The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 7 | Page 8

dark. Such things are for
scoundrels and renegadoes like himself" [_Revise_]. See, too, letter to
Murray, May 6, 1819 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 294); and Southey's letter to
Bedford, July 31, 1819 (_Selections from the Letters, etc._, 1856, in.
137, 138). According to the editor of the _Works of Lord Byron_, 1833
(xv. 101), the existence of the Dedication "became notorious" in
consequence of Hobhouse's article in the _Westminster Review_, 1824.
He adds, for Southey's consolation and encouragement, that "for
several years the verses have been selling in the streets as a broadside,"
and that "it would serve no purpose to exclude them on the present
occasion." But Southey was not appeased. He tells Allan Cunningham
(June 3, 1833) that "the new edition of Byron's works is ... one of the
very worst symptoms of these bad times" (_Life and Correspondence_,
1850, vi. 217).]

{4}[2] [In the "Critique on _Bertram_," which Coleridge contributed to
the _Courier_, in 1816, and republished in the _Biographia Literaria_,
in 1817 (chap, xxiii.), he gives a detailed analysis of "the old Spanish
play, entitled _Atheista Fulminato [vide ante_, the 'Introduction to
_Don Juan_'] ... which under various names (_Don Juan_, the
_Libertine_, etc.) has had its day of favour in every country throughout
Europe ... Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired knowledge, and liberal
accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous health, and
constitutional hardihood,--all these advantages, elevated by the habits
and sympathies of noble birth and national character, are supposed to
have combined in Don Juan, so as to give him the means of carrying
into all its practical consequences the doctrine of a godless nature, as
the sole ground and efficient cause not only of all things, events, and
appearances, but likewise of all our thoughts, sensations, impulses, and
actions. Obedience to nature is the only virtue." It is possible that
Byron traced his own lineaments in this too life-like portraiture, and at
the same time conceived the possibility of a new Don Juan, "made up"
after his own likeness. His extreme resentment at Coleridge's just,
though unwise and uncalled-for, attack on Maturin stands in need of
some explanation. See letter to Murray, September 17, 1817 (_Letters_,
1900, iv. 172).]
[3] ["Have you heard that _Don Juan_ came over with a dedication to
me, in which Lord Castlereagh and I (being hand in glove intimates)
were coupled together for abuse as 'the two Roberts'? A fear of
persecution (_sic_) from the _one_ Robert is supposed to be the reason
why it has been suppressed" (Southey to Rev. H. Hill, August 13, 1819,
_Selections from the Letters, etc._, 1856, iii. 142). For "Quarrel
between Byron and Southey," see Introduction to _The Vision of
Judgment_, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 475-480; and _Letters_, 1901,
vi. 377-399 (Appendix I.).]
[4] [The reference must be to the detailed enumeration of "the powers
requisite for the production of poetry," and the subsequent antithesis of
Imagination and Fancy contained in the Preface to the collected
_Poems of William Wordsworth_, published in 1815. In the Preface to
the _Excursion_ (1814) it is expressly stated that "it is not the author's

intention formally to announce a system."]
{5}[5] Wordsworth's place may be in the Customs--it is, I think, in that
or the Excise--besides another at Lord Lonsdale's table, where this
poetical charlatan and political parasite licks up the crumbs with a
hardened alacrity; the converted Jacobin having long subsided into the
clownish sycophant [_despised retainer_,--_MS. erased_] of the worst
prejudices of the aristocracy.
[Wordsworth obtained his appointment as Distributor of Stamps for the
county of Westmoreland in March, 1813, through Lord Lonsdale's
"patronage" (see his letter, March 6, 1813). _The Excursion_ was
dedicated to Lord Lonsdale in a sonnet dated July 29, 1814--
"Oft through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer,
In youth I roamed ...

Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, Lonsdale, and
this Work present."
]
{6}[6] [_Paradise Lost_, vii. 25, 26.]
{7}[7] "Pale, but not cadaverous:"--Milton's two elder daughters are
said to have robbed him of his books, besides cheating and plaguing
him in the economy of his house, etc., etc. His feelings on such an
outrage, both as a parent and a scholar, must have been singularly
painful. Hayley compares him to Lear. See part third, _Life of Milton_,
by W. Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me).
[_The Life of Milton_, by William Hailey (_sic_), Esq., Basil, 1799, p.
186.]
[8] Or--
"Would _he_ subside into a hackney Laureate--
A scribbling,
self-sold, soul-hired, scorned Iscariot?"
I doubt if "Laureate" and "Iscariot" be good rhymes, but must say, as
Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with--

"I, John Sylvester,
Lay with your sister."
Jonson answered--"I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife." Sylvester
answered,--"That is not rhyme."--"No," said Ben Jonson; "but it is
_true_."
[For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, see _The Age