[Footnote 66: Lines 689-696 are not in "MS. L. (a)" or "MS. L. (b)".]
[Footnote 67: "MS. L." ("a" and "b") continue at line 758.]
[Footnote 68:
"Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, Gurgite c.u.m medio portans OEagrius Hebrus, Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua; Ah, miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat; Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae."
"Georgic", iv. 523-527.]
[Footnote 69: I beg Nathaniel"s pardon: he is not a cobbler; "it" is a "tailor", but begged Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta--psha!--of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and so far saved the expense of an advertis.e.m.e.nt to his country customers--Merry"s "Moorfields whine" was nothing to all this. The "Delia Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession; but these Arcadians ("Arcades ambo"--b.u.mpkins both) send out their native nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes and small-clothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures, and Paeans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shop-board, they describe the fields of battle, when the only blood they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced by the ninth part of a "poet;"
"And own that "nine" such poets made a Tate."
Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if he did, why not take it as his motto?
["An Essay on War; Honington Green, a Ballad ... an Elegy and other Poems," was published in 1803.]]
[Footnote 70: This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too (who once was wiser) has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of "Remains" utterly dest.i.tute. The girl, if she don"t take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; but the "tragedies" are as ricketty as if they had been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end; and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the least they have done: for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under the statute against "resurrection men."
What does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons" or in Stationers" Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has pa.s.sed through life with a sort of eclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to provide for the child; now, might not some of this "Sutor ultra Crepidaitis" friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription split into so many modic.u.ms!--"To the d.u.c.h.ess of Somuch, the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are," etc. etc.--why, this is doling out the "soft milk of dedication" in gills,--there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child, a book, and a dedication: send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil.
[For Robert Bloomfield, see "English Bards", ll. 774-786, and note 2.
For Joseph Blacket, see "English Bards", ll. 765-770, and note 1.
Blacket"s "Remains", with Life by Pratt, appeared in 1811. The work was dedicated "To Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author," etc.]]
[Footnote 71: Lines 737-758 are not in either of the three original MSS.
of "Hints from Horace", and were probably written in the autumn of 1811.
They appear among a sheet of "alterations to "English Bards, and S.
Reviewers", continued with additions" ("MSS. L."}, drawn up for the fifth edition, and they are inserted on a separate sheet in "MS. M." A second sheet ("MSS. L.") of "sc.r.a.ps of rhyme ... princ.i.p.ally additions and corrections for "English Bards", etc." (for the fifth edition), some of which are dated 1810, does not give the whole pa.s.sage, but includes the following variants (erased) of lines 753-756:--
(i.)
"Then let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink, The dullest fattest weed on Lethe"s brink.
Down with that volume to the depths of h.e.l.l!
Oblivion seems rewarding it too well."
(ii.)
"Yet then thy quarto still may," etc.
A "Druid" (see "English Bards", line 741) was Byron"s name for a scribbler who wrote for his living. In "MS. M.", "scribbler" has been erased, and "Druid" subst.i.tuted. It is doubtful to whom the pa.s.sage, in its final shape, was intended to apply, but it is possible that the erased lines, in which "ponderous quarto" stands for "lost songs," were aimed at Southey (see "ante", line 657, "note" 1).]
[Footnote 72: "MS. L. (a)" recommences at line 758.]
[Footnote 73: Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the sole survivor, the "ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Cruscanti--"Edwin" the "profound" by our Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penultimate.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MORNING CHRONICLE."
"What reams of paper, floods of ink,"
Do some men spoil, who never think!
And so perhaps you"ll say of me, In which your readers may agree.
Still I write on, and tell you why; Nothing"s so bad, you can"t deny, But may instruct or entertain Without the risk of giving pain, etc., etc.
ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS.
In tracing of the human mind Through all its various courses, Though strange, "tis true, we often find It knows not its resources:
And men through life a.s.sume a part For which no talents they possess, Yet wonder that, with all their art, They meet no better with success, etc., etc.]
["A Familiar Epistle, etc.", by T. Vaughan, Esq., was published in the "Morning Chronicle", October 7, 1811. Gifford, in the "Baviad" (l. 350), speaks of "Edwin"s mewlings," and in a note names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr. T. Vaughan." "Love"s Metamorphoses", by T. Vaughan, was played at Drury Lane, April 15, 1776. He also wrote "The Hotel, or Double Valet", November 26, 1776, which Jephson rewrote under the t.i.tle of "The Servant with Two Masters." Compare "Children of Apollo", p. 49:--
"Jephson, who has no humour of his own, Thinks it no crime to borrow from the town; The farce (almost forgot) of "The Hotel"
Or "Double Valet" seems to answer well.
This and his own make "Two Strings to his Bow"."]]
[Footnote 74: See Milton"s "Lycidas".]
[Footnote 75: Minerva being the first by Jupiter"s head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc.]
[Footnote 76:
"A crust for the critics."
"Bayes, in "the Rehearsal"" [act ii. sc. 2].
[Footnote 77: And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!"
[See "English Bards", line 1 and "note" 3.]]
[Footnote 78: Lines 813-816 not in "MS. L. (a)" or "MS. L. (b)".]