Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again.”[72]
The emphatic language which he used elsewhere in admitting his indebtedness and even his inferiority to Gifford is, however, proof of the sincerity of this outburst.
A third convention, established if not originated in English by Pope, is the obligation felt by the satirist to pose as a defender of public morals and to insist upon his ethical purpose. Byron, partly affected by this tradition, partly believing himself to be, like Gifford, a champion of law and order in literature, tries to persuade his public that he is instigated entirely by lofty motives in giving vent to his anger:
“For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell
My country, what her sons should know too well,
Zeal for her honor bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age.”[73]
It will not do, however, to take this assertion too seriously, especially since incitements of a far different sort seem to have occasioned several sections of the poem.
Besides conforming to the conventional practice of his predecessors in these three important respects, Byron linked himself with them by so many other ties that even in matters of minor detail English Bards resembles the classical satires of Pope and Gifford. As a satire it may justly be compared with the Dunciad and the Baviad, and may be judged by the standards which are applied to them.
An analysis of English Bards is rendered difficult by the lack of any coherent plan in the poem, and its consequent failure to follow any logical order in treating its material. The author wanders from his avowed theme to satirise the depravity of the Argyle Institution and to ridicule the antiquarian folly of Aberdeen and Elgin, slipping, moreover, easily from critics to bards and from bards to critics, as a train of observations occurs to him. The same excuse may be pleaded for him that Mathias advanced in his own behalf: that an informing personality lends a kind of unity to the poem. It may be said, too, that the classical satire, not aiming as a rule to be compact and close in structure, is very likely to become a panorama in which figures pass in long review. This impression is conveyed in English Bards by the use of stock phrases which serve to introduce each new character as if he were appearing in a parade of celebrities.[74]