FOOTNOTES
[1] That satire is primarily destructive criticism was asserted by Heinsius in a familiar passage quoted approvingly by Dryden in his Essay on Satire:—“Satire is a kind of poetry—in which human vices, ignorance, and errors, and all things besides, which are produced from them in every man, are severely reprehended.” The same theory is expressed by De Gubernatis in his Storia della Satira:—“La satira è, sovra ogni cosa, una negazione.”
[2] See Poetry, VII, 1.
[3] In the Preface to Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden is inclined to take pride in his fairness:—“I have but laughed at some men’s follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men’s virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes.”
[4] Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II., 212–217.
[5] See Chesterton’s Pope and the Art of Satire.
[6] Both methods are illustrated in a line of the Dunciad:—
“My H—ley’s periods, or my Blackmore’s numbers.”
[7] In the Dramatis Personæ of Absalom and Achitophel only two women appear, and they are spoken of in the poem in a complimentary way.
[8] Byron particularly emphasizes the correctness and moral tone of Pope: he is “the most perfect of our poets and the purest of our moralists” (Letters, v., 559); “his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious” (Letters, v., 555); “he is the only poet that never shocks” (Letters, v., 560).
[9] Gay’s Alexander Pope, his safe Return from Troy (1720) is interesting as being one of the rare examples of the use of the English octave stanza between Lycidas and Beppo.
[10] Letters, v., 252.
[11] In speaking of the art of rhyming to Trelawney, Byron said:—“If you are curious in these matters, look in Swift. I will send you a volume; he beats us all hollow, his rhymes are wonderful.”
[12] Cf. Swift’s The Puppet Show with Byron’s Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog.
[13] For a contemporary characterization of the unscrupulous satirists of the period see Cowper’s Charity, 501–532, in the passage beginning,
“Most satirists are indeed a public scourge.”
[14] Examples are The Thimble (1743) by William Hawkins (1722–1801) and the Scribleriad (1752) by Richard Owen Cambridge (1717–1802).
[15] State Dunces (1733) and The Gymnasiad (1738) by Paul Whitehead (1710–1744); The Toast (1736) by William King (1685–1763); and a succession of anonymous poems, The Battle of the Briefs (1752), Patriotism (1765), The Battle of the Wigs (1763), The Triumph of Dulness (1781), The Rape of the Faro-Bank (1797), and The Battle of the Bards (1799).
[16] The most important is Churchill’s Rosciad (1761), with the numerous replies which it elicited: the Churchilliad (1761), the Smithfield Rosciad (1761), the Anti-Rosciad (1761), by Thomas Morell (1703–1784), and The Rosciad of Covent Garden (1761) by H. J. Pye (1745–1813). Among other satires of the same class may be mentioned the Smartiad (1752) by Dr. John Hill (1710–1775), with its answer, the severe and effective Hilliad (1752) by Christopher Smart (1722–1771); the Meretriciad (1764) by Arthur Murphy (1727–1806); the Consuliad (1770), a fragment by Chatterton; the Diaboliad (1777), with its sequel, the Diabolady (1777) by William Combe (1741–1823); and finally the Criticisms on the Rolliad, Gifford’s Baviad and Mæviad, the Simpliciad, and the Alexandriad (1805).
[17] The Scandalizade (1750); The Pasquinade (1752) by William Kenrick (1725–1779); The Quackade (1752); The Booksellers (1766); The Art of Rising in the Church (1763) by James Scott (1733–1814); The Senators (1772); and The Tribunal (1787).
[18] A few typical controversial satires of this decade are: The Race (1762) by Cuthbert Shaw (1739–1771); The Tower (1763); The Demagogue (1764) by William Falconer (1732–1769); The Scourge (1765); and The Politician (1766) by E. B. Greene (1727–1788).
[19] Some characteristic examples are the Epistle to Cornbury (1745) by Earl Nugent (1702–1788); the Epistle to William Chambers (1773) and the Epistle to Dr. Shebbeare (1777) by William Mason (1724–1797); and the Epistle to Dr. Randolph (1796), as well as numerous other epistles, by T. J. Mathias.
[20] See Macaulay’s Essay on Horace Walpole, page 35.
[21] An Essay on the Different Styles of Poetry (1713) by Thomas Parnell (1679–1718); The Danger of Writing Verse (1741) by William Whitehead (1715–1785); A Prospect of Poetry (1733); The Perils of Poetry (1766); and The Wreath of Fashion (1780) by Richard Tickell (1751–1793).
[22] The anonymous Manners of the Age (1733); Manners (1738) by Paul Whitehead; The Man of Taste (1733) by James Bramston (1694–1744); the Modern Fine Gentleman (1746) and the Modern Fine Lady (1750) by Soame Jenyns (1703–1787); Fashion (1748) by Joseph Warton (1722–1800); and Newmarket (1751) by Thomas Warton (1728–1790).
[23] Examples are the Essay on Reason (1733) by Walter Harte (1709–1774); the Vanity of Human Enjoyments (1749) by James Cawthorn (1718–1761), the most slavish of all Pope’s imitators; Honour (1737) by John Brown; Advice and Reproof (1747) by Smollett; Of Retired and Active Life (1735) by William Helmoth (1710–1799); Ridicule (1743) by William Whitehead; Taste (1753) by John Armstrong (1709–1779); An Essay on Conversation (1748) by Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702–1771).
[24] Letters, v., 162.
[25] Letters, iv., 485.
[26] See An Apology, 376–387.
[27] In his Letters, Byron refers once to Churchill’s Times (Letters, ii., 148). His Churchill’s Grave (1816), a parody of Wordsworth’s style, contains a reference to Churchill as “him who blazed the comet of a season.” Otherwise Churchill’s actual influence on Byron was not great.
