Chapter 27

[Footnote 61: Mr. Southey has lately tied another canister to his tail in 'The Curse of Kehama', maugre the neglect of 'Madoc', etc., and has in one instance had a wonderful effect. A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of "one in jeopardy:" he rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on butter-milk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel-spear and a landing net, and at last ('horresco referens') pulled out--his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. Its "alacrity of sinking" was so great, that it has never since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry premises, Cornhill. Be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of "'Felo de bibliopolâ'" against a "quarto unknown;" and circumstantial evidence being since strong against 'The Curse of Kehama' (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in Grub-street--Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the bell-man of St. Sepulchre's.

The same advocates, pro and con, will be employed as are now engaged in Sir F. Burdett's celebrated cause in the Scotch courts. The public anxiously await the result, and all 'live' publishers will be subpoenaed as witnesses.--But Mr. Southey has published 'The Curse of Kehama',--an inviting title to quibblers. By the bye, it is a good deal beneath Scott and Campbell, and not much above Southey, to allow the booby Ballantyne to entitle them, in the 'Edinburgh Annual Register' (of which, by the bye, Southey is editor) "the grand poetical triumvirate of the day." But, on second thoughts, it can be no great degree of praise to be the one-eyed leaders of the blind, though they might as well keep to themselves "Scott's thirty thousand copies sold," which must sadly discomfort poor Southey's unsaleables. Poor Southey, it should seem, is the "Lepidus" of this poetical triumvirate. I am only surprised to see him in such good company.

"Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil 'he' came there."

The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition of Euclid:--

"Because, in the triangles D B C, A C B; D B is equal to A C; and B C common to both; the two sides D B, B C, are equal to the two A C, C B, each to each, and the angle D B C is equal to the angle A C B: therefore, the base D C is equal to the base A B, and the triangle D B C (Mr. Southey) is equal to the triangle A C B, the less to the greater, which is absurd" etc.

The editor of the 'Edinburgh Register' will find the rest of the theorem hard by his stabling; he has only to cross the river; 'tis the first turnpike t' other side 'Pons Asinorum.'[A]

['The Curse of Kehama', by Robert Southey, was published 1810; 'Arthur, or The Northern Enchantment', by the Rev. Richard Hole, in 1789; 'Alfred', by Joseph Cottle, in 1801; 'Davideis`', by Abraham Cowley, in 1656; 'Richard the First', by Sir James Bland Surges, in 1801; 'Exodiad', by Sir J. Bland Surges and R. Cumberland, in 1808; 'Exodus', by Charles Hoyle, in 1802; 'Epigoniad', by W. Wilkie, D.D., in 1757; 'Calvary', by R. Cumberland, in 1792; 'Fall of Cambria', by Joseph Cottle, in 1809; 'Siege of Acre', by Hannah Cowley, in 1801; 'The Vision of Don Roderick', by Sir Walter Scott, in 1811; 'Tom Thumb the Great', by Henry Fielding, in 1730.

The 'Courier' of July 16, 1811, reports in full the first stage of the case Sir F. Burdett 'v.' William Scott ('vide supra'), which was brought before Lord Meadowbank as ordinary in the outer court. Jeffrey was counsel for the pursuer, who sought to recover a sum of £5000 lent under a bond. For the defence it was alleged that the money had been entrusted for a particular purpose, namely, the maintenance of an infant. Jeffrey denied the existence of any such claim, and maintained that whatever was scandalous or calumnious in the defence was absolutely untrue. The case, which was not included in the Scottish Law Reports, was probably settled out of court. Evidently the judge held that on technical grounds an action did not lie. Burdett's enemies were not slow in turning the scandal to account. (See a contemporary pamphlet, 'Adultery and Patriotism', London, 1811.)] ]

[Sub-Footnote A: This Latin has sorely puzzled the University of Edinburgh. Ballantyne said it meant the "Bridge of Berwick," but Southey claimed it as half English; Scott swore it was the "Brig o' Stirling:" he had just passed two King James's and a dozen Douglasses over it. At last it was decided by Jeffrey, that it meant nothing more nor less than the "counter of Archy Constable's shop."]

[Footnote 62: Voltaire's 'Pucelle' is not quite so immaculate as Mr. Southey's 'Joan of Arc', and yet I am afraid the Frenchman has both more truth and poetry too on his side--(they rarely go together)--than our patriotic minstrel, whose first essay was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, whose title of witch would be correct with the change of the first letter.]

