The Life of Lord Byron. John Galt

      Criticism of the “Edinburgh Review”

      “The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither God nor man are said to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level than if they were so much stagnant water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface; and the poems are connected with this general statement of his case by particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minority; but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue on that ground for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the point; and we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, ‘See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen! and this by one of only sixteen!’ But, alas, we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and, so far from hearing with any degree of surprise that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences;—that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England, and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron.

      “His other plea of privilege our author brings forward to waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remind us of Dr. Johnson’s saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron’s poems a place in our Review, besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account.

      “With this view we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) these feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted upon the fingers, is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, even in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry, in verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it:

      Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing

       From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu;

       Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting

       New courage, he’ll think upon glory and you.

      Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,

       ’Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret;

       Far distant he goes with the same emulation,

       The fame of his fathers he ne’er can forget.

      That fame and that memory still will he cherish,

       He vows that he ne’er will disgrace your renown;

       Like you will he live, or like you will he perish,

       When decay’d, may he mingle his dust with your own.

      “Now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor’s volume.

      “Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master’s) are odious. Gray’s Ode to Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas on a distant view of the village and school at Harrow.

      Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance

       Of comrades in friendship or mischief allied,

       How welcome to me your ne’er-fading remembrance,

       Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied.

      “In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, On a Tear, might have warned the noble author of these premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following:

      Mild charity’s glow,

       To us mortals below,

       Shows the soul from barbarity clear;

       Compassion will melt

       Where the virtue is felt.

       And its dew is diffused in a tear.

      The man doom’d to sail

       With the blast of the gale,

       Through billows Atlantic to steer,

       As he bends o’er the wave,

       Which may soon be his grave,

       The green sparkles bright with a tear.

      “And so of instances in which former poets had failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his nonage, Adrian’s Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it.

      Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav’ring sprite,

       Friend and associate of this clay,

       To what unknown region borne

       Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?

       No more with wonted humour gay,

       But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

      “However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourities with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school-exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them after they have had their day and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. 79 a translation, where two words (θελο λεyειν) of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81, where μεσονυκτικις ποθ’ οραις is rendered by means of six hobbling verses. As to his Ossian poesy, we are not very good judges; being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron’s rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a Song of Bards is by his Lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it; ‘What form rises on the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; ’tis Oila, the brown chief of Otchona. He was,’ etc. After detaining this ‘brown chief’ some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to ‘raise his fair locks’; then to ‘spread them on the arch of the rainbow’; and to ‘smile through the tears of the storm.’ Of this kind of thing there are no less than nine