[28] Byron praised Crabbe in English Bards as “Nature’s sternest painter, but her best.” In a letter to Moore, February 2, 1818, he termed Crabbe and Rogers “the fathers of present Poesy,” and in his Reply to Blackwood’s (1819) he said publicly: “We are all wrong except Crabbe, Rogers, and Campbell.” Crabbe, whom Horace Smith called “Pope in worsted stockings,” seemed, to Byron, to represent devotion to Pope.
[29] Byron said of Gifford in 1824: “I have always considered him as my literary father, and myself as his ‘prodigal son’” (Letters, vi., 329).
[30] The movement represented by this clique, Gli Oziosi, originated in Florence with a coterie of dilettanti, among whom were Robert Merry (1755–1799), Mrs. Piozzi (1741–1831), Bertie Greathead (1759–1826), and William Parsons (fl. 1785–1807). They published two small volumes, The Arno Miscellany (1784) and The Florence Miscellany (1785), both marred by affectation, obscurity, tawdry ornamentation, and frantic efforts at sublimity. The printing of Merry’s Adieu and Recall to Love started a new series of sentimental verses, in the writing of which other scribblers took part: Hannah Cowley (1743–1809), Perdita Robinson (1752–1800), and Thomas Vaughan (fl. 1772–1820). Their combined contributions were gathered in Bell’s British Album (1789).
[31] Merry had written a Wreath of Liberty (1790) in praise of revolutionary principles.
[32] Scott said of Gifford: “He squashed at one blow a set of humbugs who might have humbugged the world long enough.” New Morality has a reference to “the hand which brushed a swarm of fools away.” Byron inserted a similar passage in English Bards, 741–744.
[33] Letters, iv., 485.
[34] English Bards, 701.
[35] Moore speaks sarcastically of this custom in the Preface to Corruption and Intolerance (1808): “The practice which has been lately introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me a very happy invention, as it supplies us with a mode of turning dull poetry to account.”
[36] Byron said of the Pursuits of Literature: “It is notoriously, as far as the poetry goes, the worst written of its kind; the World has long been of but one opinion, viz., that it’s [sic] sole merit lies in the notes, which are indisputably excellent” (Letters, ii., 4).
[37] Examples are the Fables of Æsop (1692) of Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704); Æsop at Court, or Select Fables (1702) by Thomas Yalden (1671–1736); Æsop’s Fables (1722) by Samuel Croxall (1680–1752); Fables (1744) by Edward Moore (1711–1757); and collections by Nathaniel Cotton (1707–1788) and William Wilkie (1721–1772).
[38] See the Spleen (1737) by Matthew Green (1696–1737); Variety, a Tale for Married People (1732); and the poems of Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705–1760), James Bramston (1694–1744), George Colman, the elder (1732–1794), John Dalton (1709–1763), David Garrick (1717–1779). John Duncombe (1729–1763), and many other poetasters.
[39] Probationary Odes also anticipate the more famous Rejected Addresses (1812), and the Poetic Mirror (1816) of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.
[40] For less reserved praise of the Rolliad, see Trevelyan’s Early History of Charles James Fox, page 285.
[41] In A Postscript he speaks of “the unmeaning and noisy lines of two things called Baviad and Mæviad”; while in a note to Out at Last, or the Fallen Minister, he presents a sketch of Gifford’s life, accusing him of heinous crimes, and speaking of the “awkward and obscure inversions and verbose pomposity” of the Baviad. Gifford replied in the Epistle to Peter Pindar (1800). Mathias and Canning invariably treated Pindar with contempt.
[42] Vision of Judgment, 92.
[43] See A Dream (1786), a bitterly satirical address to George III, and the Lines Written at Stirling, attacking the Hanoverians.
[44] Byron knew the New Bath Guide well, and admired it. In one of his youthful poems, an Answer to Some Elegant Verses sent by a Friend to the Author he uses four lines of Anstey’s poem as a motto. He also quotes from it not infrequently in his letters.
[45] See Letters from Simpson the Second to his Dear Brother in Wales (1788) and Groans of the Talents (1807), both of which deliberately appropriate Anstey’s scheme. Both are anonymous.
[46] See the Epistle to my Sisters (1734) by Thomas Lisle; The ’Piscopade, a Panegyri-Satiri-Serio-Comical Poem (1748) by “Porcupinus Pelagius”; and Goldsmith’s three graceful satires, Retaliation (1774), The Haunch of Venison (1776), and the Letter to Mrs. Bunbury (1777).
[47] The attitude of the Anti-Jacobin was almost precisely that already adopted by Gifford and Mathias; that is, it represented extreme Tory feeling, and therefore was resolutely opposed to any movement in literature which seemed new or strange.
[48] The Anti-Jacobin was deserted by its original editors, largely because it was becoming too dangerous a weapon for aspiring statesmen to handle. A new journal, under the same name, was less successful.
[49] It was the era described by Wordsworth in his sonnets Written in London, 1802, and London, 1802, the last beginning,
“Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters! Altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.”
[50] See the Nation, volume xciv., No. 2436, March 7, 1912.
[51] Examples are Elijah’s Mantle (1807) by James Sayer (1748–1823), with its answer, the anonymous Elijah’s Mantle Parodied (1807); the Uti Possidetis and Status Quo (1807), The Devil and the Patriot (1807), and Canning’s famous ballad The Pilot that Weathered the Storm.
[52] Poetry, i., 17.
[53] Letters, i., 209.
[54] It is probable that Byron’s verses are modelled somewhat on the Epistle on His Schoolfellows at Eton (1766) by his relative and guardian, Lord Carlisle (1748–1825).
[55] Letters, i., 47.
[56] Letters, i., 183.
[57] Letters, i., 167.
[58] Letters, i., 211.
