“The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which
neither God nor man are said to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have seen a
quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact
standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or
below the level than if they were so much stagnant water. As an extenuation of this
offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in
the titlepage, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a
favourite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in
the preface; and the poems are connected with this general statement of his case by
particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now the law
upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available
only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of
action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord
Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain
quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable
that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver for
poetry the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minority; but as he now makes voluntary tender of the
article, he hath
| LORD BYRON | 45 |
“His other plea of privilege our author brings forward to waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remind us of Dr. Johnson’s saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron’s poems a place in our Review, besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account.
“With this view we must beg leave seriously to assure him,
that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence
of a certain number of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) these
feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted upon the fingers, is not the
whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a
| 46 | THE LIFE OF |
|
Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu;
Abroad or at home, your remembrance 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 fathers 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.
|
“Now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor’s volume.
“Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master’s) are odious. Gray’s Ode to Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas on a distant view of the village and school at Harrow.
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Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance
Of comrades in friendship or mischief allied,
How welcome to me your ne’er-fading 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
| LORD BYRON | 47 |
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Mild charity’s glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt
Where the virtue is felt.
And its dew is diffused in a tear.
|
|
The man doom’d to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o’er the wave,
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a tear.
|
“And so of instances in which former poets had failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his nonage, Adrian’s Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it.
|
Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav’ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay,
To what unknown region borne
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.
|
“However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and
imitations are great favourities 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
have had their day and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. 79 a
translation, where two words (θελο
λεγειν) of the original are expanded into four lines,
and the other thing in p. 81, where
μεσονυκτικις
ποθʹ ύραις is rendered by means of six
hobbling verses. As to his Ossian 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 criticis-
| 48 | THE LIFE OF |
“It is some sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should ‘use it as not abusing it’; and particularly one who piques himself (though, indeed, at the ripe age of nineteen) on being an infant bard—
The artless Helicon I boast is youth— |
“As the author has dedicated so large a part of his
volume to immortalize his employments at school and
| LORD BYRON | 49 |
“In an ode, with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas:—
|
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 Seale,
Or puzzles o’er the deep triangle,
Depriv’d of many a wholesome meal,
In barbarous Latin doomed to wrangle.
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Renouncing every pleasing page
From authors of historic use;
Preferring to the letter’d sage
The square of the hypotenuse.
Still harmless are these occupations,
That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared with other recreations
Which bring together the imprudent.
|
“We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college-psalmody, as is contained in the following attic stanzas
|
Our choir could scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused
To such a set of croaking sinners.
|
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If David, when his toils were ended,
Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
To us his psalms had ne’er descended—
In furious mood he would have tore ’em.
|
“But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this
noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content for they
are the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he says, but an intruder
into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets,
and though
| 50 | THE LIFE OF |
The criticism is ascribed to Mr. Francis Jeffrey, an eloquent member of the Scottish bar, and who was at that time supposed to be the editor of the Edinburgh Review. That it was neither just nor fair is sufficiently evident, by the degree of care and artificial point with which it has been drawn up. Had the poetry been as insignificant as the critic affected to consider it, it would have argued little for the judgment of Mr. Jeffrey, to take so much pains on a work which he considered worthless. But the world has no cause to repine at the severity of his strictures, for they unquestionably had the effect of kindling the indignation of Byron, and of instigating him to that retaliation which he so spiritedly inflicted in his satire of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
It is amusing to compare the respective literary reputation of the poet and
the critic, as they are estimated by the public, now that the one is dead, and the other
dormant. The voice of all the age acknowledges Byron to have
been the greatest poetical genius of his time. Mr.
Jeffrey, though still enjoying the renown of being a shrewd and intelligent
critic of
| LORD BYRON | 51 |
At the time when Byron published the satire alluded to, he had obtained no other distinction than the college reputation of being a clever, careless, dissipated student. But his dissipation was not intense, nor did it ever become habitual. He affected to be much more so than he was: his pretensions were moderated by constitutional incapacity. His health was not vigorous; and his delicacy defeated his endeavours to show that he inherited the recklessness of his father. He affected extravagance and eccentricity of conduct, without yielding much to the one, or practising a great deal of the other. He was seeking notoriety; and his attempts to obtain it gave more method to his pranks and follies than belonged to the results of natural impulse and passion. He evinced occasional instances of the generous spirit of youth; but there was in them more of ostentation than of that discrimination which dignifies kindness, and makes prodigality munificence. Nor were his attachments towards those with whom he preferred to associate, characterised by any nobler sentiment than self-indulgence; he was attached, more from the pleasure he himself received in their society, than from any reciprocal enjoyment they had with him. As he became a man of the world, his early friends dropped from him; although it is evident, by all the contemporary records of his feelings, that he cherished for them a kind, and even brotherly, affection. This secession, the common effect of the new cares, hopes, interests, and wishes, which young men feel on entering the world, Byron regarded as something analogous to desertion; and the notion tainted his mind, and irritated that hereditary sullenness of humour, which constituted an ingredient so remarkable in the composition of his more mature character.
| 52 | THE LIFE OF |
An anecdote of this period, characteristic of his eccentricity, and the means which he scrupled not to employ in indulging it, deserves to be mentioned.
In repairing Newstead Abbey, a skull was found in a secret niche of the walls. It might have been that of the monk who haunted the house, or of one of his own ancestors, or of some victim of the morose race. It was converted into a goblet, and used at Odin-like orgies. Though the affair was but a whim of youth, more odious than poetical, it caused some talk, and raised around the extravagant host the haze of a mystery, suggesting fantasies of irreligion and horror. The inscription on the cup is not remarkable either for point or poetry.
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Start not, nor deem my spot fled;
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
|
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I liv’d, I lov’d, I quaff’d like thee;
I died, but earth my bones resign:
Fill up—thou canst not injure me,
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
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Better to hold the sparkling grape
Than nurse the earth-worm’s slimy brood,
And circle in the goblet’s shape
The drink of gods than reptile’s food.
|
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Where once my wit perchance hath shone,
In aid of others let me shine;
And when, alas, our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?
|
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Quaff while thou canst—another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth’s embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
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Why not? since through life’s little day,
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem’d from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be use.
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