[Footnote 63: Like Sir Bland Burges's 'Richard'; the tenth book of which I read at Malta, on a trunk of Eyre's, 19, Cockspur-street. If this be doubted, I shall buy a portmanteau to quote from.

[Sir James Bland Burges (1752-1824), who assumed, in 1821, the name of Lamb, married, as his first wife, the Hon. Elizabeth Noel, daughter of Lord Wentworth, and younger sister of Byron's mother-in-law, Lady Milbanke. He was called to the bar in 1777, and in the same year was appointed a Commissioner in Bankruptcy. In 1787 he was returned M.P. for the borough of Helleston; and from 1789 to 1795 held office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1795, at the instance of his chief, Lord Grenville, he vacated his post, and by way of compensation was created a baronet with a sinecure post as Knight-Marshal of the Royal Household. Thenceforth he devoted himself to literature. In 1796 he wrote the 'Birth and Triumph of Love', by way of letter-press to some elegant designs of the Princess Elizabeth. (For 'Richard the First' and the 'Exodiad', see note, p. 436.) His plays, 'Riches and Tricks for Travellers', appeared in 1810, and there were other works. In spite of Wordsworth's testimony (Wordsworth signed, but Coleridge dictated and no doubt composed, the letter: see 'Thomas Poole and His Friends', ii. 27) "to a pure and unmixed vein of native English" in 'Richard the First (Bland-Burges Papers', 1885, p. 308), Burges as a poet awaits rediscovery. His diaries, portions of which were published in 1885, are lively and instructive. He has been immortalized in Person's Macaronics--

"Poetis nos lætamur tribus, Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus. Si ulterius ire pergis, Adde his Sir James Bland Burges!"]

[Footnote 64: [Charles Lamb, in "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago" (_Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 30), records his repeated visits, as a Blue Coat boy, "to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levée, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission."]

[Footnote 65: Lines 677, 678 are not in 'MS. L. (a)'.]

[Footnote 66: Lines 689-696 are not in 'MS. L. (a)' or 'MS. L. (b)'.]

[Footnote 67: 'MS. L.' ('a' and 'b') continue at line 758.]

[Footnote 68:

"Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, Gurgite cum medio portans OEagrius Hebrus, Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua; Ah, miseram Eurydicen! animâ fugiente vocabat; Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ."

'Georgic', iv. 523-527.]

[Footnote 69: I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; 'it' is a 'tailor', but begged Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta--psha!--of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to his country customers--Merry's "Moorfields whine" was nothing to all this. The "Delia Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession; but these Arcadians ("Arcades ambo"--bumpkins both) send out their native nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes and small-clothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures, and Pæans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shop-board, they describe the fields of battle, when the only blood they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced by the ninth part of a "poet;"

"And own that 'nine' such poets made a Tate."

Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if he did, why not take it as his motto?

['An Essay on War; Honington Green, a Ballad ... an Elegy and other Poems,' was published in 1803.]]

[Footnote 70: This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too (who once was wiser) has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of "Remains" utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; but the "tragedies" are as ricketty as if they had been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end; and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the least they have done: for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under the statute against "resurrection men." What does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort of éclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to provide for the child; now, might not some of this 'Sutor ultra Crepidaitis' friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription split into so many modicums!--"To the Duchess of Somuch, the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are," etc. etc.--why, this is doling out the "soft milk of dedication" in gills,--there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child, a book, and a dedication: send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil.

[For Robert Bloomfield, see 'English Bards', ll. 774-786, and note 2. For Joseph Blacket, see 'English Bards', ll. 765-770, and note 1. Blacket's 'Remains', with Life by Pratt, appeared in 1811. The work was dedicated "To Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author," etc.]]

[Footnote 71: Lines 737-758 are not in either of the three original MSS. of 'Hints from Horace', and were probably written in the autumn of 1811. They appear among a sheet of "alterations to 'English Bards, and S. Reviewers', continued with additions" ('MSS. L.'}, drawn up for the fifth edition, and they are inserted on a separate sheet in 'MS. M.' A second sheet ('MSS. L.') of "scraps of rhyme ... principally additions and corrections for 'English Bards', etc." (for the fifth edition), some of which are dated 1810, does not give the whole passage, but includes the following variants (erased) of lines 753-756:--

(i.)

"Then let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink, The dullest fattest weed on Lethe's brink. Down with that volume to the depths of hell! Oblivion seems rewarding it too well."

(ii.)

"Yet then thy quarto still may," etc.