[59] Letters, i., 212.
[60] Blackwood’s, ix., 461.
[61] This practice was ridiculed by his enemy, Lady Montagu, in the lines:
“On the one side we see how Horace thought,
And on the other how he never wrote.”
[62] The opening couplet of English Bards is a paraphrase of the first two lines of Juvenal, I. Other imitations occur in lines 87–88 (Juvenal, I., 17–18) and lines 93–94 (Juvenal, I., 19–21).
[63] English Bards, 47–48.
[64] Satires, iii., 15–18.
[65] London, 35–36.
[66] Table Talk, 571–572.
[67] Baviad, 215 ff.
[68] All the Talents, ii., 46–47.
[69] English Bards, 103–106.
[70] Dunciad, i., 28.
[71] Satires, i., 35–36.
[72] English Bards, 819–820.
[73] English Bards, 991–994.
[74] See English Bards, 144–145, 165–166, 202, 235, etc.
[75] Prologue to the second part of the Conquest of Granada, 1–2.
[76] Essay on Criticism, 610–630.
[77] The Apology was written in response to a scathing article on the Rosciad, printed in the Critical Review for March, 1761. This periodical, ultra-Tory in its principles, made a point of decrying, any work which was by a Whig author, or expressed any sympathy with liberal ideas. Though the editor, Tobias Smollett, was able to exculpate himself from the charge, Churchill deemed him accountable for the uncomplimentary review and, without naming him, described him in his satire as “alien from God, and foe to all mankind.”
[78] The Apology, 110–111.
[79] English Bards, 429.
[80] The Apology, 44.
[81] English Bards, 71.
[82] Gentle Alterative.
[83] Baviad, 200–201.
[84] It is curious that Byron’s views on poetry were not very different from those held by Jeffrey. Both men believed in maintaining the common-sense traditions of the eighteenth century.
[85] “There can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the depreciation of Pope” (Letters, v, 559).
[86] W. Tooke, in his edition of Churchill’s Works (1804), expresses one phase of contemporary opinion in speaking of “the simplicity of a later school of poetry, the spawn of the lakes, consisting of a mawkish combination of the nonsense verse of the nursery with the rhodomontade of German Mysticism and Transcendentalism” (i., 189).
[87] Epistles to Pope, ii., 165.
[88] To this utterly unjust stricture Scott made a calm reply in his Preface to Marmion (1830): “I never could conceive how an arrangement between an author and his publishers, if satisfactory to the persons concerned, could afford matter of censure to any third party.” Certainly Byron came to be a gross offender in this respect himself, and when, in 1819, he was haggling with Murray over the price of Don Juan, these boyish censures, if they met his eye, must have roused a smile.
[89] “The plot is absurd, and the antique costume of the language is disgusting, because it is unnatural” (All the Talents, page 68).
[90] Pursuits of Literature, iv., 397–398.
“Then still might Southey sing his crazy Joan,
To feign a Welshman o’er the Atlantic flown,
Or tell of Thalaba the wondrous matter,
Or with clown Wordsworth, chatter, chatter, chatter.”
(Epics of the Ton, 31–34.)
[92] After some praise of the three poets, the dedication of the Simpliciad closes with the words: “I lament the degradation of your genius, and deprecate the propagation of your perverted taste.”
[93] Pope, in the Dunciad, had bantered Sir Richard Blackmore, author of epics, in the lines:—
“All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.”
(Dunciad, ii., 267–268.)
The possibility that Byron may have had this passage in mind is increased by his note to his lines in English Bards: “Must he [Southey] be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as the quality of his verse?”
[94] Simpliciad, 212–213.
[95] It must be remembered, however, that practically every charge that Byron brings against the “Lakists” has a counterpart in Mant’s Simpliciad, printed only a year before Byron’s poem.
[96] Baviad, 248–261.
[97] Letters, v., 590.
[98] Letters, v., 539.
[99] Letters, i., 104.
[100] Mathias had asserted that Moore “had neither scrupled nor blushed to depict, and to publish to the world, the arts of systematic seduction, and to thrust upon the nation the most open and unqualified blasphemy against the very code and volume of our religion” (Pursuits of Literature, Preface to Dialogue IV.).
[101] Preface to Mæviad, page 59, Note.
[102] See the account of this period in Thorndike’s Tragedy, chapter x.
[103] Byron may have taken a suggestion from some lines of Children of Apollo:
“But in his diction Reynolds grossly errs;
For whether the love hero smiles or mourns,
’Tis oh! and ah! and oh! by turns.”
[104] Satires, iii., 197.
[105] Dunciad, iv., 45–70.
[106] Rosciad, 723–728.
[107] The Man of Taste.
[108] One line of Byron’s attack,
“Himself a living libel on mankind,”
recalls Murphy’s address to Churchill,
“Thy look’s a libel on the human race.”
[109] In the Scourge, a new venture of Clarke’s begun in 1810, that editor published another scurrilous attack on Byron, involving also the poet’s mother. An action for libel which Byron intended to bring was for some reason abandoned, though not without some caustic words from him about “the cowardly calumniator of an absent man and a defenceless woman” (Letters, i., 324).
[110] Letters, i., 314. See also Letters, ii., 312; iii., 192.
[111] Letters, ii., 326.
[112] Letters, v., 539.
[113] English Bards, 209–210; 231–232; 239–240; 253–254; 909–910.
[114] Ibid., 415–417; 684–686.
[115] Ibid., 417, 1022.
[116] Ibid., 608–609; 624–625; 656–657.
[117] Letters, ii., 27.
[118] Recollections of Lord Byron, page 31.
[119] Letters, iv., 488.
[120] See Pope and the Art of Satire, by G. K. Chesterton.
[121] Corruption, 93–98.
