(4) Byroniana No. 1 (The Courier, February 5, 1814).
The Lord Byron has assumed such a poetico-political and such a politico-poetical air and authority, that in our double capacity of men of letters and politicians, he forces himself upon our recollection. We say recollection for reasons which will bye and by, be obvious to our readers, and will lead them to wonder why this young Lord, whose greatest talent it is to forget, and whose best praise it would be to be forgotten, should be such an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Sam Rogers's Pleasures of Memory.
The most virulent satirists have ever been the most nauseous panegyrists, and they are for the most part as offensive by the praise as by the abuse which they scatter.
His Lordship does not degenerate from the character of those worthy persons, his poetical ancestors:
"The mob of Gentlemen who wrote with ease"
who of all authors dealt the most largely in the alternation of flattery and filth. He is the severest satirical and the civilest dedicator of our day; and what completes his reputation for candour, good feeling, and honesty, is that the persons whom he most reviles, and to whom he most fulsomely dedicates, are identically the same.
We shall indulge our readers with a few instances:—the most obvious case, because the most recent, is that of Mr. Thomas Moore, to whom he has dedicated, as we have already stated, his last pamphlet; but as we wish to proceed orderly, we shall postpone this and revert to some instances prior in order of time; we shall afterwards show that his Lordship strictly adheres to Horace's rule, in maintaining to the end the ill character in which he appeared at the outset. His Lordship's first dedication was to his guardian and relative, the Earl of Carlisle. So late as the year 1808, we find that Lord Byron was that noble Lord's "most affectionate kinsman, etc., etc."
Hear how dutifully and affectionately this ingenuous young man celebrates, in a few months after (1809), the praises of his friend:
"No Muse will cheer with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of Carlisle;
What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer,
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer!
So dull in youth, so drivelling in age,
His scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage.
But Managers, for once, cried 'hold, enough,'
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff.
Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh,
And case his volumes in congenial calf:
Yes! doff that covering where Morocco shines,
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines."
And in explanation of this affectionate effusion, our lordly dedicator subjoins a note to inform us that Lord Carlisle's
works are splendidly bound, but that "the rest is all but leather and prunella," and a little after, in a very laborious note, in which he endeavours to defend his consistency, he out-Herods Herod, or to speak more forcibly, out-Byrons Byron, in the virulence of his invective against "his guardian and relative, to whom he dedicated his volume of puerile poems." Lord Carlisle
has, it seems, if we are to believe his word, for a series of years, beguiled "the public with reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense," and Lord Byron
concludes by asking, "What can ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards."
"So says Pope," adds Lord Byron. But Pope does not say so; the words " knaves and fools," are not in Pope, but interpolated by Lord Byron, in favour of his "guardian and relative." Now, all this might have slept in oblivion with Lord Carlisle's Dramas, and Lord Byron's Poems; but if this young Gentleman chooses to erect himself into a spokesman of the public opinion, it becomes worth while to consider to what notice he is entitled; when he affects a tone of criticism and an air of candour, he obliges us to enquire whether he has any just pretensions to either, and when he arrogates the high functions of public praise and public censure, we may fairly inquire what the praise or censure of such a being is worth:
"Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind."
