This passage, commonplace enough in its style, is significant in that it shows Byron almost for the first time taking a keen and active interest in politics, and posing as an adverse critic of England’s foreign policy. It was easy for the man who could condemn England’s conduct towards Denmark and India to develop into an outspoken radical.
In neglecting and partly disowning The Curse of Minerva, Byron was probably acting with good judgment. It is assuredly unworthy of the author of Childe Harold. Only the opening passage is notable for its genuine poetry, and the satire, except in structure, is inferior to English Bards. It is equally true, however, that it is superior in most respects to Hints from Horace and The Waltz. The Curse of Minerva, with its narrative basis, is a variation from the other early classical satires; but it has the same elaborate machinery of notes, the same method of direct attack—although in this instance it is conveyed through the mouth of a third character—and the same extravagance and bitterness of tone. In managing the heroic couplet, Byron never surpassed his skill in English Bards. After 1811 his acquired ability to handle other measures withdrew his attention from the metre of Pope, with the result that his versification in the ensuing classical satires shows signs of deterioration and weakness. It is to this period of decline that Hints from Horace and The Curse of Minerva belong.
CHAPTER VI
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION
During the seven years between the completion of The Curse of Minerva and the publication of Beppo, Byron’s contributions to satire were, on the whole, sporadic, ephemeral, and unworthy of his genius. He composed in this period only one long formal satire, The Waltz, and that appeared anonymously, to be disowned by its author. The remaining satiric product may be divided into three groups: political epigrams and squibs, like Windsor Poetics, many of them printed in the newspapers, others sent in letters to friends; jocular and fragmentary jeux d’esprit, often, like The Devil’s Drive, semi-political; and ironical and invective verses dealing with his domestic troubles, illustrated by A Sketch. Nearly all are timely impromptus, to few of which he gave careful revision. The period is plainly transitional, for it marks the gradual change in Byron’s satiric method from the formal vituperation of English Bards to the colloquial raillery of Beppo. Little by little he forsakes the heroic couplet for other measures; more and more he diverges in practice from the principles of his masters, Pope and Gifford. As he grows more experienced and more mature, he tends to employ mockery as well as abuse, and in this development is to be seen an approach to the manner and spirit of Don Juan.
The causes for the comparative unproductivity in satire of this period in Byron’s life are by no means difficult to discover. The years which followed his return from abroad saw his dramatic entrance into London society, his association with leaders in politics and literature, his engagement to Miss Milbanke and eventual marriage to her on January 2, 1815, and his separation from her in 1816. Before 1812 he had been a somewhat isolated author; now he was a prominent and much discussed personage, busy with duties and engagements. It is true that even in the midst of these exciting days he did not cease writing; but his interest had been turned to the verse romance, popularized in England by Scott, and his literary work resulted in The Giaour and the narrative poems which followed it in rapid succession. Engaged in so many pleasurable pursuits, the poet had small inclination for sustained effort, and contented himself with pouring forth, with astonishing facility and fluency, these melodramatic Eastern tales. Possibly, too, his circumstances were so fortunate up to 1816 that he did not resort instinctively, as he did later, to satire as a means of voicing his dissatisfaction with men and things. It was not until he had been driven from his native land by the condemnation of his countrymen that his satiric spirit became again a dominant mood.
To comprehend the development of Byron’s political views, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which he formed them. After two previous attacks of insanity, George III became permanently demented in 1810, and the Regency Bill, making Prince George actual ruler of the nation, was passed on February 5, 1810. His well-known vicious propensities and illicit amours had made him unpopular, and when, on February 23, 1812, he first appeared in public as sovereign, he was coldly received. It had been generally supposed that with the power in his hands, he would reward the Whigs who had stood by him so faithfully through his many difficulties, but after vain efforts to organize a coalition ministry, he appointed Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister on June 9, 1812, and the Tories retained complete control over affairs of state. This action, equivalent to treachery, made the Regent a target for Whig abuse, and that party never ceased reviling the ruler who had been disloyal to their cause.
Byron at Cambridge had rather lukewarmly supported Whig doctrines, and when he took his seat in the House of Lords, he selected one of the neutral benches. Undoubtedly the attack upon him by the Whig Edinburgh Review inclined him to look askance on the party of which he was temperamentally a member; and it will be remembered that in English Bards he had assailed Lord Holland and other prominent Whigs. Once in London, however, he allied himself with the opposition, and soon became a regular visitor at Holland House. His three speeches in Parliament were in advocacy of liberal measures, the first, on February 27, 1812, being delivered in resistance to a bill instituting special penalties against the frame-breakers of Nottingham, and the second being a plea for Catholic emancipation. Scott’s suggestion that Byron’s liberalism was due “to the pleasure it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against individuals in office” is not needed to explain the latter’s preference for Whig policies, for the poet would have joined himself inevitably to the more progressive and more radical party. Although his political beliefs at this time were somewhat vague and occasionally inconsistent, he was by nature an individualist and an opponent of conservatism. His espousal of liberal views may, however, have been assisted by his intimacy with Moore, Leigh Hunt, and other radical writers.
In reply to Byron’s attack on him in English Bards, Moore had sent the satirist a letter on January 1, 1810, preparatory to a challenge unless reparation were offered. Fortunately the note did not reach Byron until his landing in England, when the Irishman’s wrath had cooled and he himself was in a repentant mood. A short correspondence led to the meeting of the two, with Campbell and Rogers, at the house of the latter in November, 1811, where the difference was amicably adjusted. On December 11th Byron invited Moore to visit him at Newstead, and though Moore found it impossible to accept, the poets soon became good friends.[152] It was not until the formation of this friendship that Byron began to take any active part in current politics; during the rest of his life, however, he was linked with Moore as a satirist on the Whig side and was, to a considerable extent, influenced by the latter’s work.[153]
As we have seen, Moore had failed in his attempts at formal satire; but in 1812, shortly after his acquaintance with Byron began, he commenced his persistent and stinging gibes at the Regent and his coterie. On February 13, 1812, the Prince sent his notorious letter to the Duke of York, asking for Whig support, and Moore’s admirable verse parody was soon in private circulation. This was one of the earliest, and certainly one of the most delightful, of the many brilliant satires with which Moore, for years, amused the town. In March, 1813, under the pen-name of “Thomas Brown, the Younger,” he published Intercepted Letters; or the Two-penny Postbag, in which he borrowed the structure of the anonymous Groans of the Talents by pretending to have discovered a number of letters from various celebrated personages. Moore’s letters, eight in all, are in rapid anapestic and octosyllabic metres, and are unusually bright and piquant, full of allusions to the scandalous gossip of court life. Although Moore continued his satires in numerous verses of a similar type, he never excelled this first success.
In March, 1812, Byron joined Moore in assailing the Regent. In the Whig Morning Chronicle for March 7th was printed a short epigram without a signature, called A Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady. The lines read as follows:—