125.-Page 179, line 7. Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race! "Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals."-Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ii., p. 83. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; the breed is still in high perfection. 126.-Page 179, line 9. So lost to Phœbus, that nor Hodgson's verse This gentleman's name requires no praise: the man who in translation displays unquestionable genius may be well expected to excel in original composition, of which, it is to be hoped, we shall soon see a splendid specimen. [Besides a translation of Juvenal, Mr. Hodgson has published "Lady Jane Grey," "Sir Edgar," and "The Friends," a poem in four books. He also translated, in conjunction with Dr. Butler, Lucien Bonaparte's unreadable epic of "Charlemagne."] 127.-Page 179, line 10. Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson's worse. Hewson Clarke, Esq., as it is written. 128.-Page 179, line 16. And modern Britons glory in their sires. The "Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem, by Richards. [The Rev. George Richards, D.D., has also sent from the press "Songs of the Aboriginal Bards of Britain," "Modern France," two volumes of Miscellaneous Poems, and Bampton Lectures "On the Divine Origin of Prophecy."] 123.-Page 179, line 36. And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. [With this verse the satire originally ended.] 130.-Page 180, line 2. And old dame Portland fills the place of Pitt. A friend of mine being asked, why his Grace of Portland was likened to an old woman? replied, "he supposed it was because he was past bearing."-His Grace is now gathered to his grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as ever; but even his sleep was better than his colleagues' waking. 1811. Georgia. 131.-Page 180, line 7. Thence shall I stray through Leauty's native clime, 132.-Page 180, line 8. Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd with snows sublime. Mount Caucasus. 133-Page 180, line 9. But should I back return, no tempting press [These four lines originally stood, "But should I back return, no letter'd sage Shall drag my common-place book on the stage; 134.-Page 180, line 13. Let Aberdeen and Elgin still pursue Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stoneshop, are the work of Phidias! "Credat Judæus!" 135.--Page 180, line 20. I leave topography to rapid [The epithet in the original MS. was "coxcomb," but becoming acquainted with Gell while the satire was in the press, Lord Byron changed it to "classic." In the fifth edition he altered it to "rapid," and appended this note:-"Rapid,' indeed! He topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it."] 136.-Page 180, line 20. Mr. Gell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr. Gell conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display.-[" Since seeing the plain of Troy, my opinions are somewhat changed as to the above note. Gell's survey was hasty and superficial."--B., 1816. Shortly after his return from Greece, in 1811, Lord Byron wrote a critique on Sir William Gell's works for the Monthly Review.] * Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming with due decorations, graphical, topographical, typographical) deposed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit, that Mr. Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of the "Stranger in Ireland."- Oh, fie, my lord! has your lordship no more feeling for a fellow-tourist?-but " two of a trade," they say, &c. [From the many tours he made, Sir John was called "The Jaunting Car," A wicked wit having severely lashed him in a publication called "My Pocket Book; or, Hints for a Ryght Merrie and Conceited Tour," he brought an action of damages against the publisher; but as the court deemed the work legitimate criticism, the knight was nonsuited. Edward Dubois, Esq., the author of this pleasant satire, has also published "The Wreath," consisting of translations from Sapphe, Bion, and Moschus, "Old Nick," a satirical story, and an edition of the Decamerou of Boccaccio.] VOL. 1. P 137.-Page 180, line 22. To stun the public ear-at least with prose. [Lord Byron set out on his travels with the determination to keep no journal.] 138.-Page 180, line 31. Unscared by all the din of Melbourne huse, "Singular enough, and din enough, God knows."-B., 1816.] 139.-Page 181, line 16. Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. ["The greater part of this satire I most sincerely wish had never been written-not only on account of the injustice of much of the critical, and some of the personal part of it--but the tone and temper are such as I cannot approve."-BYRON. July 14, 1816. Diodati, Geneva.] HINTS FROM HORACE : "AD BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE PISONES, DE ARTE POETICA," AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISHI BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS." -"Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." HOR. De Arte Poet. FIELDING'S Amelia. "Rhymes are difficult things-they are stubborn things, sir." INTRODUCTION TO HINTS FROM HORACE. -- To translate Horace has hitherto proved an impracticable task. It is comparatively easy to transfer the majestic declamations of Juvenal; but the Horatian satire is cast in a mould of such exquisite delicacyuniting perfect ease with perfect elegance--that no version has at all preserved the lively graces of the original. Notwithstanding some brilliant passages in Pope's and Swift's Imitations, there was little temptation to repeat even that less difficult experiment. A happy adaptation of a modern example to the ancient text could only be fully appreciated by the scholar, and was dearly purchased by the many forced and feeble parallels with which it was conjoined. Lord Byron, who ran a free race with such majestic bounds, moved with a halting gait when he attempted to tread in the footsteps of a precursor. His own opinion was the other way; for estimating the merit by the difficulty of the performance, he rated the "Hints from Horace" extravagantly high. That he forebore to publish them after the success of Childe Harold was from no mistrust of their value, but from feeling, as he states, that he should be "heaping coals of fire upon his head" if he were to put forth a sequel to his juvenile lampoon. He could no longer lift his hand against men who had grasped it in friendship, nor retain in an hour of triumph that literary bitterness which had been mainly excited by the mortification of failure. Nine years afterwards he resolved to print the work with some omissions, and gravely maintained that it excelled the productions of his mature genius. "As far," he said, "as versification goes it is good; and on looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times." The opinion of Mr. Hobhouse that the "Hints" would require "a good deal of slashing" to adapt them to the passing hour, again led Lord Byron to suspend the publication, and the satire first saw the light in 1831, seven years after the author's death. No part of the poem is much above mediocrity, and not a little is below it. The versification, which Lord Byron singles out for praise, has no distinguishing excellence, and was surpassed by his later iambics in every metrical quality,-in majesty, in melody, in freedom, and in spirit. Authors are frequently as bad judges of their own works as men in general are, proverbially, in their own cause, and of all the literary hallucinations upon record there are none which exceed the mistaken preferences of Lord Byron. Shortly after the appearance of "The Corsair" he fancied that "English Bards" was still his masterpiece; when all his greatest works had been produced, he contended that his translation from Pulci was his "grand performance,-the best thing he ever did in his life;" and throughout the whole of his literary career he regarded these "Hints from Horace" with the fondness which parents are said to feel for their least favoured offspring. |