Bob Southey!
You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at Last—yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;
II "Which pye being open'd they began to sing" (This old song and new simile holds good), "A dainty dish to set before the King," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food; And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood, Explaining Metaphysics to the nation— I wish he would explain his Explanation.
II You,
Bob! are rather insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high,
Bob, And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry,
Bob!
IV And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion" (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system to perplex the sages; 'Tis poetry—at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the dog-star rages— And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel.
V You—Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your own At Keswick, and, through still continu'd fusion Of one another's minds, at last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That Poesy has wreaths for you alone: There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean.
VI I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. You're shabby fellows—true—but poets still, And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.
II Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows— Perhaps some virtuous blushes—let them go— To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs— And for the fame you would engross below, The field is universal, and allows Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: Scott,
Rogers,
Campbell,
Moore and Crabbe, will try 'Gainst you the question with posterity.
II For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy, and the skill you need; And, recollect, a poet nothing loses In giving to his brethren their full meed Of merit, and complaint of present days Is not the certain path to future praise.
IX He that reserves his laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injur'd by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion, The major part of such appellants go To—God knows where—for no one else can know.
X If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, Milton appeal'd to the Avenger,
Time, If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, And makes the word "Miltonic" mean " sublime ," He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs, Nor turn his very talent to a crime; He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, But clos'd the tyrant-hater he begun.
XI Think'st thou, could he—the blind Old Man—arise Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more The blood of monarchs with his prophecies Or be alive again—again all hoar With time and trials, and those helpless eyes, And heartless daughters—worn—and pale—and poor; Would he adore a sultan? he obey The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?
II Cold-blooded, smooth-fac'd, placid miscreant! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore, And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, With just enough of talent, and no more, To lengthen fetters by another fix'd, And offer poison long already mix'd.
II An orator of such set trash of phrase Ineffably—legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile, Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless torments and perpetual motion.
IV A bungler even in its disgusting trade, And botching, patching, leaving still behind Something of which its masters are afraid, States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confin'd, Conspiracy or Congress to be made— Cobbling at manacles for all mankind— A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, With God and Man's abhorrence for its gains.
XV If we may judge of matter by the mind, Emasculated to the marrow It Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit, Eutropius of its many masters, blind To worth as freedom, wisdom as to Wit, Fearless—because no feeling dwells in ice, Its very courage stagnates to a vice.
VI Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, For I will never feel them?—Italy! Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds Beneath the lie this State-thing breath'd o'er thee— Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds, Have voices—tongues to cry aloud for me. Europe has slaves—allies—kings—armies still, And Southey lives to sing them very ill.
II Meantime—Sir Laureate—I proceed to dedicate, In honest simple verse, this song to you, And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue"; My politics as yet are all to educate: Apostasy's so fashionable, too, To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean; Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?
Form: abababcc Composition Date:
Sept. 16,
Difficile est proprie communia dicere
OR.
Epist. ad
I1.
Byron began the poem in July 1818, and the first two cantos were published in July 1819.
It continued to appear in instalments of two or three cantos until March 1824, the month before his death.
The Dedication, although written in 1818, was withheld and did not appear until 1833.
The fragment of Canto the Seventeenth was first printed by E.
H.
Coleridge in 1903.
Byron's letters are full of the most varied comments on Don Juan: in his first reference it is "meant to be a little quietly fa&cetious on everything" ; in another it is "the sublime of that there sort of writing ....
It may be profligate but is it not life, is it not the thing?" To his publisher he calls it "a Satire on abuses of the present states of Society" and improvises a prospectus for its future development: "to how many cantos this may extend,
I know not, nor whether (even if I live) I shall complete it ; but this was my notion:
I meant to have made him a Cavalier Servente in Italy, and a cause for divorce in England, and a Sentimental 'Werther-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gà ;té ;‚ and blasé ; as he grew older, as was natural.
But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in Hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest.
The Spanish tradition says Hell: but it is probably only an Allegory of the other state." st propere communia dicere.
This motto (from Horace's Epist. ad Pisones,
II, iii, 128) is attached to the first edition both of Cantos I and II, and of
II,
IV, and V.
Byron's footnote to his Hints from Horace, 183, discusses differences of opinion as to its meaning, and he himself made two rather different couplets out of it: "'Tis hard to venture where our betters fail Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale" and "Whate'er the critic says or poet sings,\'Tis no slight task to write on common things."Poet-laureate.
In 1813 Southey was appointed Poet Laureate to succeed Pye. i. 5.
Epic Renegade.
Byron often satirized both Southey's epic pretensions (see English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 189-234) and his conservative reaction from the radical views of his youth.
He also believed that Southey had spread personal scandal about him. i. 6.
Lakers.
Southey,
Wordsworth, and (occasionally) Coleridge lived in the Lake District, and Wordsworth often used it as a setting for his poetry.
Hence the loose designation "Lake Poets," which the Edinburgh Review helped to popularize. ii. 4.
Regent.
George
II's madness made necessary the Regency Act of February 1811, by which the Prince of Wales became Regent. ii. 5.taken wing: probably refers to the publication of the Biographia Literaria in 1817, which confirmed Coleridge's reputation for obscurity. iii. 8.quite a-dry,
Bob: refers not merely to the dullness of Southey's work, but also to its sterility, a "dry bob" being current slang for coition without emission. iv. 1.
Excursion: the longest and most pretentious of Wordsworth's published poems (1814). vi. 6.
Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.
The Tory Earl of Lonsdale used his influence to get Wordsworth the sinecure of Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland.
The following year Wordsworth dedicated The Excursion to him. vii. 7.
Scott,
Rogers,
Campbell,
Moore and Crabbe.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), author of The Pleasures of Memory, and Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), author of The Pleasures of Hope and numerous patriotic songs and exotic narratives, no longer retain even the minor poetic reputation of the other three. ix. 6.
Titan: name for the sun-god in Roman mythology. x.
Byron refers to Paradise Lost,
II, 25-26 and probably also to the following appeal for "fit audience though few." x. 7.
Sire ...
Son:
Charles I and II. xi. 2.
Like Samuel: see 1 Samuel 28: 13-14. xi. 8.
Castlereagh.
Robert Stewart,
Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) had a brilliant political career in a series of Tory governments, beginning with Pitt's and ending with Liverpool's.
At one time secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he occupied the War Office and later the Foreign Office (1812-22).
Although Byron respected his courage, he detested his repressive and reactionary policies, particularly as architect of the post-Napoleonic peace, which re-established Austria in northern Italy. xii. 2.
Erin:
Ireland. xiii. 1.orator.
Castlereagh had a reputation for maladroit English. "How odd that you should all be governed by a man who can neither think nor speak English" (Byron to Hobhouse). xiii. 6.
Ixion: figure in Greek myth, bound in hell to a wheel, whose perpetual turning Byron compares to Castlereagh's interminable speeches. xv. 5.
Eutropius.
A eunuch who was minister of the Roman Emperor Arcadius (378-408).
See also "intellectual eunuch" (xi) and "emasculated" (xv). xvii. 4."buff and blue." "Mr.
Fox and the Whig Club of his time adopted an uniform of blue and buff" (Moore's note). xvii. 8.
Julian:
Julian the Apostate,
Roman emperor (361-363), who reverted from Christianity to the worship of the pagan gods.