[122] English Bards, 841–848.
[123] Poetry, i., 291.
[124] Letters, ii., 330.
[125] Letters, ii., 24.
[126] Letters, iv., 425.
[127] Letters, v., 221.
[128] Letters, v., 245.
[129] Letters, v., 255.
[130] Letters, v., 77.
[131] There have been many actual translations of the Ars Poetica into English. T. Drant published, in 1567, the first complete version. Queen Elizabeth left a fragmentary version of 194 lines in her Englishings (1598). Ben Jonson’s excellent Horace, of the Art of Poetry was printed after his death. Of other translations, from that of Roscommon (1680) in blank verse, to that of Howes (1809) in heroic couplets, it is unnecessary to speak, except to say that they mount into the hundreds. In such works as The Art of Preaching by Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) and The Art of Politicks (1731) by James Bramston (1694–1744) the title and method of Horace had been transferred to other fields. Harlequin-Horace; or the Art of Modern Poetry by James Miller (1706–1744) is an ironical parody of the Ars Poetica.
[132] See his treatise, Ueber das Verhaltnis von Byrons Hints from Horace zu Horaz und Pope.
[133] See his article in Anglia, ii., 256.
[134] Ars Poetica, 269–270.
[135] Essay on Criticism, 124–125.
[136] Hints from Horace, 423–424.
[137] Hints from Horace, 399–412.
[138] Letters, ii., 150.
[139] Charity, 420–500.
[140] Poetry, i., 396.
[141] Pursuits of Literature, page 93.
[142] Poetry, i., 444.
[143] Letters, iii., 271.
[144] Childe Harold, II., 10–15.
[145] Life of Byron, ii., 145.
[146] Don Juan, x., 17.
[147] Churchill’s poem ends with a prophecy from the Goddess of Famine just as Byron’s ends with Minerva’s curse.
“Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly!”
(Epistle to Lord Bathurst,
On the Use of Riches, 40–41.)
[149] Childe Harold, II., 12.
[150] The Parthenon, stanza 3.
[151] The Curse of Minerva, 95–116.
[152] Byron expressed his esteem for his new friend in his Journal, December 10, 1813:—“I have just had the kindest letter from Moore. I do think that man is the best-hearted, the only hearted being I ever encountered; and then, his talents are equal to his feelings” (Letters, ii., 371).
[153] See Byron’s impromptu lines to Moore in a letter of May 19, 1812, in which he says, speaking of a projected visit to Hunt in prison:—
“Pray Phœbus at length our political malice
May not get us lodgings within the same palace.”
(Letters, ii., 204–209.)
[154] See Letters, ii., 463–492 (Appendix vii.).
[155] Letters, iii., 61.
[156] Letters, ii., 134.
[157] The Real Lord Byron, ii., 51.
[158] On December 2, 1813, Byron wrote Hunt:—“I have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering” (Letters, ii., 296).
[159] Letters, iii., 58.
[160] Byron’s attitude towards war recalls the sardonic passage on the same subject in Gulliver’s Travels, Part IV.
[161] Letters, iii., 64.
[162] Letters, iii., 66.
[163] Letters, ii., 324.
[164] Childe Harold, III., 36–52.
[165] Letters, ii., 176.
[166] Letters, ii., 202.
[167] Byron himself was asked to compete, but resolved not to risk his reputation in such a contest. Although 112 poems were submitted, all were adjudged unsatisfactory, and Byron was eventually requested by Lord Holland to save the situation. His verses were recited on October 10, 1812, but met with small commendation.
[168] This little volume, published in 1812, after having been refused by Murray and others, proved an overwhelming success. Byron was delighted with Cui Bono? a clever imitation of the gloomy and mournful portions of Childe Harold, in the same stanzaic form. Among the other writers parodied were Wordsworth, Crabbe, Moore, Coleridge, and Lewis. Byron said:—“I think the Rejected Addresses by far the best thing of the kind since the Rolliad” (Letters, ii., 177).
[169] Byron himself said of this period:—“I felt that, if what was whispered and murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me” (Reply to Blackwood’s, Letters, iv., 479).
[170] Letters, iii., 272.
[171] Letters, iii., 278.
[172] Childe Harold, I., 26.
[173] Childe Harold, I., 69–70.
[174] Childe Harold, I., 9.
[175] Letters, i., 308.
[176] Letters, ii., 5.
[177] See Letters, ii., 413 (Appendix i.).
[178] Letters, ii., 379; ii, 403.
[179] See Fuhrman’s Die Belesenheit des jungen Byron, Berlin, 1903.
[180] Letters, iii., 19.
[181] Letters, v., 70.
[182] Life of Byron, iv., 237.
[183] Frere was well known in 1817 as a prominent London wit. His career as a diplomat, which apparently promised him high preferment, had been cut short by some unlucky transactions leading to his being held partly responsible for the failure of the Peninsular campaign, and he had been recalled in 1809 from his position as envoy to Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The incident drew upon him Byron’s lines on “blundering Frere” in some expunged stanzas of Childe Harold, I. Piqued by the action of the government and constitutionally inclined to inactivity, Frere had since led an indolent and self-indulgent existence as scholar and clubman.
[184] Dr. Eichler finds that Frere drew something from Aristophanes and Cervantes, but more from Pulci, Berni, and Casti. For Frere’s indebtedness to the Italians, see Eichler’s Frere, 115.
[185] Letters, iv., 172.
[186] Letters, iv., 176.