A "Druid" (see 'English Bards', line 741) was Byron's name for a scribbler who wrote for his living. In 'MS. M.', "scribbler" has been erased, and "Druid" substituted. It is doubtful to whom the passage, in its final shape, was intended to apply, but it is possible that the erased lines, in which "ponderous quarto" stands for "lost songs," were aimed at Southey (see 'ante', line 657, 'note' 1).]

[Footnote 72: 'MS. L. (a)' recommences at line 758.]

[Footnote 73: Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the sole survivor, the "ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Cruscanti--"Edwin" the "profound" by our Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penultimate.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MORNING CHRONICLE."

"What reams of paper, floods of ink," Do some men spoil, who never think! And so perhaps you'll say of me, In which your readers may agree. Still I write on, and tell you why; Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, But may instruct or entertain Without the risk of giving pain, etc., etc.

ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS.

In tracing of the human mind Through all its various courses, Though strange, 'tis true, we often find It knows not its resources:

And men through life assume a part For which no talents they possess, Yet wonder that, with all their art, They meet no better with success, etc., etc.]

['A Familiar Epistle, etc.', by T. Vaughan, Esq., was published in the 'Morning Chronicle', October 7, 1811. Gifford, in the 'Baviad' (l. 350), speaks of "Edwin's mewlings," and in a note names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr. T. Vaughan." 'Love's Metamorphoses', by T. Vaughan, was played at Drury Lane, April 15, 1776. He also wrote 'The Hotel, or Double Valet', November 26, 1776, which Jephson rewrote under the title of 'The Servant with Two Masters.' Compare 'Children of Apollo', p. 49:--

"Jephson, who has no humour of his own, Thinks it no crime to borrow from the town; The farce (almost forgot) of 'The Hotel' Or 'Double Valet' seems to answer well. This and his own make 'Two Strings to his Bow'."]]

[Footnote 74: See Milton's 'Lycidas'.]

[Footnote 75: Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc.]

[Footnote 76:

"A crust for the critics."

'Bayes, in "the Rehearsal"' [act ii. sc. 2].

[Footnote 77: And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!"

[See 'English Bards', line 1 and 'note' 3.]]

[Footnote 78: Lines 813-816 not in 'MS. L. (a)' or 'MS. L. (b)'.]

[Footnote 79: On his table were found these words:--"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!

[Eustace Budgell (1686-1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape the dishonour which attached to him in connection with Dr. Tindal's will, and the immediate pressure of money difficulties. He was, more or less, insane.

"We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. I put the case of Eustace Budgell.

'Suppose, sir,' said I, 'that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society?'

JOHNSON. 'Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is 'not' known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he 'is' known.'"

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1886), p. 281.]]

[Footnote 80: If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.]

[Footnote i:

ATHENS, 'March 2nd, 1811'.

['MS. L.' (a).]

ATHENS, 'March 12th, 1811'.

['MS. L. (i), MS. M.']]

[Footnote ii:

'If [A] West or Lawrence, (take whichever you will) Sons of the Brush, supreme in graphic skill, Should clap a human head-piece on a mare, How would our Exhibition's loungers stare! Or should some dashing limner set to sale My Lady's likeness with a Mermaid's tail.'

['MS. L.' (a).]

'The features finished, should superbly deck My Lady's likeness with a Filly's neck; Or should some limner mad or maudlin group A Mermaid's tail and Maid of Honour's Hoop.'

['MS. L. '(b).] ]

[Sub-Footnote A: I have been obliged to dive into the "Bathos" for the simile, as I could not find a description of these Painters' merits above ground.

"Si liceat parvis Componere magna"--

"Like London's column pointing to the skies Like a 'tall Bully', lifts its head and lies"

I was in hopes might bear me out, if the monument be like a Bully. West's glory may be reduced by the scale of comparison. If not, let me have recourse to 'Tom Thumb the Great' [Fielding's farce, first played 1730] to keep my simile in countenance.--['MS. L. (b) erased]]

[Footnote iii: After line 6, the following lines (erased) were inserted:--

'Or patch a Mammoth up with wings and limbs, And fins of aught that flies or walks or swims'.

['MS. M'.]

Another variant ran--

'Or paint (astray from Truth and Nature led) A Judge with wings, a Statesman with a Head'!

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote iv:

'Believe me, Hobhouse'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote v:

'as we scribblers'.

['MSS. L'. ('a' and 'b'), 'MS. M'.]]

[Footnote vi:

'Like Wardle's'[A] 'speeches'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Sub-Footnote A: [Gwyllim Lloyd Wardle (1762-1834), who served in Ireland in 1798, as Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers, known as "Wynne's lambs," was M.P. for Okehampton 1807-12. In January, 1809, he brought forward a motion for a parliamentary investigation into the exercise of military patronage by the Duke of York, and the supposed influence of the Duke's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke.]]

