to Mr. Murray, "I once hoped to have laid my own." "There is," he adds, "a spot in the churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot; but as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body had better be deposited in the church; "—and it was so accordingly.} ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS: A SATIRE. "I had rather be a kitten, and ery mew! SHAKSPEARE. "Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true, PREFACE.* ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me no to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turne from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and pape bullets of the brain," I should have complied with thei counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied b reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I hav attacked none personally, who did not commence on th offensive. An author's works are public property: he wh purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate maj do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they wil succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mend ing their own. But my object is not to prove that I ca write well, but, if possible, to make others write better. As the poem has met with far more success than I expected I have endeavoured in this edition to make some addition 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 Bowles's Pope were writte by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend o mine,* who has now in the press a volume of poetry. I the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this bein *This preface was written for the second edition, and printed with it The noble author had left this country previous to the publication o that edition, and is not yet returned.-Note to the fourth edition, 1811."He is, and gone again."-B., 1816.] † [Mr. Hobhouse.] 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. 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 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 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. * [Here the preface to the first edition commenced.] |