[187] While it is undisputed that the ottava rima is a native Italian stanza, its origin has never been satisfactorily determined. That it was a common measure before the time of Boccaccio is easily demonstrable; but it is equally probable that he, in his Teseide, was the earliest writer to employ it consciously for literary purposes. With him it assumed the form which it was to preserve for centuries: eight endecasyllabic lines, rhyming abababcc. In Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore it became freer and less dignified, without losing any of its essential characteristics. Pulci made ottava rima the standard measure for the Italian romantic epic and burlesque, and it was used by men differing so greatly in nature and motive as Boiardo, Berni, Tasso, Marino, Tassoni, Forteguerri, and Casti. To the Italian language, rich in double and triple rhymes, it is especially well suited; and its elasticity is proved by its effective employment in both the lofty epic of Tasso and the vulgar verse of Casti.
In English the borrowed ottava rima has had strange vicissitudes. Transferred to our literature, along with other Italian metrical forms, by Wyatt and Surrey, it was managed by them crudely, but still with some success. At least nineteen short poems by Wyatt are in this stanza. A typical illustration of its state at this period may be examined in Surrey’s To His Mistresse. In Elizabethan days the octave had a sporadic popularity. Although Spenser made choice of his own invented stanza for his Faerie Queen, he tried ottava rima in Virgil’s Gnat. Daniel in The Civille Warres and Drayton in The Barrons’ Warres associated it with tedium and dulness. It was, of course, natural that Fairfax, in his fine version of Tasso, should adopt the stanza of his original; and Harington translated Ariosto in the same measure, giving it, probably for the first time in English, a little of the burlesque tone which was typical of the Italians. Milton, in the epilogue to Lycidas, used the octave with reserved stateliness; while Gay, in Mr. Pope’s Welcome from Greece, made it a vehicle for quiet merriment.
During the eighteenth century the predominance of the heroic couplet hindered the spread of exotic verse forms—and the octave was still exotic. In 1812, William Tennant (1786–1846), an obscure Scotch schoolmaster, revived it in his burlesque epic, Anster Fair, modifying the structure by changing the last line to an alexandrine. Then came Merivale, Byron, Rose, Procter, and Keats, who settled the measure as a standard form in modern English literature.
[188] For a detailed comparison of the versification of Beppo with that of The Monks, and the Giants, see Eichler’s Frere, 170–184.
[189] The Monks, and the Giants, Introduction, 1.
[190] The Monks, and the Giants I., 9.
[191] Dr. Eichler has neglected to notice the important fact that at the time of the composition of Beppo, Byron could have been familiar with only the first two cantos of The Monks, and the Giants. A brief comparison of dates will establish this point. Cantos I. and II. of Frere’s poem were published in 1817; Beppo, written in the autumn of 1817 (Letters, iv., 172), was sent to Murray on January 19, 1818 (Letters, iv., 193), and given out for sale on February 28 of the same year. Not until later in 1818 were the last two cantos of Frere’s work printed, and the full edition of four cantos came out some months later. On July 17, 1818, Byron wrote Murray, “I shall be glad of Whistlecraft,” referring doubtless to the newly issued complete edition of The Monks, and the Giants.
[192] Only 36 of the 99 stanzas in Beppo are devoted entirely to the plot. The greater portion of the poem is occupied with digressions upon many subjects, containing some personal satire, some comment on political and literary topics, and much discursive chat upon social life and morals. The plot serves only as a frame for the satire.
[193] See Memoir of Frere, i., 166.
[194] Letters, iv., 193.
[195] The Monks, and the Giants, III., 59.
[196] Eichler’s Frere, 184.
[197] In his Studies in Poetry and Criticism (London, 1905), Churton Collins pointed out Byron’s indebtedness to Casti, but mentioned only Casti’s Novelle. See Collins’s volume, pp. 96–98.
[198] Eichler’s Frere, 163.
[199] Letters, iv., 217.
[200] Born in 1721 in Italy, Casti had been a precocious student at the seminary of Montefiascone, where he became Professor of Literature at the age of sixteen. In 1764 he moved, with the musician, Guarducci, to Florence, where he was created Poeta di Corte by the Grand Duke Leopold. Here he came to the attention of Joseph II., who invited him to Vienna and bestowed upon him several posts of honor. A lucky friendship with Count Kaunitz enabled him to visit most of the capitals of Europe in company with that Prime Minister’s son, and he gained in this way an inside knowledge of court life in several countries. In 1778 he took up his residence in St. Petersburg, where Catharine II. received him cordially. Later he returned to Vienna and was crowned Court Poet by the Emperor Leopold. The attraction of the French Revolution drew him to Paris in 1796, where he lived until his death, February 16, 1804.
[201] Quarterly Review, April, 1819.
[202] Churton Collins, however, makes the statement that “Don Juan is full of reminiscences of the Novelle,” and points out definite parallelisms between Novella IV., La Diavolessa, and the plot of Don Juan. He adds: “To Casti, then, undoubtedly belongs the honour of having suggested and furnished Byron with a model for Don Juan.” (Studies in Poetry and Criticism, pp. 97–98.) It seems probable, however, that Byron took even more from Il Poema Tartaro than he did from the Novelle. Casti’s Gli Animali Parlanti and Il Poema Tartaro are not mentioned in Collins’s study.
[203] To this work Byron refers in a letter to Murray, March 25, 1818: “Rose’s Animali I never saw till a few days ago,—they are excellent.” (Letters, iv., 217.)
[204] Gli Animali Parlanti, VII., 6 ff.
[205] Ibid., III., 37.
[206] Ibid., III., 32.
[207] Ibid., XX., 69.
[208] Ibid., XIV., 47; XVII., 36, 56.
[209] Gli Animali Parlanti, I., 52.
[210] Don Juan, X., 25.
[211] Gli Animali Parlanti, XVIII., 33.
[212] Don Juan, VII., 68.
[213] Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 13.
[214] Don Juan, XIV., 13. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, X., 1; XVIII., 32, and Don Juan, VII., 26, 41; VIII., 124.
[215] Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 73.