[Footnote vii:

'As pertness lurks beneath a legal gown. And nonsense in a lofty note goes down'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

or,

'Which covers all things like a Prelate's gown'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

or,

'Which wraps presumption'.

['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote viii:

'As when the poet to description yields Of waters gliding through the goodly fields; The Groves of Granta and her Gothic Halls, Oxford and Christchurch, London and St. Pauls, Or with a ruder flight he feebly aims To paint a rainbow or the River Thames. Perhaps you draw a fir tree or a beech, But then a landscape is beyond your reach; Or, if that allegory please you not, Take this--you'ld form a vase, but make a pot'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote ix:

'Although you sketch a tree which Taste endures, Your ill-daubed Shipwreck shocks the Connoisseurs.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote x:

'The greater portion of the men of rhyme Parents and children or their Sires sublime'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xi:

'But change the malady they strive to cure'.

['MS. L. (a').]]

[Footnote xii:

'Fish in the woods and wild-boars in the waves'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xiii:

'For Coat and waistcoat Slowshears is your man, But Breeches claim another Artisan; Now this to me I own seems much the same As one leg perfect and the other lame'.

['MSS. M., L. (a').]

'Sweitzer is your man'.

[MS. M. 'erased'.]]

[Footnote xiv:

'Him who hath sense to make a skilful choice Nor lucid Order, nor the Siren Voice Of Eloquence shall shun, and Wit and Grace (Or I'm deceived) shall aid him in the Race: These too will teach him to defer or join To future parts the now omitted line: This shall the Author like or that reject, Sparing in words and cautious to select: Nor slight applause will candid pens afford To him who well compounds a wanting word, And if, by chance, 'tis needful to produce Some term long laid and obsolete in use'.--

['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b'). 'The last line partly erased.']

[Footnote xv:

'The dextrous Coiner of a' wanting 'word'.--

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xvi:

'Adroitly grafted.'

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xvii:

'Since they enriched our language in their time In modern speeches or Black letter rhyme.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xviii:

'Though at a Monarch's nod, and Traffic's call Reluctant rivers deviate to Canal'.

['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b').]]

[Footnote xix:

'marshes dried, sustain'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xx:

'Thus--future years dead volumes shall revive'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxi:

'As Custom fluctuates whose Iron Sway Though ever changing Mortals must obey'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xxii:

'To mark the Majesty of Epic song'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote xxiii:

'But which is preferable rhyme or blank Which holds in poesy'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]

[Footnote xxiv:

--'ventures to appear.--'

['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]

[Footnote xxv:

'And Harry Monmouth, till the scenes require, Resigns heroics to his sceptred Sire.'

['MS. L'. (a).]]

[Footnote xxvi:

'To "hollaing Hotspur" and the sceptred sire.'--

['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxvii:

'Dull as an Opera, I should sleep or sneer.'

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xxviii:

'And for Emotion's aid 'tis said and sung'.

['MS. L, (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxix:

'or form a plot'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxx:

'Whate'er the critic says or poet sings 'Tis no slight task to write on common things'.

['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote xxxi:

'Ere o'er our heads your Muse's Thunder rolls.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxii:

'Earth, Heaven and Hell, are shaken with the Song.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxiii:

'Through deeds we know not, though already done,'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxiv:

'What soothes the people's, Peer's, and Critic's ear.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxv:

'And Vice buds forth developed with his Teens.'

[MS. M.]]

[Footnote xxxvi:

'The beardless Tyro freed at length from school.

[MSS. L. (b), M. erased'.]

'And blushing Birch disdains all College rule.

[MS. M. erased'.]

'And dreaded Birch.

[MS. L.' (a' and 'b').]]

[Footnote xxxvii:

'Unlucky Tavell! damned to daily cares By pugilistic Freshmen, and by Bears.'

['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote xxxviii:

'Ready to quit whatever he loved before, Constant to nought, save hazard and a whore.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxix:

'The better years of youth he wastes away.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xl:

'Master of Arts, as all the Clubs proclaim.'

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote xli:

'Scrapes wealth, o'er Grandam's endless jointure grieves.'

['MS. erased'.]

'O'er Grandam's mortgage, or young hopeful's debts.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

'O'er Uncle's mortgage.'

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote xlii:

'Your plot is told or acted more or less.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote xliii:

'To greater sympathy our feelings rise When what is done is done before our eyes.'