Vision of Judgment
, an apotheosis of George III., published in 1821, gave Byron a second provocation and a second opportunity, by speaking in the preface of his "Satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety." Byron again replied in prose; and Southey (January 5, 1820), in a letter to the
London Courier
, invited him to attack him in rhyme. In Byron's
Vision of Judgment
he found his invitation accepted, and himself pilloried in that tremendous satire. Southey overvalued his own narrative poetry. It is as a man, a prominent figure in literary history, a leader in the romantic revival, a master of prose, and the author of the best short biography in the English language—the
Life of Nelson
(1813)—that he lives at the present day. His name also deserves to be remembered with gratitude by all who have read the nursery classic of "
The Three Bears
." Byron parodies a stanza in Southey's "Queen Orraca and the Five Martyrs of Morocco" (