[216] Don Juan, XV., 19. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, III., 95; VII., 38; Don Juan, VI., 8; VIII., 89; The Vision of Judgment, 34.
[217] Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 107.
[218] Don Juan, I., 231. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, XX., 126, and Don Juan, IV., 117; V., 159; VI., 120; VII., 35; IX., 85; XV., 98.
[219] In Childe Harold the digression had been used, not for satire, but for personal reminiscences, eulogy, and philosophical meditation; see Canto I., 91–92, with its tribute to Wingfield, and Canto I., 93, with its promise of another canto to come.
[220] Il Poema Tartaro, II., 8.
[221] Don Juan, IX., 62.
[222] Il Poema Tartaro, IV., 76.
[223] Don Juan, IX., 81. See also Don Juan, IX., 80.
[224] Il Poema Tartaro, I., 5.
[225] See Il Poema Tartaro, IV., 54–55, and Don Juan, IX., 82.
[226] See Il Poema Tartaro, V., 32 ff., and Don Juan, X., 39.
[227] See Il Poema Tartaro, VIII., 85, and Don Juan, VII., 14–15.
[228] See Il Poema Tartaro, III., 81, and Don Juan, III., 20; X., 69.
[229] Il Poema Tartaro, VI., 98.
[230] Don Juan, VII., 18.
[231] Il Poema Tartaro, VIII., 12.
[232] Ibid., III., 68.
[233] Ibid., IV., 69.
[234] Il Poema Tartaro, VI., 47.
[235] Ibid., XII., 79.
[236] Letters, iv., 217.
[237] Letters, iv., 407.
[238] In structure, the Morgante Maggiore, is made up of the rifacimenti of two earlier works: one, the Orlando, rather commonplace and monotonous in tone, was the basis of the first twenty-three cantos; the other, La Spagna, in prose, loftier and more stately, gave a foundation for the last five cantos.
[239] Don Juan, IV., 6.
[240] It is probable that Byron had read Merivale’s poem, Orlando in Roncesvalles (1814), for in the advertisement to his translation of Pulci he refers to “the serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language [English]—and particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale.” Merivale’s work, based though it is upon the Morgante, is without humor, and could have given Byron nothing of the spirit of Pulci.
[241] Letters, iv., 402.
[242] Letters, iv., 407.
[243] Cantos III. and IV. of Don Juan were written in the winter of 1819–1820, while Byron was at work on his translation of the Morgante; hence it is certain that the influence of Pulci may be looked for at least as early as Canto III. It is probable, moreover, that Byron became acquainted with Pulci’s work before, or soon after, the beginning of Don Juan in September, 1818.
[244] Don Juan, X., 87.
[245] Don Juan, VII., 55.
[246] Morgante Maggiore, XIV., 7.
[247] Ibid., III., 51.
[248] Ibid., XI., 21.
[249] Don Juan, II., 92.
[250] Morgante Maggiore, XVIII., 117.
[251] Ibid., XVIII., 144.
[252] Don Juan, XII., 50.
[253] Morgante Maggiore, XXIV., 83.
[254] Don Juan, XII., 88.
[255] Morgante Maggiore, XXVIII., 138–9.
[256] Don Juan, XV., 19.
[257] Ibid., V., 159.
[258] Other examples occur in the Morgante Maggiore, I., 4; II., 1; XIV., 1; XVI., 1; XXI., 1; XXIV., 1; XXVIII., 1.
[259] Don Juan, X., 4.
[260] Morgante Maggiore, I., 8.
[261] Morgante Maggiore, XXV., 283.
[262] Ibid., XXVIII., 35.
[263] Don Juan, XV., 20.
[264] It is significant that Byron was able to make his translation of the first canto of the Morgante so faithful to the original. On September 28, 1820, he wrote Murray:—“The Pulci I am proud of; it is superb; you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life” (Letters, i., 83). It is obvious that there were features in Pulci’s style which appealed to Byron.
[265] Berni was a priest, who became, with Molza, La Casa, Firenzuola, and Bini, a member of the famous Accademia della Vignajuoli in Rome, in which circle he was accustomed to recite his humorous poetry. He died under suspicious circumstances, perhaps poisoned by one of the Medicean princesses. He was the bitter enemy of Pietro Aretino, the most scurrilous satirist of the age.
[266] See, Don Juan, XII., 1–22, with its discussion of avarice.
[267] See, for example, the Innamorato, II., 70:
“Ma s’io dicesse ogni cosa al presente
Da dire un’ altra volta non aria;
Pero tornate, e s’attenti starete,
Sempre piu belle cose sentirete.”
[268] Don Juan, VII., 85.
[269] Many characteristics of the Innamorato, however, are like those of the work of Pulci and Casti. There are the same equivocal allusions and obscenities, the same pervasive skepticism and pessimism, and the same colloquial style that are to be met with in the Morgante and the Novelle. Berni was perhaps greater as a craftsman and artist, but otherwise had the virtues and the faults of the other burlesque poets.
[270] Letters, iii., 444–445.
[271] Buratti’s career is treated at length in Vittorio Malamani’s monograph, Il Principe dei satirici Veneziani (1887). An edition of his poetry, in two volumes, was printed in 1864.
[272] Buratti’s after-life brought him once into relation with Byron. On the birth of a son to Hoppner, the British Consul at Venice, Byron presented the father with a short madrigal:—
“His father’s sense, his mother’s grace,
In him, I hope, will always fit so;
With—still to keep him in good case—
The health and appetite of Rizzo.”
The Count Rizzo Pattarol, named in the last line, had the verses translated into several languages, in the Italian version changing the word “appetite” to “buonomore.” This piece of vanity so excited the mirth of Buratti that he commemorated the affair in an epigram. Byron, however, seems to have paid no attention to the incident.
