," "Venice Preserved," &c. |