[273] There is less of the mock-heroic in Don Juan than is ordinarily supposed. It has little in common with the classical Mock-Epic, represented in English by the Dunciad, the Scribleriad, and the Dispensary, poems which use the epic machinery of gods and goddesses, ridiculing the manner of the Greek and Roman epics through the method of parody. Don Juan, on the other hand, is unrelated to the work of either Homer or Virgil. Nor does it burlesque the Italian epics: its characters, modern and unconventional as they are, are not, even in a humorous sense, heroic, and the matter dealt with is borrowed from none of the Italian romances. The fact that exalted emotions are made absurd, or that fine feelings are jeered at does not warrant us in classing Don Juan with the mock-heroic poems. Indeed, the mere absence of the typical addresses to the Muse—they occur only twice in Don Juan (II., 7; III., 1)—indicates that Byron did not imitate the epic form.
[274] Letters, vi., 50.
[275] Letters, iv., 217.
[276] “This poem [Don Juan] carries with it at once the stamp of originality and defiance of imitation.” (Shelley, Letter to Byron, Oct. 21, 1821).
[277] Don Juan, II., 105; II., 166; V., 4; VI., 5–6.
[278] Ibid., V., 33–39.
[279] Don Juan, IX., 41.
[280] Letters, iv., 342.
[281] Don Juan, I., 200.
[282] Don Juan, XII., 55.
[283] Letters, iv., 260.
[284] Letters, vi., 155.
[285] Don Juan, XIV., 99.
[286] It was begun at Venice, September 6, 1818, and the first two cantos were published anonymously, July 15, 1819, by Murray. Despite much hostile comment, and the reluctance and eventual refusal of Murray to print the work, Byron continued with his project, entrusting the publication of the poem, after Canto V., to John Hunt. Canto XVI. was completed May 6, 1823, and appeared with Canto XV. on March 26, 1824. Fourteen stanzas of an unfinished Canto XVII. were among his papers at the time of his death.
[287] Beppo, 79.
[288] Don Juan, VIII., 135.
[289] Childe Harold, II., 74–76.
[290] Ode to the French, 91–104.
[291] Childe Harold, IV., 92.
[292] Don Juan, IX., 24.
[293] Don Juan, VIII., 50.
[294] Many details of Byron’s satire may be traced to corresponding passages in the works of Moore, whose Fudge Family in Paris (1818) was familiar to him, and whose Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), many of which were written while the two poets were together in Venice, was dedicated to Byron. Moore denounced Castlereagh as a despot, a bigot, and a time-server, ridiculing him especially for the absurdity of his speeches, which were notorious for their mixed metaphors and poorly chosen phrasing.
[295] Shelley in many short squibs, and particularly in the Mask of Anarchy (1819), had assailed the ministry. He had compared Castlereagh and Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, to “two vultures, sick for battle” and “two vipers tangled into one” (Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819).
[296] Young had condemned war in Satire VII., 55–68; Cowper had spoken against it in the Task, in the lines:—
“War is a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.”
Leigh Hunt and Shelley held exactly Byron’s opinions, and expressed them repeatedly.
[297] It is possible that Byron, in his description of this assemblage, was influenced to some extent by T. L. Peacock, the friend of Shelley, who had published Headlong Hall (1816) and Nightmare Abbey (1818). In these books Peacock had created a sort of prose Comedy of Humors by forming groups of curious eccentrics, each one obsessed by a single passion or hobby, and by giving each figure a name suggestive of his peculiar folly.
[298] Don Juan, XI., 86.
[299] Letters, v., 542.
[300] Don Juan, I., 205.
[301] Don Juan, III., 78–87.
[302] Don Juan, III., 5.
[303] Ibid., III., 3.
[304] Ibid., III., 25.
[305] Ibid., VI., 6.
[306] Ibid., II., 205.
[307] Ibid., VI., 27.
[308] Ibid., I., 178; XI., 36.
[309] Ibid., VI., 14.
[310] Ibid., VI., 2.
[311] In Canto II., the entire shipwreck episode is a symposium of accounts of other wrecks taken from Dalzell’s Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea (1812), Remarkable Shipwrecks (1813), Bligh’s A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty (1790), and The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron (1768), the last named work being the story of the adventures of Byron’s grandfather. His account of the siege and capture of Ismail in Cantos VII. and VIII. is based, even, in minute details, on Decastelnau’s Essai sur l’histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie.
[312] Don Juan, III., 101–109.
[313] Ibid., II., 17–23.
[314] Ibid., XI., 10.
[315] Byron attributed the unpopularity of Don Juan with the ladies, and particularly with the Countess Guiccioli, to the fact that it is the “wish of all women to exalt the sentiment of the passions, and to keep up the illusion which is their empire” and that the poem “strips off this illusion, and laughs at that and most other things” (Letters, v., 321). It was the opposition of the Countess which induced him to promise to leave off the work at the fifth canto, a pledge which he fortunately disregarded after keeping it for several months.
[316] Childe Harold, II., 7.
[317] Don Juan, VI., 22. See also I., 215; III., 35.
[318] Ibid., V., 21.
[319] Ibid., XI., 82, 86.
[320] Ibid., II., 34.
[321] Don Juan, XII., 86.
[322] Poetry, VI., 79.
[323] Don Juan, IX., 73.
[324] Ibid., XIII., 100.
[325] Don Juan, III., 96.
[326] See Ibid., I., 9; II., 8; III., 110; IV., 113; VI., 57, and numerous other instances.
[327] Only in Canto II. does the story begin at once; every other canto has a preliminary disquisition. Canto IX., containing eighty-five stanzas, uses forty-one of them before the narrative begins, and of the entire number, forty-six are clearly made up of extraneous material. Of the ninety stanzas in Canto XI., over fifty are occupied with Byron’s satire on English society and contemporary events. Canto II. is, of course, filled largely with the shipwreck and the episode of Haidée; but in Canto III., over forty of the entire one hundred and eleven stanzas are discursive, and many others are partly so.
[328] Beppo, 52.
[329] For other rhymes of exceptional peculiarity, see Don Juan, I., 102; II., 206; II., 207; V., 5.
[330] Ibid., I., 22.
[331] Ibid., II., 1.
[332] Don Juan, I., 6.
[333] Ibid., III., 111.
[334] Ibid., XIII., 94.
[335] Ibid., I., 62.
[336] Ibid., I., 11.
[337] Ibid., VII., 15.
[338] Ibid., VII., 3.
[339] Ibid., XIII., 8.
[340] Ibid., XV., 91.
[341] Ibid., II., 207.
[342] Ibid., V., 5.
[343] Ibid., XIV., I. See also I., 25; I., 67; XVI., 4.
[344] Ibid., I., 154; II., 13, 22, 38.
[345] A characteristic example is Ibid., IX., 34.
[346] Don Juan, I., 123–124; V., 8–9; V., 18–19; VIII., 109–110.
[347] Ibid., I., 120.
[348] Ibid., XV., 72.
[349] Ibid., VI., 64; VII., 21; VIII., 30; XIII., 75; XIV., 29, 63; XVI., 60, 94, 98.
[350] Ibid., I., 34; VI., 47; VIII., 32.
[351] Ibid., IV., 42.
[352] Ibid., VII., 27.
[353] Don Juan, XI., 20.
[354] Ibid., III., 6. See also I., 63, 65, 72; II., 172, 179; IX., 15, 59; XIII., 6, 19.
[355] Many imitations and parodies of Don Juan were printed during Byron’s lifetime, and afterwards; among them were Canto XVII. of Don Juan, by One who desires to remain a very great Unknown (1832); Don Juan Junior, a Poem, by Byron’s Ghost (1839); A Sequel to Don Juan (1843); The Termination of the Sixteenth Canto of Lord Byron’s Don Juan (1864), by Harry W. Wetton.
[356] Byron’s influence upon the literature of the nineteenth century may be studied in Otto Weddigen’s treatise Lord Byron’s Einfluss auf die Europaischen Litteraturen der Neuzeit and in Richard Ackermann’s Lord Byron (pp. 158–182). Collins numbers among his disciples in Germany, Wilhelm Mueller, Heine, Von Platen, Adalbert Chamisso, Karl Lebrecht, Immermann, and Christian Grabbe; among his French imitators, Lamartine, Hugo, de la Vigne, and de Musset; among his followers in Russia, Poushkin and Lermontoff. To these should be added Giovanni Berchet in Italy, and José de Espronceda in Spain. No other English poet, except Shakspere, has impressed his personality so strongly upon foreign countries.
[357] Letters, vi., 377–399.
[358] Thus in the Batrachomyomachia the elevated manner of epic poetry is used in depicting a warfare between frogs and mice; while in Voltaire’s La Pucelle, the French national heroine is made to behave like a daughter of the streets.
[359] Some examples of the parody are The Splendid Shilling (1701) by John Philips (1676–1709); The Pipe of Tobacco (1734) by Isaac Hawkins Browne (1760); Probationary Odes; Rejected Addresses; and Swinburne’s Heptalogia.
[360] The travesty flourished especially during the 17th century in the work of Paul Scarron (1610–1660) and his followers in France, and of Charles Cotton (1630–1687), John Philips (1631–1706), and Samuel Butler (1612–1680) in England. During this period Virgil and Ovid were popular subjects for travesty. Several travesties of Homer were published in England during the 18th century, one of which, by Bridges, was read by Byron (Letters, v., 166).
[361] Charles Lamb said of it that it deserved prosecution far more than Byron’s Vision; and Nichol has styled it “the most quaintly preposterous panegyric ever penned.”
[362] In his dedication Southey called George IV. “the royal and munificent patron of science, art, and literature,” and praised the monarch’s rule as Regent and King as an epoch remarkable for perfect integrity in the administration of public affairs and for attempts to “mitigate the evils incident to our state of society.”
[363] Letters, v., 387.
[364] Ibid., vi., 10.
[365] Ibid., vi., 93.
[366] Letters, vi., 129.
[367] Ibid., vi., 159.
[368] In the only public retort which Southey undertook, a Letter to the Courier, December 8, 1824, he could do little more than make charges of misrepresentation, and repeat his accusation that Byron was one “who played the monster in literature, and aimed his blows at women.” Southey unwittingly had engaged with too powerful an antagonist and only his want of a sense of humor kept him from appreciating the fact.
[369] Letters, v., 385.
[370] The recurrence in the Vision of many familiar devices of Don Juan reminds us that the Vision marks Byron’s resumption of the ottava rima, which he had left off on December 27, 1820, at the completion of Don Juan, Canto V., because of the request of the Countess Guiccioli that he discontinue the work. In the meantime he turned his attention to the drama, and Cain, The Two Foscari, and Sardanapalus were published in December, 1821. The Vision then was his only work in the octave stanza between December 27, 1820, and June, 1822, when he began Canto VI. of Don Juan.
[371] Byron had finished his translation of the first canto of the Morgante in February, 1820.
[372] The Vision of Judgment, 25.
[373] Morgante Maggiore, XXVI., 91.
[374] History of English Poetry, v., 250.
[375] The Vision of Judgment, 92.
[376] Letters, vi., 77.
[377] Letters, vi., 160–161.
[378] (this footnote was missing from the original book.)
[379] Letters, v., 338.
[380] Letters, v., 369.
[381] Letters, vi., 336.